Children’s Perceptions of Social Power Differences Between Boys and Girls

• In Event: 2-195 - New Directions in the Study of Children’s Concepts of Leadership

Integrative Statement

Young children perceive differences between men and women. For example, they expect boys to be smarter than girls (Bian et al., 2017), and assume that novel occupations modeled by men are of higher status than those modeled by women (Liben et al., 2001). It is unclear whether children’s perceptions of gender differences reflect beliefs regarding differences in power. Based on previous research showing that children easily identify who is “in charge” across a variety of social situations (Gülgöz & Gelman, 2017), we conducted two studies to examine children’s perceptions of power in gender relations.

In Study 1, children received power information and inferred characters’ gender. 154 3- to 9-year-olds (78 females) heard a series of illustrated vignettes describing situations where one character had more power than another in each of five dimensions: resource control, goal achievement, denying permission, giving orders, and setting norms. After hearing each vignette, participants were asked which of the two characters was a boy or girl. A within-subjects ANOVA yielded a significant effect of dimension, F(4,608) = 7.58, p < .001, ηp² = .05, showing that participants were most likely to think the person in charge was a boy in resource control (M = .62, SD = .36) and denying permission (M=.59, SD= .35), whereas they were least likely to think so in goal achievement (M=.43, SD= .35). In fact, whereas participants were more likely than chance to infer that boys were in charge in resource control (p < .001) and denying permission (p = .001), they were more likely than chance to infer that girls were in charge in goal achievement (p = .018). These differences might reflect differences in traits that tend to be valued for boys and girls (e.g., assertiveness and chivalry for boys).

In Study 2, children received gender information and inferred characters’ power. 151 4- to 8-year-olds (78 females) were introduced to the girl and boy, and asked to predict which one would prevail. Results showed a significant effect of gender, F(1,149) = 29.91, p < .001, ηp² = .17, indicating that boys were more likely than girls to report that boys would be in power. One-sample t-tests conducted separately for each gender showed that whereas boys consistently reported that boys will prevail, girls reported that boys and girls will prevail equally. This result suggests an asymmetry that favors boys: whereas boys assume that members of their own gender have more power, girls do not show the same bias.

Together, these results indicate that children as young as 3 to 4 years of age are sensitive to power differences between boys and girls, at least in certain types of social interactions. However, consistent with previous research suggesting that categories might better organize children’s inferences than do properties (Gelman et al., 1986), our results also reflect differences based on whether they received property information (who has power) and were asked to infer category membership (gender; Study 1), or whether they received category membership information and were asked to infer property (Study 2).

Authors

• Selin Gülgöz, University of Washington
  Presenting Author

• Kristina Olson, University of Washington
  Non-Presenting Author

• Susan Gelman, University of Michigan
  Non-Presenting Author