Young Children's Sensitivity to Speaker Gender When Learning From Others

Abstract

This research explores whether young children are sensitive to speaker gender when learning novel information from others. Four- and 6-year-olds (N = 144) chose between conflicting statements from a male versus a female speaker (Studies 1 and 3) or decided which speaker (male or female) they would ask (Study 2) when learning about the functions of novel objects. Some objects were in gender-typing colors (light pink or navy blue), and some were in a gender-ambiguous color (yellow). The results indicated that children did use speaker gender to guide their learning, by either consistently choosing to agree with the speakers of their own gender or making choices that are associated with gender stereotypes about color. The findings are discussed in relation to how in-group preference and stereotype attributions might influence children's learning from others.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are grateful to the children and parents whose participation made this research possible. We also thank Sara Dimas, Alicia Jones, Cristina Porras, Hibah Qayyum, Oshma Raj, and Natasha Shah for their assistance in data collection and coding, and Rebecca Bigler for her helpful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.

This research was supported by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development grant R01-HD030300 to J. D. Woolley.

Notes

¹Sixteen adults watched the clips (one at a time) and rated the confidence level of each speaker on a scale of “–1” (not confident), “0” (neutral), and “1” (very confident). All raters were blind to the hypotheses of the study. Paired-samples t-tests showed that nine pairs of speakers were rated as equally confident. The female speaker was rated as more confident on one trial, whereas the male speaker was rated as more confident on two trials. Nevertheless, children's performance on these three trials did not vary systematically as a function of the speaker's confidence level.

²As with the stimuli in the “adult testimony” condition, 16 adults rated the confidence level of each child informant. Paired-samples t-tests showed that nine pairs of children were rated as equally confident. The girl was rated as more confident on two trials, whereas the boy was rated as more confident on one trial. These differences did not influence children's performance.

Note. **p < .01, *p < .05, as compared to chance (1).

³As in Study 1, 16 adults rated the stimuli in each condition on the confidence level of each informant. Paired-samples t-tests revealed significant differences in the ratings for four pairs of informants (4/24; 1 in the “ask adult” condition and 3 in the “ask child” condition). Nevertheless, children's responses on these trials did not vary systematically as a function of the informant's confidence level.