Children’s and adolescents’ evaluations of peers who challenge their group: Gender norms and identity

• In Event: Racism and Other Identities on Youth Wellbeing and Learning: Use of Intersectionality

Abstract

Developmental intergroup research has demonstrated that in-group members who challenge peer group norms are less positively evaluated by their in-group members. This study examined whether the gender identity (here, cisgender or transgender) of a peer who challenged a gender group norm played a role in children’s and adolescents’ evaluations of this peer. Children (n = 118, Mage = 10.01) and adolescents (n = 132, Mage = 13.32; total n = 269) were inducted in to simulated groups based on gender and told about a gender group norm related to an activity choice (either to go paintballing or have a sleepover). They were introduced to a peer who challenged this norm (“challenger”), who was in turn either described as transgender or cisgender. Participants were asked to evaluate the challenger from an individual (‘what do you think?’) and perceived group perspective (‘what would your peers think?’). With age, female participants evaluated the challenger peer more positively. In contrast, male participants evaluated the challenger peer less positively. Crucially, these effects were independent of the challenger peer’s gender identity. However, children did expect their peers to evaluate a cisgender challenger more positively than a transgender challenger. Further, male participants expected their peers to reciprocate their less positive evaluation of the challenger.
Taken together these results stress the importance of gender group norms for peer evaluation (especially in male peer groups). Individual evaluation effects were independent of the challenger peer’s gender identity, suggesting that in the context of evaluating a challenger to a stereotypical gender norm, adherence to the norm can take primacy over gender identity. Further these findings extend previous developmental intergroup research by demonstrating that there are contexts in which the individual and the perceived group evaluation can align – especially when the norm of a high-status in-group is challenged.

Authors

• Luke McGuire, University Of Exeter
  Presenting Author

• Sally Barbara Palmer, University Of Exeter
  Non-Presenting Author

• Adam Rutland, University Of Exeter
  Non-Presenting Author