Marianne G. Taylor

Boys Will Be Boys; Cows Will Be Cows: Children’s Essentialist Reasoning About Gender Categories and Animal Species

Two studies (N = 456) compared the development of concepts of animal species and human gender, using a switched-at-birth reasoning task. Younger children (5- and 6-year-olds) treated animal species and human gender as equivalent; they made similar levels of category-based inferences and endorsed similar explanations for development in these 2 domains. In contrast, 10-year-olds and adults treated gender and species concepts as distinct from one another. They viewed gender-linked behavioral properties as open to environmental influence and endorsed environment-based mechanisms to explain gender development. At all ages, children demonstrated differentiated reasoning about physical and behavioral properties, although this differentiation became more stable with age. The role of psychological essentialism in guiding conceptual development is discussed.

Gender influences on children’s selective trust of adult testimony

Do children tend to trust same-sex adults when learning new information? A sample of 325 4- to 7-year-olds completed two tasks. The testimony task pitted previous reliability against the sex of the informant. Children first viewed clips of a man and a woman naming familiar objects (neutral, feminine, or masculine) to establish prior accuracy. They then decided (a) whom to ask for help in naming novel objects, (b) whose label to choose, and (c) who was better at answering questions. Children also completed measures of personal sex typing and stereotyped attitudes toward others. For all testimony measures, children responded based on prior accuracy when only one adult (same sex or other sex) was reliable. They were above chance in favoring the same-sex informant when both adults were equally reliable/unreliable for ask and choice questions. The more sex-typed girls were, the more likely they were to favor the female informants testimony even when she was unreliable or equally reliable. There were no correlations for boys. Object type in the learning context had no effect. Overall, children have a subtle but significant preference to learn new information from a same-sex adult when both adults are equally reliable/unreliable. Findings are discussed in terms of in-group favoritism.