Are boys associated with weapons and girls associated with kitchenware? The extent to which gender stereotypes regarding adults extend to children

Abstract

Adults' views of children based on gender stereotypes can affect their communication with children, which can affect children's development; therefore this study explores the extent to which adults extend gender stereotypes regarding adults to children. This study conducted four experiments using Chinese adult undergraduate student participants. Using adult faces as prime stimuli and images of weapons (guns) and kitchenware (spatulas) as target objects, Experiment 1 found that Chinese adults associate men with weapons and women with kitchenware. Experiment 2 found the same results when participants were primed with the faces of 14-year-old girls and boys. In Experiment 3, we found that participants held gender stereotypes toward 12-year-old girls, associating them with kitchenware objects. However, when using the faces of 10-year-old children as prime stimuli in Experiment 4, we found that participants did not hold the same gender stereotypes toward 10-year-old children. In Experiment 5, we used adult faces and the faces of 10-year-old children as simultaneous prime stimuli and found that weapons were only associated with adult men and kitchenware with adult women. These results indicate that the gender stereotypes hold true in Chinese cultures, and that these stereotypes can extend to children as young as 12 years old.