Poster #189 - Perceptions of Gender Norms and Social Consequences Among Middle School Students

• In Event: 2-110 - Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Section - Sex, Gender

Integrative Statement

During adolescence, peers become a major source of gender socialization. Studies also suggest that youth who do not adhere to gender typical norms experience negative outcomes at school and at home (Blakemore& Mills, 2014; Egan & Perry,2001). Little research has explored the factors that influence emerging adolescents’ perceived social costs of interacting with a peer who is gender atypical. Thus, our goal was to examine the factors that influence middle school students’ reasoning about peers who violate gender and social norms.
In the present study, we asked middle school students (ages 11-14 years old) to complete a survey containing a measure of gender identity, perceived levels of social support, and judgements about several types of gender-related behaviors of a hypothetical peer in order to examine the relationship between peer processes and gender socialization.
Participants were 107 early adolescents (59 boys, 48 girls) enrolled in 5 middle schools from a sample of both rural and suburban areas in the southwestern United States. Participants ranged in age from 11-14 years old (M = 12, SD = 1.05). The ethnic breakdown of our participants is as follows: African American (23.4%), Latino (28%), White (39.3%), Asian American (1.9%), Biracial/Multicultural (9.3%). In addition to completing measures of their gender identity and perceived social support, participants read three vignettes describing a hypothetical social-norm violation. The first vignette told a short story about an attribute- type violation (i.e. boy takes a girl to the nurse). The second about an appearance-based role violation (i.e. girl with short hair). The third vignette, used as a control, told a story about a non-gendered rule violation (i.e. bringing a dog to school). We manipulated the gender of the peer and the type of transgression across conditions.
Results showed that boys had significantly higher levels of gender identification, including perceived pressure, compared to girls in our study (Table 1). We conducted a repeated measures ANOVA to test the primary hypothesis that the type of rule violation presented in the vignette, as well as the gender of the peer in the vignette, would affect how children perceive the costs of the interaction. Results revealed a significant three-way interaction of participant gender, violation type, and peer gender. Boys rated the social costs of affiliating with the rule violating peers fairly low across scenarios and across peer gender, except in the case of a male peer violating an appearance norm (Figure 1). Across boys and girls, and for both male and female hypothetical peers, an appearance violation was seen as the most socially costly, followed by the attribute violation, followed by the social norm violation. Implications for peer interactions and acceptance in middle schools are discussed.

Authors

• stephanie masters, University of Texas at Tyler
  Presenting Author

• Amy Roberson Hayes, The University of Texas, Tyler
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kristin Hixson, University of Texas at Tyler
  Non-Presenting Author