Gender stereotypes regarding power and niceness in Japanese children

Abstract

Belief in gendered social power imbalance (i.e. males are more powerful than females) leads to undesirable gender disparities, but little is known about the developmental origins of this belief, especially in Eastern cultures. We investigated the development onset of this belief by focusing on 4–7-year-old Japanese children while considering another belief (females are nicer than males) for comparison. In the dyadic context tasks, children saw pairs of animated characters depicting powerful–powerless or kind–unkind postures and judged the characters' gender (boy or girl). Results suggested both ‘nice = female’ and ‘powerful = female’ gender stereotypes in children. In the collective context tasks, children were presented with stories in occupational contexts, including multiple unspecified people and verbal cues, describing more explicitly the powerful and nice traits of the protagonists. The results replicated the ‘nice = female’ gender stereotype. Moreover, early ‘powerful = male’ gender stereotypes were seen in 6-year-old boys but not among girls in general. These findings demonstrate that Japanese children's beliefs regarding gender differences in power vary depending on the context in which male–female interactions are presented. Additionally, the study reveals that signs of the ‘powerful = male’ social power gender stereotype emerge around the age of 6.