Applied Psychology and Human Development, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Arch Sex Behav. 2021 Apr;50(3):807-820. doi: 10.1007/s10508-020-01825-5. Epub 2020 Nov 9.
From a young age, children's peer appraisals are influenced by the social categories to which peers belong based on factors such as race and gender. To date, research regarding the manner in which race- and gender-related factors might interact to influence these appraisals has been limited. The present study employed an experimental vignette paradigm to investigate the relative influences of target peers' race, gender, and gender-typed behavior toward 4- to 6-year-old Chinese children's (N = 119, 62 girls, 57 boys) peer appraisals. Appraisals were assessed via (1) a rating scale measuring children's interest in being friends with a range of hypothetical target peers varying in race, gender, and gender-typed behavior, and (2) a forced-choice rank-order task in which children indicated their preferences for four hypothetical target peers who varied from themselves on either race, gender, or gender-typed behavior, or were similar to themselves on all three traits. There was little evidence to suggest children's rank-ordered peer preferences in relation to race were influenced by whether the other-race presented was White (preferred relatively more) or Black (preferred relatively less). In contrast, gender-related factors (i.e., rater gender, target gender, target gender-typed behavior) had more robust influences on peer preferences for both outcome measures. Gender-conforming peers were preferred over gender-nonconforming peers, and target boys displaying feminine behavior were less preferred than target girls displaying masculine behavior. The results help characterize cross-cultural (in)consistencies in children's social preferences in relation to peers' race and gender.
从很小的时候起，同伴的评价就受到同伴所属社会群体的影响，这些社会群体是基于种族和性别等因素划分的。迄今为止，关于种族和性别相关因素如何相互作用影响这些评价的研究还很有限。本研究采用实验情境范式，调查了目标同伴的种族、性别和性别类型行为对 4 至 6 岁中国儿童（N=119，62 名女孩，57 名男孩）同伴评价的相对影响。评价通过（1）一个量表来衡量儿童对与各种假设的目标同伴交朋友的兴趣，这些目标同伴在种族、性别和性别类型行为方面各不相同，以及（2）一个强制选择的排序任务，在这个任务中，儿童根据种族、性别或性别类型行为与自己不同的四个假设目标同伴的偏好进行排序，或者与自己在所有三个特征上都相似的目标同伴进行排序。几乎没有证据表明，儿童在种族方面的排序同伴偏好会受到呈现的其他种族是白人（相对更喜欢）还是黑人（相对更喜欢）的影响。相比之下，性别相关因素（即评价者性别、目标性别、目标性别类型行为）对两种结果测量的同伴偏好有更强大的影响。符合性别规范的同伴比不符合性别规范的同伴更受欢迎，表现出女性化行为的目标男孩比表现出男性化行为的目标女孩更不受欢迎。研究结果有助于描述与同伴种族和性别相关的儿童社会偏好的跨文化（一致和不一致）特征。
