Poster #185 - Elementary School Children's Implicit Attitudes and Stereotypes about Same-Sex Parent Families

• In Event: 1-061 - Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Section - Sex, Gender

Integrative Statement

Although children in same-sex parent families are increasingly common in the US (Gates, 2015), we know very little about how children perceive their peers who have lesbian mothers or gay fathers. In the only known existing study, elementary school-age children had both less positive and more negative affect toward children with same-sex versus other-sex parents (Farr et al., 2018). Although important, this previous research has not captured the complexity and multidimensionality of children’s intergroup attitudes toward children in same-sex parent families. Intergroup interactions are informed by explicit attitudes and preferences, implicit attitudes, and stereotypes; for children, this also includes perceptions of their parents’ attitudes (see Rutland, Nesdale, & Brown, 2017). To address this multidimensionality, in the current study, we assessed children’s (a) implicit biases, (b) explicit attitudes, (c) perceptions of their parents’ attitudes, and (d) explicit gender-differentiated stereotypes about same-sex couples and their children. Participants were 151 elementary school students (Mage = 7. 95 years; 74 girls; 77% White), who viewed images of female and male same-sex (lesbian and gay) and other-sex (heterosexual) couples with a son or daughter. Children were asked about their own and their parents’ attitudes toward these families. Children also completed the Affect Misattribution Paradigm (AMP; Payne et al., 2005), in which they responded either favorably or unfavorably to quickly presented primes of lesbian couples, gay couples, and straight couples.

Results indicated that children showed both explicit and implicit biases against, and endorsed stereotypes about, children with same-sex parents. First, children were less implicitly positive toward gay and lesbian couples relative to heterosexual couples (Figure 1), F(2, 286) = 9.752, p < .0001, ηp2 = .064. Their explicit attitudes were consistent with this. When asked how much participants liked each particular child, results indicated that children liked kids more when their parents were heterosexual rather than gay, F(2, 272) = 12.998, p < .001, ηp2 = .087. Children also rated wanting to be friends more with kids who had heterosexual versus gay parents, F(2, 274) = 14.809, p < .001, ηp2 = .098. Similarly, children said they liked families significantly more when they had heterosexual versus lesbian or gay parents, F(2, 274) = 8.486, p < .001, ηp2 = .058. Further, children presumed their own parents held similar views, as they reported that their parents would want to be friends with heterosexual more so than gay parents, F(2, 266) = 3.239, p = .041, ηp2 = .024. Finally, children endorsed gender-specific stereotypes such that they believed that kids of gay parents would like fashion significantly more than kids of lesbian or heterosexual parents, F(2, 278) = 8.369, p < .001, ηp2 = .057; and that kids of lesbian parents would like trucks significantly more than kids of gay or heterosexual parents, F(2, 280) = 5.667, p = .004, ηp2 = .039. These biases appeared, despite limited explicit knowledge of what “gay” or “lesbian” means. Taken together, these findings suggest that, despite legal and cultural acceptance of LGBT equality, children hold consistent biases against same-sex families.

Authors

• Ilyssa Salomon, University of Kentucky
  Presenting Author

• Rachel H. Farr, University of Kentucky
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jazmin Brown-Iannuzzi, University of Kentucky
  Non-Presenting Author

• Christia Spears Brown, University of Kentucky
  Non-Presenting Author