Poster #193 - Children Offer Situational Explanations for Gender-Stereotypical Behavior, but Personal Explanations for Other Behavior

• In Event: 1-115 - Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Section - Social Cognition

Integrative Statement

Background: The present study explored children’s causal attributions for gender-stereotypical behavior to either personal or situational factors. Do children believe that gender-stereotypical behavior reflects the gender of the individual (personal attribution), or the “gender” of the toys (situational attribution)? Much research has shown that toddlers are aware of gender-stereotypical toy preferences and preschoolers predict stable gender-stereotypical toy preferences in other children (Taylor, Rhodes, & Gelman, 2009), but less is known about children’s causal reasoning about such behavior. Because children, like adults, generally attribute others’ behavior to personal factors (Lange & Muentener, 2017), we predicted that children would attribute gender-stereotypical behavior to personal factors as well.

Method: We showed preschool-aged children (n = 140) a cartoon video in which two characters’ behaviors varied by pattern (to suggest either a personal or situational cause) and also stereotype alignment (stereotypical or neutral), in a between-subjects design. In the personal pattern condition, behavior varied by person (i.e., Character A plays with two toys but Character B does not); in the situational pattern condition, behavior varied by situation (i.e., both characters play with Toy A but not Toy B). These conditions were crossed with stereotype alignment such that a personal pattern could either be stereotypical (i.e., Sally plays with the doll and bunny but Marcus does not) or neutral (i.e., Sally plays with the doll and bunny but Josie does not); and a situational pattern could either be stereotypical (i.e., two girls play with the doll but not the truck) or neutral (i.e., two girls play with the doll but not the bunny). Children were asked to explain the characters’ behaviors (e.g., “why did Sally play with the doll?”), and explanations were coded as either personal (e.g., “because she likes it,” “because she’s a girl”), situational (e.g., “because it’s fun,” “because it’s a girl toy”), or both. Explanations were also coded for whether they mentioned gender or not.

Results: First, we found that although children gave mostly personal explanations overall, they gave more personal explanations after seeing a personal pattern and more situational explanations after seeing a situational pattern. This finding replicates previous research demonstrating an overall personal attribution bias in children, but also an ability to use statistical patterns to guide causal attributions. Next, in contrast to our prediction, we found that children provided more situational explanations when the behaviors aligned with gender stereotypes compared to when they did not (F(1,116) = 6.771, p = .01). In fact, children’s explanations that referenced gender were more likely to be situational (e.g., “because it’s a girl toy”) than personal (e.g., “because she’s a girl”) (p < .01), and also more likely to be situational than other explanations (p < .001).

Discussion: These results suggest that, although children show an overall personal attribution bias, like adults, they may represent gender as a situational cause. Children may believe that observed patterns of gender-stereotypical play are caused by some quality of the toys, rather than a quality of the individuals.

Authors

• Rebecca Peretz-Lange, Tufts University
  Presenting Author

• Paul Muentener, Tufts University
  Non-Presenting Author