Poster #26 - Who can lead? Children’s leadership judgments are shaped by gender and racial biases.

• In Event: Poster Session 07

Abstract

While the imbalance in gender representation in leadership is a recognized problem, there also is a variation in women’s representation in various positions (e.g., politics, CEOs, school principals). This inconsistent gender gap continuously functions as a barrier for women, leading to vertical segregation of the workforce (Eagly, 2021). Initial evidence suggests that stereotypes and biases about leadership and competence beliefs can develop early in life (Heck et al, 2021), potentially signalling who can and cannot occupy such roles. In the current study, we examined the presence of gender and racial biases in children’s leadership selection as part of a larger project exploring children’s intuitions of minority members’ status.

Children aged 5-7 and 9-11 (N = 234) were recruited from a community-based science centre and were asked to choose a “captain” from a diverse group (4 girls and 4 boys; 2 White and 6 POC characters). First, we examined children’s gender biases in leadership selection. Consistent with previous literature and ingroup preference (Mandalaywala et al., 2020), children showed an overall own-gender bias, choosing an own-gender character as the captain significantly more often than chance (50%) (70% of participants; χ2(1, 234) = 37.76, p < .001). However, this effect was moderated by children’s own gender. Both younger (68%) and older (68%) boys were more likely than chance to pick own-gender characters as captain, and this did not differ by participants’ age (χ2(1, 118) = 1.80, p = .18). In contrast, younger (79%; χ2(1, 68) = 23.53, p < .001), but not older (63%; χ2(1, 48) = 3.00, p = .08) girls were more likely to pick an own-gender group (χ2(1, 116) = 6.86, p < .01), suggesting that older girls’ decisions might be influenced by an emerging association between men and leadership.

Next, we examined children’s racial biases on leadership perception. Overall, children preferentially chose White characters as captains, regardless of participants’ own race (65% of White participants: χ2(1, 85) = 4.80, p = .028; 63% of POC participants: χ2(1, 145) = 10.32, p = .001). Additionally, given the demographic of the city where this research took place, where White and East Asian populations are the majority high-status groups, we also analyzed captain selections by categorizing children’s own race/ethnicity as majority (White and East Asian) versus minority (all other race/ethnicity). Majority group children chose White (35%; χ2(1, 150) = 8.54, p = .003) and East Asian (37%; χ2(1, 150) = 12.17, p < .001) captains significantly more than chance (25%), displaying a preference bias for in-group as well as high-status groups. This also suggests that the perception of majority group as high-status was driven by White and East Asian preferences independently. Minority children also preferentially picked White (38%; χ2(1, 80) = 6.67, p = .01) and majority characters (White and East Asian) (71%; χ2(1, 80) = 14.45, p < .001), showing a bias towards high-status groups.

In sum, children’s gender and racial biases on leadership and status perception reflects a preference for high-status groups (i.e., male and majority-race), beyond simple in-group bias.

Authors

• Jessica Lee, University of British Columbia (UBC)
  Presenting Author

• Cameron Hall, University of British Columbia (UBC)

• Jennifer Steele, York University

• Andrew Scott Baron, University of British Columbia (UBC)