Poster #88 - Children’s selective preference for winners: evidence of own-gender biases

• In Event: Poster Session 10

Abstract

Social hierarchies are inherent in human societies, and gender is one of the most prevalent social hierarchies across ages and cultures. From early on, children, and even infants, are sensitive to the hierarchical asymmetries between two individuals (Thomsen et al., 2011; Mascaro & Csibra, 2012). Moreover, their social preferences and decisions to interact with or approach others are influenced by social status. For instance, toddlers prefer those who win zero-sum conflicts (Thomas et al., 2018). Preschoolers also favour high-status individuals (Enright et al., 2020). Even though gender is a hierarchical concept, previous research on children’s power-based social preferences has mostly overlooked it. Despite this, other studies showed that preschoolers are more likely to associate power and higher status with a male than with a female, and this association is stronger in boys compared to girls (Charafeddine et al., 2020; Mandalaywala & Rhodes, 2020). In the current work, we examined how children’s social preferences for dominant others are influenced by target gender, participant gender, and the gender mix in the interaction (same-gender or mixed-gender interactions).

We investigated 3 to 6-year-olds’ social preferences after watching short videos of two individuals engaged in a zero-sum conflict over a desired resource (a book or a chair). In Experiment 1 (N = 106, Mean age = 5.2 years, 51 girls) children saw two same-gender pairs of adults, two females and two males, matched in age and height. Children displayed an overall preference for winners (Mean dominant choices = 63%; binomial test p < .001; see Figure 1), regardless of participant gender or the gender of the winner. In Experiment 2 (N = 97, Mean age = 5.3 years, 47 girls) participants watched two mixed-gender conflicts: one where the female won, the other where the male won. In this case, children preferred the dominant individual significantly more often (p < .001) when the winner had the same gender as the participant (Mean dominant choices = 80%; see Figure 2) than when the winner was of a different gender (Mean dominant choices = 47%).

First, our findings show that children are sensitive to the relative status of other individuals and use this information to make social decisions. In line with previous research, children choose to interact with winners of conflicts in same-gender interactions. However, Experiment 2 shows that children do not prefer just any individual who wins access to a resource. Specifically, their preferences are influenced by own-gender biases. Boys and girls choose winners when they are the same gender as themselves, but they are equally likely to choose own-gender subordinates and other-gender winners. Thus, preschoolers favour dominant individuals, but only when their own gender is not at a disadvantage. This suggests that children’s dominance evaluations are not independent to those of gender.

Authors

• Cristina Ioana Galusca, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
  Presenting Author

• Anna-Eve Helmlinger

• Olivier Clerc

• Elodie Barat

• Jean-Baptiste Van der Henst

• Olivier Pascalis, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)