Poster #73 - Differences in how Preschool Boys and Girls Associate Warmth and Power with Gender

• In Event: Poster Session 08

Abstract

Hostile sexism (antagonizing women in powerful roles) and benevolent sexism (lauding women in traditional roles) can negatively impact women. Benevolent sexism does not appear as prejudicial as hostile sexism and usually does not prompt individuals to action, so it keeps women in traditional roles and contributes to undermining their success in non-traditional roles, impacting their mental health and sustaining gender inequality (Barreto & Ellemers, 2005; Glick & Fiske, 2001). Although men and women display implicit negative associations between females and positions of high power (Rudman & Kilianski, 2000), girls and women implicitly associate more positive qualities with females than do boys and men who display relatively neutral implicit attitudes toward females (Cvencek et al., 2011; Dunham et al., 2016). Generally positive experiences with a female caregiver might generalize to other females (Rudman & Goodwin, 2004) and when combined with in-group bias, it could contribute to the positive implicit bias females display and neutral implicit bias males display. Such attitudes are evident as early as 4-5 years of age (Cvencek et al., 2011; Dunham et al., 2016) but developmental research examining preschoolers’ associations between gender and warmth/power is lacking. As such, we investigated whether preschoolers’ gender predicted their implicit and explicit associations between women and warmth and men and power.

Fifty-six preschoolers (25 girls) aged 3.82-5.62 years (M = 4.68) provided data. Most participants (95%) had female caregivers. To assess implicit associations, children sorted unlabeled abstract images conveying warmth or power with mommy or daddy faces. We chose abstract images based on adult ratings and sorts from a different sample of preschoolers (Figure 1). To assess explicit attributions, children saw four different female-male adult face pairs and responded to the questions, “Who do you like better?” (Baron & Banaji, 2006), “Who do you think is taller?” (Biernat, 1993), and two additional questions (one related to warmth and one related to power). Warmth questions included: “Who do you think: is loving; is caring; is gentle with others; acts kind?” Power questions included “Who do you think: is powerful; is strong; leads other people; gives commands?” Children chose one of the faces and we coded the number of responses considered gender-typical for men or women. We counterbalanced the questions and sides faces were presented within and across participants.

Results showed that regardless of their gender, preschoolers were at chance levels when explicitly assigning power attributes to men. In contrast, girls explicitly assigned warmth attributes to women more than would be expected by chance, whereas boys were at chance (Table 1). Unlike their explicit associations, both girls and boys implicitly associated men with power images. Furthermore, girls, but not boys, implicitly associated women with warmth images above chance. Findings indicate that girls develop explicit and implicit associations between women and warmth earlier than boys. Moreover, implicit associations of men and power emerge prior to explicit associations. Children’s gender and their familiarity with females seem to predict early development of gender associations.

Authors

• Stephanie Verba-Quinones
  Presenting Author

• Jennifer L Rennels, University of Nevada Las Vegas

• Kirsty M Kulhanek, University of Nevada Las Vegas