A Double-edged Sword: Children's Intergroup Gender Attitudes Have Social Consequences for the Beholder

• In Event: Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Topic - Sex, Gender

Abstract

Many youths experience gender-based exclusion and aggression at school yet little is known about factors associated with these issues, particularly the role of other-gender relationships. Thus, we focus on the quality and consequences of other-gender relationships. Specifically, our first aim regarded rate of change over time: How do preadolescents’ positive and negative attitudes toward other-gender peers change over one year’s time? Our second aim was to examine the consequences of preadolescents’ positive, and negative, other-gender attitudes on the beholder of attitudes rather than the targets of attitudes. Specifically, how positive, and negative, other-gender attitudes, are related to preadolescents’ relationship experiences with other-gender peers, both at the individual level (i.e., stressful peer experiences) and at the group level (i.e., beliefs about being included by peers).
Data were collected in two consecutive years, at Time 1, participants were 206 fourth graders (Mage = 9.10 yr, SD = .664, 44.2% girls) from a Southwestern city in the United States. Overall, participants were from diverse ethnic backgrounds (around 54% of the participants were White, and 17% were Latinx). All measures were self-report.
To examine developmental change in attitudes, we estimated two-wave latent change score models for positive, and negative, attitudes separately. We found an increase over one year in positive other-gender attitudes for boys and a decrease in negative other-gender attitudes for all preadolescents. Girls held higher negative, and lower positive, attitudes toward other-gender peers than did boys. Regarding the second aim, longitudinal panel models controlling for construct stability demonstrated that preadolescents’ positive attitudes predicted less stressful experiences with other-gender peers and higher expectancy for other-gender inclusion, whereas negative attitudes were only predictive of more stressful experiences but did not predict other-gender inclusion expectancies. Further, stressful experiences mediated the relation between other-gender attitudes and inclusion expectancies. However, there were some differences in patterns of consequences regarding positive and negative attitudes. Specifically, preadolescents’ perception of stressful experiences with other-gender peers was one of the mechanisms through which positive other-gender attitudes predicted subsequent inclusion expectancies. In contrast, negative attitudes were predictive of preadolescents’ inclusion expectancies primarily due to their direct impact on preadolescents’ perceptions of stressful experiences with other-gender peers.
It may be that through moral impropriety of negative actions toward others that negative attitudes primarily impact individuals’ intergroup relations through cognitive processes such as perceptions and interpretations of interpersonal interactions. Positive attitudes, however, appear to motivate both cognitions and behaviors, and thus, might be predictive of inclusion expectancies through other mechanisms such as friendships with other-gender peers. These findings highlight the importance of promoting positive intergroup attitudes versus reducing negative attitudes as a method to improve positive intergroup relations. Further, this work shows that biased intergroup attitudes impact not only the targets of these attitudes (as much research has shown) but also has consequences for the beholder of the attitudes. This work has potential to reshape the discussion of intervention strategies to focus on the positive aspects of intergroup attitudes.

Authors

• Sonya Xinyue Xiao, Northern Arizona Univeristy
  Presenting Author

• Carol Lynn Martin, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Dawn DeLay, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Rachel Cook, California State University - San Bernardino
  Non-Presenting Author