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How Preschoolers Associate Power with Gender in Male-Female Interactions: A Cross-Cultural Investigation
Auteur(s)
Charafeddine, Rawan
Zambrana, Imac M.
Triniol, Benoit
Kaufmann, Laurence
Reboul, Anne
Pons, Francisco
Van der Henst, Jean-Baptiste
Date de parution
2020-1-6
In
Sex Roles
No
83
De la page
453
A la page
473
Revu par les pairs
1
Résumé
Interactions between males and females often display a power imbalance. Men tend to adopt more dominant physical postures, lead conversations more, and are more likely to impose their will on women than vice versa. Furthermore, social representations typically associate males with a higher power than females. However, little is known about how those representations emerge in early childhood. The present study investigated whether preschool children from different countries assign more power to males than to females in the context of mixed-gender interactions. In Experiments 1a (n = 148) and 1b (n = 403), which implemented power through body postures, 4–6 year-old children from France, Lebanon, and Norway strongly associated power with a male character. Experiment 2 (n = 160) showed that although both French boys and girls identified themselves more with a dominant than with a subordinate posture, girls were less likely to do so in a mixed-gender context. In Experiment 3 (n = 213), which no longer used body postures, boys from Lebanon and France attributed more decision power and resource control to a male puppet than did girls. By investigating gender representations through interactions, the present study shows that children associate gender and power at an early age.
Identifiants
Type de publication
journal article
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