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Category: Project

Description: Despite recent increases in visibility, gender-nonconforming young people continue to be at increased risk for bullying and discrimination. Prior work has established that levels of gender essentialism in children correlate with prejudice against people who do not conform to gender norms, but to date no causal link has been established. This study proposes to investigate this link more directly by testing whether children’s gender essentialism and prejudice against gender nonconformity can be reduced by exposure to anti-essentialist messaging. Children ages 6-10 years of age (estimated N=100) in the experimental condition will view a short video describing similarities between boys and girls and variation within each gender; children in the control condition (estimated N=100) will view a corresponding video describing similarities between two different types of climate and variation within each. Children will then receive measures of gender essentialism and prejudice against gender nonconformity. Analyses will determine whether experimentally manipulating gender essentialist messaging lowers children’s gender essentialism as well as prejudice against gender non-conforming individuals. We will also test whether manipulating children’s gender essentialism extends to another domain, by including assessments of racial essentialism and prejudice. The findings will have implications for how beliefs about gender may contribute to harmful bias.