Many of these patterns got stronger with age, likely due to children’s understanding of the larger societal context of gender. E.g., boys face stricter sanctions for gender non-conformity in appearance, making the stereotypicality of their appearance a very informative cue. 6/6
…. children weighed appearances more when:
(1) reasoning about characters labeled “boys”
(2) making inferences about feminine attributes (e.g., playing with dolls)
(3) they themselves were boys
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Children generally integrated both labels and appearances into their inferences but weighed appearances more when: … 4/6
Children picked who among 4 characters shows a certain masculine or feminine attribute *the most*. Once they did, we removed their choice from the screen and asked again. We obtained a ranking of the 4 characters from most likely to least likely to exhibit the attribute. 3/6
We explored the relative weight that 4- to 12-year-old children assign to two gender-related cues in their inferences about others: gender labels (“girl,” “boy”) and gendered appearances (feminine, masculine). 2/6
In a second, we form expectations about the likely traits and behaviors of people we meet. How does this ability develop? How do others’ perceived gender factor into it?
I’m thrilled to share a new paper now in press at Cognition with @andreicimpian.bsky.social and @lucaspbutler.bsky.social.
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