Children's Appraisals of Gender Variance

Children’s Appraisals of Gender Variance: Understanding the Emergence of Negative Attitudes

Aysha Natisha Nabbijohn

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Psychology University of Toronto

Children’s Appraisals of Gender Variance: Understanding the Emergence of Negative Attitudes

Aysha Natisha Nabbijohn

Master of Arts

Department of Psychology University of Toronto

2018 Abstract

Among children ages 4-to-5- and 8-to-9-years-old (N = 142; 47.2% boys), multiple measures of social preference were employed to gauge appraisals of target boys and girls depicted as gender-typical or gender-variant. Children’s gender-typed behaviour and implicit attitudes as well as parental endorsement of gender stereotypes were also assessed. Social preferences did not precisely align across measures—although some consistent patterns were observed. Among boys, gender-typed preferences increased with age; older boys preferred the gender-typical boy and rated gender-typical peers more favourably. Girls showed a same-sex preference; but older girls also showed interest in being friends with the gender-variant boy.

Older children rated the gender-variant boy as less preferred by others; and all children rated gender-variant children as less happy. Boys and girls expressed preferences for boy-typed and girl-typed activities, respectively. Parental endorsement of femininity was particularly associated with more positive appraisals of feminine peers. Implications for future research are discussed.

Acknowledgments

There are no words to express the level of gratitude that I have for my supervisor, Dr. Douglas VanderLaan, for his unconditional support and profound belief in my work. His patience, kindness, and expertise have been critical to my success at completing such a complex project in only a year. I feel privileged to have a mentor who works so hard to challenge and encourage me, as well as one who goes to such great lengths to ensure that my contributions to the lab do not go unnoticed. As a team, we accomplished so much over the past 3.5 years of working together that has contributed greatly to my growth as a researcher and person. I will be forever grateful for those experiences, as they have given me the confidence to overcome any challenge that I may face in my career.

I also would like to express my deepest appreciation to my committee for taking the time to read my thesis. I am thankful to my subsidiary advisor, Dr. Tina Malti, for her continued guidance, enthusiastic encouragement, and useful critiques throughout the year. I would like to thank Dr. Elizabeth Johnson for joining my thesis committee and for her critical questions and genuine interest in this research project. I believed that this research has greatly benefitted from the time and insightful suggestions that both committee members have offered.

I would like to recognize my colleagues Alanna Santarossa, Karen Kwan, and Ivy Wong for their invaluable contributions to the design of this project. In addition, it is important to recognize the hard work and commitment of the many undergraduate research assistants who assisted with data collection and participant recruitment. In particular, I would like to offer special thank you to Joanna Matthews, Benji Lim, Simran Isani, and Nicole Preddie for the many hours they spent in running participants and carefully entering data. In terms of participant recruitment, I would like to thank Adrienne Kalicharan, Teebah Almuktar, Rachna Sutaria, Alexandra Kljuseva, Boting Gao, Keer Dong, Gianne Fajardo, and Zehra Fatima for all of their help. I would also like to thank Diana Peragine for all of her time and support with programming the stimuli as well as for offering her expertise in using relevant software to record and code the data. Finally, I would like to thank all of the other members of the BIG lab for their continued support and encouragement over the year. This includes a special thanks to Anna van der Miesen and Malvina Skorska for their friendship and belief in my abilities.

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The completion of my dissertation would not have been possible without the contribution of all of the admirable families who participated in this study. Their time and enthusiasm are instrumental to the continued scholarship and success that we have here at the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM). I would also like to thank UTM for providing me the space and resources to complete this research. It is important to acknowledge that this research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

My family and friends have also played an important role in my success through their unwavering support. In particular, I am so lucky have such loving, encouraging parents. My mom and dad have been so willing to help me in any way that they could so that I could focus on my research and their confidence in my abilities continues to inspire me. I also want to recognize my brother, Raymond, for being such an important role model in my life; much of my ambition has come from observing him. I want to thank my sister-in-law, Melissa, for being one of my biggest cheerleaders ever since we first met; her love and encouragement has meant so much to me over the last few years. The unconditional support of my good friends, Rebecca Crawford, Jennifer Dhawan, and Tanisha Shekdar, has also been so important for helping me get through the challenges I encountered over this past year. Lastly, I would like to recognize my grandparents, Judy and Sewnauth Singh, and my late grandmother, Muzipha Nabbijohn, for always being so loving and motivating. I owe much of my success to the values they have instilled in me.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ...... ii

Table of Contents ...... v

List of Tables ...... vii

List of Figures ...... viii

List of Appendices ...... ix

Introduction ...... 1

1.1 Associations between Mental Health and Gender Variance ...... 1

1.2 Factors that Influence Children’s Appraisals of Gender Variance ...... 2

1.3 The Present Study ...... 6

Method ...... 8

2.1 Participants ...... 8

2.2 Procedure and Materials ...... 8

2.3 Measures ...... 10

2.3.1 Child-reported appraisals of gender norm violations ...... 10

2.3.2 Sticker distribution task ...... 11

2.3.3 Rank order task ...... 11

2.3.4 Children’s gender-typed thinking ...... 12

2.3.5 Children’s gender-typed behaviour ...... 12

2.3.6 Parental attitudes towards gender stereotypes ...... 13

2.3.7 Parental attitudes towards their children’s gender-typed behaviour ...... 14

2.3.8 Biographic information ...... 15

2.4 Statistical Analysis ...... 16

Results ...... 18

3.1 Correlational Analyses Among the Focal Measures ...... 18

3.2 Personal Friendship Preferences ...... 18 v

3.3 Perceptions of Other Children’s Friendship Preferences ...... 19

3.4 Perceptions of Peers’ Level of Happiness ...... 20

3.5 Imitation of Target Child Behaviour ...... 20

3.6 Sticker Distribution Task ...... 21

3.7 Rank Order Task ...... 23

3.8 Parent and Child Attitudes and/or Behaviour ...... 24

Discussion ...... 25

4.1 The Roles of Age, Gender, and Gender Expression on Appraisals of Gender Variance...... 26

4.2 Moderating Influences of the Child and Parent on Social Preference ...... 31

4.3 Limitations and Future Directions ...... 33

Conclusion ...... 36

References ...... 37

Tables/Figures ...... 54

Appendix A ...... 71

List of Tables

Table 1. The mode and range for the number of times the vignettes were replayed for each target child based on the domain of gender-typed behaviour in the full sample...... 54

Table 2. Descriptive statistics for demographic variables based on age group and gender...... 55

Table 3. Zero-order correlations between the focal outcome variables and ethnicitya...... 58

Table 4. Zero-order correlations between the focal questions pertaining to the gender-typical target child (below the diagonal) and the gender-variant target child (above the diagonal) for target boys and target girls, respectively...... 59

Table 5. Zero-order correlations with difference scores of personal friendship preferences for each target gender, parent-reported variables, and IAT D-scores for girls (below the diagonal) and boys (above the diagonal), respectively...... 60

Table 6. Multiple linear regression analyses comparing the effect of parents’ and children’s gender-typed attitudes and behaviours on the predicting boys’ (n = 67) personal preference difference scores corresponding to the target boys...... 61

Table 7. Multiple linear regression analyses comparing the effect of parents’ and children’s gender-typed attitudes and behaviours on predicting boys’ (n = 67) personal preference difference scores corresponding to the target girls...... 62

Table 8. Multiple linear regression analyses comparing the effect of parents’ and children’s gender-typed attitudes and behaviours on predicting girls’ (n = 75) personal preference difference scores corresponding to the target boys...... 63

Table 9. Multiple linear regression analyses comparing the effect of parents’ and children’s gender-typed attitudes and behaviours on predicting girls’ (n = 75) personal preference difference scores corresponding to the target girls...... 64

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List of Figures

Figure 1. The mean (±95% confidence interval) ratings of the children’s willingness to be friends with each target child as a function of participant gender and age-group...... 65

Figure 2. The mean (±95% confidence interval) ratings of the children’s perceptions of other children’s desire to be friends with each target child as a function of the participant’s gender and age-group...... 66

Figure 3. The mean (±95% confidence interval) ratings of the perceived happiness of each target child as a function of the participant’s gender and age-group...... 67

Figure 4. The mean (±95% confidence interval) ratings of the children’s desire to imitate the behaviour of each target child as a function of the participant’s gender and age-group...... 68

Figure 5. The mean number of stickers (±95% confidence interval) shared with each target child as a function of the participant’s gender and age-group...... 69

Figure 6. The mean ranks (and standard error bars) for each target child as a function of the participant’s gender and age-group...... 70

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List of Appendices

Appendix A. Sample illustrations corresponding to the vignette of the gender-variant boy target child...... 71

Children’s Appraisals of Gender Variance: Understanding the Emergence of Negative Attitudes

Introduction

Throughout development, boys and girls come to prefer activities that are defined by their culture as appropriate for their birth-assigned gender (Martin & Ruble, 2004; Pomerleau, Bolduc, Malcuit, & Cossette, 1990; Zosuls et al., 2009). From an early age, boys are typically encouraged to be more “masculine” by, for example, wearing the colour blue, engaging in physical play, and playing with more sports equipment, tools, and motor vehicles (Lindsey & Mize, 2001; Pomerleau et al., 1990). In contrast, girls are typically provided more “feminine” items such as pink clothing and are encouraged to play with dolls and fictional characters (Lindsey & Mize, 2001; Pomerleau et al., 1990). Some children, however, tend to exhibit more gender- nonstereotypical interests and/or behaviour, particularly in domains of toy, play activity, playmate, and clothing and hairstyle preferences (Blakemore, 2003; Carter & McCloskey, 1984; Zucker, Wilson-Smith, Kurita, & Stern, 1995). The term gender variance (GV) is commonly used to describe the degree to which one’s gender expression deviates from societal expectations for their birth-assigned gender (Adelson, 2012). A recent Canadian community-based study reported that 8.8% of boys and 16.3% of girls show elevations in GV (van der Miesen, Nabbijohn, Santarossa, & VanderLaan, 2018). Additional community-based studies that have employed more conservative measures of GV such as Item 5 (i.e., “behaves like the opposite sex”) and/or Item 110 (“wishes to be of the opposite sex”) of the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL; for the earlier version, see Achenbach, 1991; for the most recent version, see Achenbach & Rescorla 2001) reported prevalence rates between 2.3-6% in the general population (Coolidge, Thede, & Young, 2004; Van Beijsterveldt, Hudziak, & Boomsma, 2006).

1.1 Associations between Mental Health and Gender Variance

The current literature examining mental health risk among gender-variant children has found elevated emotional and behavioural problems as well as poor psychosocial adjustment later in life (e.g., problems in school, substance abuse, suicide; Aitken, VanderLaan, Stojanovski, Wasserman, & Zucker, 2016; Bos & Sandfort, 2015; Cohen-Kettenis, Owen, Kaijser, Bradley, & Zucker, 2003; Collier, van Beusekom, Bos, & Sandfort, 2013; de Vries, Steensma, Cohen-

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Kettenis, VanderLaan, & Zucker, 2016; Landolt, Bartholomew, Saffrey, Oram, & Perlman, 2004; Russell, Ryan, Toomey, Diaz, & Sanchez, 2011; Petterson, VanderLaan, & Vasey, 2016; Shiffman et al., 2016; Steensma et al., 2014; Toomey, Card, & Casper, 2014). Of these studies, many indicate that negative peer relations (e.g., rejection), particularly among children in middle childhood to early adolescence, are largely responsible for the adverse mental health outcomes associated with GV (e.g., de Vries et al., 2016, Russel et al., 2011; Russell & Fish, 2016). While it is well-known that peer victimization or bullying is associated with poor developmental outcomes in general (e.g., for review, see Van Geel, Vedder, & Tanilon, 2014), it is important to consider how bias or prejudice associated with minority characteristics may exacerbate these negative consequences in gender-variant populations (Meyer, 2003). These effects have been conceptualized as minority stress and are influenced by social stressors (e.g., experiences of prejudice or rejection, internalization of negative societal attitudes) that are often experienced by individuals of highly stigmatized populations, including socioeconomic, racial/ethnic, gender, and sexual minority groups (Meyer, 1995; Meyer, 2003). Efforts to improve psychological well- being through the reduction of prejudice and discrimination are often built upon an understanding of the factors that lead to negative attitudes towards members of minority groups (Oskamp, 2013). Therefore, understanding the factors that contribute to the development of negative appraisals of GV may serve as an important first step toward reducing bias and promoting positive peer relationships among gender-variant youth.

1.2 Factors that Influence Children’s Appraisals of Gender Variance

Research from the stereotyping literature has proposed several mechanisms to explain how children come to endorse stereotypic beliefs as well as acquire an awareness of the stereotypes that others endorse (McKown & Weinstein, 2003). These mechanisms include social learning (e.g., imitating role models such as parents; Allport, 1954; Branch & Newcombe, 1986; McKown & Weinstein, 2003; Williams, Best, & Boswell, 1975), personality factors (e.g., Bastian & Haslam, 2006; Schaller, Boyd, Yohannes, & O’Brien, 1995), and cognitive factors (e.g., Bigler & Liben, 1993; Martin & Halverson, 1981; Serbin, Powlishta, Gulko, Martin, & Lockheed, 1993). From a cognitive-developmental approach, studies have documented an age- related increase in the endorsement of stereotypes beginning at about middle childhood (e.g., Gottlieb & Switzky, 1982; McKown & Weinstein, 2003; Serbin et al., 1993). These changes in thinking and behaviour have been suggested to be due to both the internalization of social-

3 environmental factors (e.g., parental influences) as well as a function of cognitive maturation (e.g., Serbin et al., 1993).

In the context of gender stereotyping, similar patterns have been observed in both the way children express and perceive gender norms across different age groups. Although children recognize gender-typed activities and exhibit gender-typed toy preferences as early as 2-years of age (Poulin-Dubois, Serbin, Eichstedt, Sen, & Beissel, 2002; Ruble, Martin, & Berenbaum, 2006; Zosuls et al., 2009), gender stereotypes become more reliably evidenced between 3-to-9 years of age (e.g., girls have long hair, wear dresses, and play with dolls; boys have short hair, wear a shirt and tie, and play active games; Miller, Lurye, Zosuls, & Ruble, 2009; Ruble et al., 2007). By 5-to-6 years of age, gender constancy emerges (i.e., perceiving gender as fixed and irreversible; Bussey & Bandura, 1999) and gender-typed patterns of behaviour peak in rigidity (Ruble et al., 2007; Trautner et al., 2005). By middle-to-late childhood, children understand gender is invariant despite changes in appearance or behaviour (Bussey & Bandura, 1999). This realization is accompanied by a gradual increase in knowledge about gender norms and more flexibility in thinking about gender (Blakemore, 2003; Carter & Patterson, 1982; Conry-Murray & Turiel, 2012; Trautner et al., 2005).

Among studies that have examined the influence of age-related changes in children’s appraisals of GV, only one study reported no effect of age (Blakemore, 2003) while several others reported mixed findings about age-related changes. To date, three studies that examined gender stereotyping in children using verbal reports found that older children were more likely to express negative evaluations and less tolerance of gender-variant peers (Berndt & Heller, 1986; Carter & McCloskey, 1984; Zucker et al., 1995). Consistent with this finding, other studies observed that children were more likely to be excluded on the basis of gender in older peer- groups than in younger peer-groups (La Freniere, Strayer, & Gauthier, 1984; Theimer, Killen, & Stangor, 2001). In contrast, one study found the opposite pattern whereby younger children reported more negative views about gender norm violations than did children in middle childhood (Stoddart & Turiel, 1985). Younger children have also been found to show stronger preferences for gender-stereotyped activities and are less accepting of gender-variant expression in domains of cross-gender clothing, play activity, and occupational preferences (Garett, Ein, & Tremine, 1977; Halim et al., 2014; Marantz & Mansfield, 1977). In addition, when asked about their opinions about creating rules to enforce gender-typical behaviour, young children were

4 found to display more approval, suggesting less acceptance of gender norm violations (Conry- Murray & Turiel, 2012). As such, the timing in which negative attitudes towards gender-variant peers emerge in childhood remains unclear.

Apart from age, two other important factors have been identified as being of potential importance to children’s appraisals of gender-variant peers: the gender of the child performing the evaluation and the gender of the child exhibiting the gender norm violation. Gender segregation—girls tending to affiliate with other girls and boys tending affiliate with other boys—has been identified as central to children’s peer group interactions and described as a robust developmental phenomenon (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1987; Maccoby, 1990; Martin, Fabes, Hanish, & Hollenstein, 2005). These tendencies give rise to bias in which children perceive opposite-gender peers as members of an out-group, resulting in more negative attitudes toward those of the opposite gender (Matin & Ruble, 2009). Further, while this bias has been found among both boys and girls, it is often more strongly displayed and emerges earlier in girls (La Freniere et al., 1984; Verkuyten & Thijs, 2001; Yee & Brown, 1994).

Research aimed at understanding same-gender peer preferences, however, suggest that children may not necessarily prefer children of the same birth-assigned gender, but rather those who express the same gender-typed interests and behaviours. In fact, research shows that selection based on gender-typed activities partially mediated preferences for same-gender playmates (Alexander & Hines, 1994; Martin et al., 2013). Also, another study indicated that children in middle-childhood were similar to their friends in terms of gender and degree of engagement in gender-typed activities (Braun & Davison, 2017). These findings provide insight into why children tend to respond with rejection and ridicule when they encounter a peer of the same birth-assigned gender violating gender norm expectations (e.g., a girl who shows a masculine play style; Langlois & Downs, 1980; Wallien, Veenstra, Kreukels, & Cohen-Kettenis, 2010). Additionally, boys and girls between the ages of 4-to-13 years old have been found to be more accepting of masculine girls and feminine boys, respectively, relative to same-gender peers who violate gender norms (Alexander & Hines, 1994; Wallien et al., 2010). Similarly, a more recent study found that, while children prefer cisgender over transgender peers in general, they also liked transgender peers of their own gender presentation (Gülgöz, Gomez, DeMeules, & Olson, 2018). In line with this finding, gender-variant children often have significantly more friends of the opposite gender than do gender-typical children (Martin et al., 2012; Wallien et al., 2010).

Several studies have also reported that children generally respond to feminine boys more negatively than they do to masculine girls (Berndt & Heller, 1986; Carter & McCloskey, 1984; Wallien et al., 2010; Zucker et al., 1995); however, possible factors contributing to differential appraisals of gender-variant boys vs. girls has not been thoroughly explored in children.

Examining the role that children’s own attitudes and behaviours have on their evaluations of others may also be important for understanding how negative appraisals of GV are formed in childhood. Research suggests that children’s gender-typed attitudes and behaviours are strongly related. For instance, children’s understanding of gender has been found to guide their own gender-typed behaviour (e.g., gender-stereotyped toy and clothing preferences; Biernat 1991; Martin & Little, 1990), and highly gender-typed behaviour among children is associated with more gender bias and a greater endorsement of gender stereotypes (Lobel & Menashri, 1993; Patterson, 2012; Susskind & Hodges, 2007). For instance, there is evidence to suggest that more rigid gender-typed attitudes and behaviours may influence children’s evaluations of others as shown by a stronger preference for same-gender peers (Biernat 1991; Martin & Little, 1990). Another study examining social appraisals in prepubescent transgender children also found that children viewed themselves in terms of their expressed gender and showed preferences for other children who expressed the same gender identity (Olsen, Key, & Eaton, 2015). It is possible, then, that stronger internalizations of gender norms may motivate children to negatively judge others who express cross-gender behaviour.

Furthermore, if children’s internalization of gender norms may be relevant to appraisals of GV, it could be important to also consider factors that contribute to children’s understanding of gender. It is well known that parents, both directly and indirectly, pass on their beliefs to their children (e.g., Cunningham, 2001; Sinclair, Dunn, & Lowery, 2005; Witt, 1997). In terms of gender-role development, parents who hold traditional attitudes regarding gender tend to reflect those attitudes in their interactions with their child, through role modeling and by reinforcing desired behaviours (Cunningham, 2001; Witt, 1997). This socialization process begins as early as infancy in that parents tend to dress their children in gender-stereotyped ways and encourage gender-differentiated names, toys, and activities (Thorne, 1993). As children age, parents continue to differentially punish and reward gender-typed play for their children (e.g., greater punishments for cross-gender play for boys; Langlois & Downs, 1980). Research suggests that parents who hold more traditional attitudes regarding gender roles tend to have children who are

6 more aware of gender stereotypes (Fagot, Leinbach, & Boyle, 1992). Parental attitudes toward gender stereotypes, however, have yet to be examined in the context of children’s appraisals of GV.

1.3 The Present Study

The goal of the present study was to better understand the factors that contribute to children’s appraisals of GV given that such understanding may, in turn, be valuable for reducing negative appraisals of GV. Past research indicates that gender biases play a significant role in creating social inequities, contributing to elevated mental health problems among gender minority groups (Hendricks & Testa, 2012). There is evidence to suggest that improving peer relations among gender-variant youth may help to ameliorate these mental health concerns (e.g., de Vries et al., 2016; Shiffman et al., 2016). A current limitation to making such improvements, however, includes a lack of understanding regarding the factors underpinning the formation of negative attitudes towards gender-variant individuals.

This study used an experimental vignette paradigm. Boy and girl participants were 4-to-5 and 8- to-9 years of age. The motivation for selecting these age-groups was based on previous research showing a key transition period that is supposed to occur between 6-to-7-years of age whereby children’s gender-typed thinking becomes increasingly flexible (e.g., Berndt & Heller, 1986; Blakemore, 2003; Bussey & Bandura, 1999; Carter & McCloskey, 1984; Conry-Murray & Turiel, 2012; Ruble et al., 2007; Trautner et al., 2005). As such, it was expected that comparing children from developmental periods before and after this transition would provide a powerful design for detecting age-related changes in appraisals of GV.

Participants were shown four hypothetical same-age peers: a boy engaging in gender-typical activities, a boy engaging in gender-variant activities, a girl engaging in gender-typical activities, and a girl engaging in gender-variant activities. Appraisals of the hypothetical peers depicted in the vignettes were assessed using both verbal and behavioural measures of social preference. In addition, child participants completed an Implicit Association Task designed to assess implicit gender-stereotyped attitudes. Parents completed a parent-report measure of their child’s gender- typed behaviour as well as measures of their own attitudes toward gender roles. Thus, whereas previous experimental studies only examined children’s appraisals of GV, the present study also

7 considers the possible moderating roles of children’s gender-typed attitudes and behavior as well as parental gender-related attitudes on children’s appraisals of GV.

The use of multiple measures to evaluate children’s social preferences for the hypothetical peers depicted in the vignettes is an additional strength of the present study. Prior experimental studies examining children’s appraisals of GV have relied solely on children’s verbal reports on rating scales to gauge their recognition and reactions to stimuli depicting gender-variant peers. However, self-reported responses can be limited by communication skills (Freeman, Lewis, & Doherty, 1991; Paulhus, 1991). As such, in addition to verbal response scales similar to those used in previous studies, this study also used two additional measures: (1) a force-choice task, which is a common method used to cope with social-desirability biases (e.g., the desire to be nice to others; Nederhof, 1985) as it requires the child participants to explicitly state their social preferences; and (2) a sharing task, which is a behavioural measure of social preference (Kanngiesser & Warneken, 2012; Zinser, Rich, & Bailey, 1981). The use of multiple interviewing methods may help to circumvent any problems regarding verbal responding as well as clarify the extent to which estimates of children’s social preferences remain stable across different measures.

Using these methods and measures, the present study tested the following hypotheses and predictions: 1. It was hypothesized that the present study would parallel previous research in terms of finding a significant relationship between the children’s age and gender as well as the target’s gender and gender expression on appraisals of GV. With respect to the effect of age, no specific predictions regarding the direction were made given inconsistent findings in the prior literature (e.g., Blakemore, 2003; Carter & McCloskey, 1984; Stoddart & Turiel, 1985; Zucker et al., 1995). In contrast, there are a number of studies suggesting a strong preference for same-gender peers among boys and girls (e.g., La Freniere et al., 1984; Martin et al., 2005; Yee & Brown, 1994). Based on research examining the role of gender expression on social preferences (e.g., Berndt & Heller, 1986; Carter & McCloskey, 1984; Wallien et al., 2010; Zucker et al., 1995), I expected girls to show more positive appraisals of target children who exhibit feminine traits (i.e., the gender-variant boy and the gender- typical girl) relative to the masculine target children (i.e., the gender-variant girl and

gender-typical boy); and, I expected to find the opposite pattern of social preference among boys (i.e., greater preference for masculine target children). In addition, I predicted that stimuli relating to the gender-variant boy would be most negatively appraised by all children. 2. It has been shown in the prior literature that parental attitudes towards gender stereotypes influences the degree to which children endorse gender stereotypes themselves (e.g., parents with more traditional attitudes tend to have children who more strongly endorse gender stereotypes; Fagot et al., 1992). Further, several hypotheses regarding peer-group preferences indicate that children’s knowledge of gender labels are often used to make social judgments (Biernat, 1991); and their own gender-typed interests largely influence who they choose to affiliate with (e.g., Olsen et al., 2015). Therefore, I predicted that more traditional parental attitudes regarding gender roles as well as more gender-typed behaviour and implicit attitudes among children would be associated with more negative appraisals of gender-variant peers relative to gender-typical peers.

Method

2.1 Participants

The present study included children ages 4-to-5 (n = 80; 46.3% boys) and 8-to-9-years old (n = 62; 48.3% boys) from a major Canadian city. A total of 143 participants were initially recruited between the time of October 2017-May 2018; however, one child was excluded from the study because they did not provide verbal assent for their participation. Thus, the final sample included 142 participants. All participants were required to be accompanied by a parent or guardian who was a minimum of 18 years of age; and both the child and caregiver were required to be proficient in English. Of the final sample, 83.9% of child participants were accompanied by their mothers (n = 120) and the remaining 16.1% were accompanied by fathers (n = 22); and 42.3% of child participants lived in the same household (n = 60; i.e., siblings).

2.2 Procedure and Materials

Approval for this study was obtained by the University of Toronto Research Ethics Board. Upon receiving consent from the participating parent and verbal assent from the child, parents were

9 asked to complete an online questionnaire using a touch-screen tablet and the child was accompanied to a testing room by a female experimenter. The experimenter was the same person for all participants.

In the testing room, the child participant was asked to sit in front of a computer monitor and speakers where they were shown four standardized audiovisual vignettes presented in a randomly selected order. Each vignette had a total duration of 75-seconds and consisted of five illustrations (15 seconds per illustration) depicting boys and girls as either gender-typical or gender-variant (i.e., a gender-typical boy, a gender-typical girl, a gender-variant boy, and a gender-variant girl). The first illustration introduced the target child as a same-aged peer. Subsequent illustrations presented the target child engaging in four core domains of gender-typed behavior: toy preferences (i.e., playing with toy vehicles versus playing with Barbie dolls), play activities (i.e., playing tackle football versus playing house with a toy kitchen), clothing and hairstyle preferences (i.e., dressing like dad versus dressing like mom), and the gender of preferred playmates (i.e., playing with boys versus playing with girls). All gender-typed behaviours and interests used in the vignettes have been either used in similar studies and/or suggested to be highly masculine or highly feminine based on previous literature (Blakemore & Centers, 2005; Cherney & Dempsey, 2010; Zucker et al., 1995). In addition, because children’s appraisals of both objects and other people have been shown to be influenced by colour preferences (e.g., Jadva, Hines, & Golombok, 2010; Karniol, 2011; Weisgram, Fulcher & Dinella, 2014; Wong & Hines, 2015) and racial/ethnic biases (e.g., Kowalski, 2003), two important considerations were made when designing the vignettes. First, apart from the highly gender-typed objects depicted in the vignettes, the colours used to create the illustrations were selected to be gender neutral as specified by previous literature (e.g., brown, beige, yellow; Auster & Mansbach, 2012; Kilinç, 2011). Second, the skin tone of the target children in the vignettes were matched to the participant’s complexion to control for racial/ethnic bias. One sample narrative (e.g., gender- variant boy) was as follows (see Appendix A for sample illustrations corresponding to this narrative):

This is a boy named Johnny. Johnny is in the same grade as you. Johnny’s favourite toy is a Barbie doll. Johnny likes to play with his Barbie doll in a dream doll house. Johnny's favourite activity is to play house with his toy kitchen. When it is time to play dress-up, Johnny likes to dress like mom. He puts on mom's old dress, mom's high heels, nail polish, sparkly jewelry and

10 make-up. He also wears a long hair wig and a barrette in his hair. Johnny's best friends who he likes to play with most are Jane and Emily. They like to play board games together.

Following each vignette, the experimenter asked the child a series of questions to elicit a verbal response. The first set of questions were used probe whether the child was attending to each of the four domains of gender-typed preferences depicted in the vignette (e.g., “What were [name of target child]’s favourite toys?”). For every incorrect response provided, the corresponding illustration was replayed up to three times before being recorded as a failed attempt. Participants were to be excluded if they failed more than three attention check questions for a given target child, but no participants needed to be excluded on this basis. Next, the experimenter read various scenarios to the child that prompted them to think about how they feel about the hypothetical peers viewed in the vignettes (e.g., “I want you to think about how you would feel about being friends with [name of target child]?). After each scenario, the experimenter asked the child four focal questions to gauge their appraisals of the target children. In addition, this study used two other measures of social preference not employed in previous studies of children’s appraisals of GV. These measures include behavioural responses on a sticker distribution task (SDT) and social preferences gauged by a rank order task (ROT), respectively. Cameras were mounted on the walls of the testing room to record the child’s verbal responses and behaviours during the interview process. All child self-reported responses were recorded by the experimenter during the interview and cross-referenced with the video recordings to ensure their responses were accurately transcribed.

2.3 Measures

2.3.1 Child-reported appraisals of gender norm violations

The four focal questions used as dependent variables include: (1) “Would you like to be friends with [name of target child]?”; (2) “Do you think other children would want to be friends with [name of target child]?”; (3) “Do you think [name of target child] is happy?”; (4) “Would you like to do what [name of target child] does in the story?”. Participants were able to respond to these questions with the aid of corresponding emoticons (i.e., “frowning face”, “neutral face”, and “smiling face”) to represent the amount of liking the participant may have for the target child. Verbal response options for the four focal questions were assessed using a 3-point scale

11 coded as 1 = “No” (or “frowning face”), 2 = “I don’t know/Maybe” (or “neutral face”) and 3 = “Yes” (or “smiling face”).

2.3.2 Sticker distribution task

For the SDT, children were provided with four 8 x 11 laminated five-panel illustrations of each target child and their corresponding gender-typed behaviours. The goal of the SDT was for children to share 10 gold star stickers between themselves and each of the four children in the vignettes. Children were told that they would be able to keep the stickers that they chose to allocate to themselves and that the stickers they decided to share with the target children would be shared with real children just like the targets. To ensure the child had a clear understanding of this task, four attention check questions were asked to determine whether the child participant remembered each of the target children (i.e., asking “can you point to [name of target child]?” for each of the four target children). Two additional attention check questions were also used to ensure that the child participant understood that they were free to distribute the stickers however they wished (i.e., [1] “Can you tell me how many stickers you had before and how many stickers you have now?”, [2] “Do you want to change the way you distributed the stickers, or do you like it?”). After the child participant indicated that they were satisfied with the way they allocated the stickers, the number of stickers given to each target child on the basis of their gender (i.e., boy or girl) and/or gender presentation (i.e., gender-variant or gender-typical) was recorded as outcome variables for analysis.

2.3.3 Rank order task

For the ROT, the child participant was asked to use the four five-panel illustrations to rank the target children from their most to least favourite. The four five-panel illustrations were presented in a randomly selected order to avoid possible order effects. The experimenter then assisted the child through their thought process by breaking the task up into four questions: (1) “Who is your first favourite?”, (2) “Who is your second favourite?”, (3) “Who is your third favourite?”, and (4) “Who is your least favourite?” For this task, the selected rank order for this task was recorded by the experimenter as the outcome variable and used for analysis.

2.3.4 Children’s gender-typed thinking

Children’s implicit gender biases regarding toys were measured using an implicit association task (IAT). IATs have often been used in previous literature to measure the strength of associations by comparing the latencies between two tasks that differ in instructions regarding how to categorize certain stimuli (D-Score; Greenwald, Nosek, & Banaji, 2003). A computer- based IAT was built with E-prime 3.0 (Psychology Software Tools, Pittsburgh, PA). Child participants were presented with pictures of various toys in the upper, middle screen of a touch- screen tablet. The toys were either boy-typed, girl-typed, or gender-neutral. In the left- and right- bottom corners of the screen, there was a picture of a boy’s face and a girl’s face, which were matched to the age and ethnicity of the participant. As pictures of the different toys appeared on the screen, the child was asked to respond as quickly as possible by selecting either the boy’s face or the girl’s face. In the congruent block, the child was required to pick the gender that corresponded with the toy based on gender stereotypes; and in the incongruent block, they were asked to select the opposite gender. The order in which these two blocks appeared were counterbalanced across participants and were each preceded by a practice phase to ensure the child understood the task. The time it took for the child to match the toy to the “correct” gender in the given block (i.e., reaction time; RT) was measured. A D-score was then calculated by comparing children’s RT in the congruent condition relative to the incongruent condition. As such, a shorter RT in the congruent block relative to the incongruent block indicates that the child was responding based on pre-existing gender schemas or stereotypes regarding the type of toys children are expected to play with based on their gender (e.g., cars for boys, cosmetic jewelry for girls).

2.3.5 Children’s gender-typed behaviour

The GIQC is a 16-item standardized parent-report questionnaire that was used to assess children’s gender-typed behaviour across various domains such as the gender of preferred playmates (e.g., “Your child’s favourite playmates are…”), fantasy role-playing or dress-up play (e.g., “In playing “mother/father,” “house,” or “school” games, your child takes the role of…”), and preferred activities and toys (e.g., “Your child plays with girl-type dolls, such as ‘Barbie’”; Johnson et al. 2004). Parents were required to respond on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (stereotypically opposite to birth-assigned gender) to 5 (stereotypically same birth-assigned gender), with a higher GIQC total score being indicative of more gender-typicality. Although all

16-items were administered to the participants, items 8 and 16 were excluded from all analyses based on a one-factor solution found by Johnson et al. (2004) to account for 43.7% of the variance. Overall, the GIQC is known to be a psychometrically valid measure of gender-typed behaviour and has been found to show negligible age effects (Johnson et al. 2004). In the present sample, the GIQC (M = 3.97, SD = .45) was found to have a high internal reliability for boys (Cronbach’s alpha = .85) and girls (Cronbach’s alpha = .81).

2.3.6 Parental attitudes towards gender stereotypes

Parental attitudes towards gender stereotypes were measured using both the 25-item version of the Attitudes towards Women Scale (ATWS; Spence, Helmrich, & Stapp, 1973) and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ; Spence & Helmrich, 1978). These measures were selected as they capture more strongly traditional attitudes regarding gender. The ATWS measures conservative versus liberal attitudes towards women’s roles and behaviours. In recent years, the longer versions of the ATWS were found to have higher reliability scores in various populations (King, Phillips, Walker, & O’Toole, 2014). Therefore, in comparison to the shortened (15-item) and full (55-item) versions of the ATWS, the intermediate (25-item) version was selected to maximize the reliability of the measure within the current sample while ensuring that parent questionnaire was of a reasonable length. These items concern the rights and roles of women in various areas such as occupations, education, sexual behaviour, courting and marital relationships, and etiquette. Responses on each item were measured on a 4-point Likert scale, ranging from 0 (strongly agree) to 3 (strongly disagree). As such, the range of possible scores are from 0 to 75. A lower score on the ATWS represents more traditional attitudes regarding gender roles whereas a higher score represents more contemporary, pro-feminist attitudes.

The PAQ is a 24-item self-concept scale. As such, the PAQ measures views on personal characteristics that are stereotypically desirable for one sex but not the other (e.g., dominance is stereotypically more desirable in men; need for emotional support is stereotypically more desirable in women; Spence & Helmrich, 1978). This measure consists of three 8-item subscales: (1) masculine traits that are desirable by men and women (e.g., “independent”, “competitive”, “can make decisions easily”, “never gives up easily”, “self-confident”; PAQ-M), (2) feminine traits that are desirable by men and women (e.g., “warm”, “emotional”, “gentle”, “helpful”, “aware of the feelings of others”; PAQ-F), and (3) traits that are desirable by only men or women

(e.g., “aggressive vs. not aggressive”, “submissive vs. dominant”, “never cries vs. cries very easily”; PAQ-MF). Scores on each scale can be obtained by summing the item scores and can range from 0 to 32. For the PAQ-M and PAQ-F subscales, a higher score is indicative of a greater self-endorsement of the respective male- and female-typed traits; and higher scores on the PAQ-MF subscale are indicative of a greater endorsement of masculine relative to feminine traits.

Both the ATWS and the PAQ are widely used in the current literature as they appear appropriate for cross-cultural use and are capable of generating high reliability coefficients among various populations (King et al., 2014). Spence and Helmreich (1978) reported good construct validity and internal consistencies of .91, .85, .82, and .78 for the ATWS, PAQ-M, PAQ-F, and PAQ- MF, respectively. Likewise, another study that compared the psychometric properties of the ATWS and PAQ found both measures to be highly reliable (Yoder, Rice Adams, Priest, & Prince, 1982). For the present study, the ATWS (M = 38.8, SD = 5.1) was found to have a lower internal reliability compared to previous studies (Cronbach’s alpha = .44). In contrast, the PAQ- M (M = 21.2, SD = 4.2), PAQ F (M = 24.6, SD = 4.0), and PAQ-MF (M = 14.5, SD = 3.7) subscales had moderate to high Cronbach’s alphas of .72, .79, and .50, respectively.

2.3.7 Parental attitudes towards their children’s gender-typed behaviour

Parental attitudes regarding gender can play an important role in child-rearing (for a review, see Witt, 1997). To measure parental attitudes regarding their children’s gender-typed behaviour, the present study used responses on the Child Gender Socialization Scale (CGSS; Blakemore & Hill, 2007) and the Child-Rearing Sex-Role Attitude Scale Adapted Version (CRSRAS; Freeman, 2007, adapted from Lee Burge, 1981). Prior to completing both questionnaires, parents were informed that there are no right or wrong answers and that they should provide their personal opinion.

The CGSS is a 28-item parent-report measure that assesses parent evaluations of their child’s participation in various activities on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (very negative) to 7 (very positive). The items on the CGSS were found to load onto five different subscales; however, only three were assessed in the present study. A higher score on the “Toys and Activities Stereotyped for Girls” (8-items) and “Toys and Activities Stereotyped for Boys” (7- items) subscales were used to measure parental endorsement of girl-typed and boy-typed

15 activities for their children, respectively. By summing the item scores, the possible range of total scores are from 0 to 56 for the “Toys and Activities Stereotyped for Girls” subscale and from 0 to 49 for the “Toys and Activities Stereotyped for Boys” subscale. For the “Disapproval of Other-gender Characteristics” (DOGC; 2-items) subscale, a higher score was indicative of less acceptance of gender-variant behaviour; and the possible scores ranged from 0 to 14. In a series of three consecutive studies, the psychometric properties of the CGSS were assessed (Blakemore & Hill, 2007). As such, each of the subscales were found to demonstrate good test-retest reliability (r = .64-.76), good to excellent internal reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = .60-.95), and both good convergent and divergent validity (Blakemore & Hill, 2007). As for the present study, the Cronbach’s alphas for the DOGC (M = 4.17, SD = 2.4), Activities Stereotyped for Girls (M = 46.4, SD = 9.2), and Activities Stereotyped for Boys Subscales (M = 35.9, SD = 7.3) were .65, .91, and .78, respectively.

The CRSRAS (Freeman, 2007) is a 19-item parent-report scale designed to assess parental beliefs about gender stereotypic and counter-stereotypic behaviour in children measured on a 5- point scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The absolute range of possible scores are from 0 to 140. A lower mean score on the CRSRAS indicates more traditional attitudes towards gendered behaviour in children. Previous studies using the CRSRAS or assessing its psychometric properties reveal acceptable levels of reliability (Endendijk et al., 2013) and validity (Lee Burge, 1981) for both mothers and fathers. The Cronbach’s alpha for the CRSRAS total score (M = 82.7, SD = 10.0) was .87 in the present study.

2.3.8 Biographic information

Parents were asked to provide information regarding their child’s birth-assigned gender (coded as males = 1 and females = 2) and age in years and months (coded as 4-to-5 years old = 1 and 8- to-9 years old = 2) as well as other demographic information (i.e., ethnicity, parent(s) educational background, annual household income, area of residence, and predominant religious background) via a parent-report questionnaire. All children in this study were identified as cisgender by their parents.

2.4 Statistical Analysis

All statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS version 24. The number of times each attention check question was repeated was assessed. Chi-square analyses were performed across age-group and birth-assigned gender to identify any group differences in key demographic variables that might be relevant to control for in subsequent analyses if significant differences were observed. For such analyses, some demographic variables were recoded to create more comparable group sizes: ethnicity (i.e., 1 = European origins, 2 = non-European origins, 3 = multiple ethnic backgrounds), annual household income in Canadian dollars (i.e., 1 = less than $80,000, 2 = $80,000 or more), parent marital status (i.e., 1 = married/common law, 2 = other), and predominant religious background (i.e., 1 = religious, 2 = non-religious). Any demographic variables that were found to have significant group differences were recoded as dichotomous variables if necessary and assessed for possible correlations with the focal variables to confirm whether they should be considered as relevant control variables.

Children’s social preferences for the target children in the vignettes were assessed using responses to the personal friendship question, SDT, and ROT. Correlational analyses were used to examine the agreement among these measures of social preference as well as their relationship with other focal questions included in this study (i.e., imitation ratings, happiness ratings, and perceptions of other children’s friendship preferences). Mixed model analyses of variance (ANOVAs) or analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) were employed as needed to analyze the verbal responses to each focal question and the mean number of stickers distributed to each target child. The factorial designs for these ANOVAs were 2 (Participant Gender) x 2 (Age- Group) x 2 (Target Gender) x 2 (Target Gender Presentation), with the first two independent variables as between-subject factors (i.e., boys vs. girls, 4-to-5-year-olds vs. 8-to-9-year-olds) and the latter two as within-subject factors (i.e., target boy vs. target girl, gender-typical vs. gender-variant). Post-hoc within- and between-groups comparisons were then conducted using one-way ANOVAs or paired-samples t-tests as well as independent-samples t-tests, respectively, as suggested by the observed statistically significant omnibus interactions. To limit the rate of Type I error, the Fisher’s Protected Test procedure was used. That is, Fisher’s Least Significant Difference (LSD) tests were used for pairwise comparisons only when statistically significant omnibus effects were detected. For all analyses, a critical alpha value of .05 was used.

Given that the ROT used rank order data, Friedman tests were used to compare the different ranks of the four target children within each of the four participant groups based on their age cohort and gender. When omnibus effects were detected, Wilcoxon signed-ranked tests were used to compare the mean ranks of all four target children in a pairwise manner. Kruskal-Wallis tests were performed to evaluate within-gender age-group effects and within-age-group gender effects on ranks given to each target child. A critical alpha of .05 was used for each test.

Lastly, participants’ gender-typed behaviour (GIQC total score) and implicit gender biases (D- scores), as well as parental attitudes regarding gender stereotypes (ATWS and PAQ subscale scores) and attitudes toward children’s gender-typed behaviour (CGSS and CRSRAS scores) were examined as potential moderators of measures of social appraisal of hypothetical peers based on their gender presentation. This analysis focused on children’s personal friendship ratings for the gender-typical vs. gender-variant target boys and target girls, respectively. Thus, difference scores were calculated by subtracting the personal friendship rating of the gender- variant target from the personal friendship rating of the gender-typical target of the same target gender. As such, a positive difference score was indicative of a stronger preference for the gender-typical target peer. Because it was expected that the participant’s own gender would influence the way in which they evaluated the gender presentation of others, separate analyses were conducted for boy and girl participants. First, zero-order correlations were employed within each gender to examine possible relationships between the difference scores and the parent and child measures of gender-typed thinking and behaviour. Next, stepwise multiple linear regression analyses were conducted. The difference score was the criterion variable. In Step 1, all relevant control variables and age-group (coded as 0 = 4-to-5-year-olds and 1 = 8-to-9-year-olds) were included. In Step 2, measures of the child’s own gender-typed attitudes and behaviour as well as parental endorsement of gender-stereotypes were examined as unique predictors of friendship preference. In Step 3, the possible moderating influence of age-group was assessed by including interactions of the parent and child measures with age-group as predictor variables. Any participants for whom data were missing for any of the control variables included in the regression were deleted pairwise from this analysis. Critical alpha was set at .05.

Results

Inspection of the responses to the attention check questions indicated that all children answered correctly within replaying the illustration a maximum of three times (Table 1). Therefore, based on the prescribed attention check criterion, no participants who were excluded from the analyses.

Table 2 presents the demographic characteristics for the entire sample based on age-group and birth-assigned gender. Chi-square analyses of birth-assigned gender and age-group for each key demographic variable revealed a significant difference for only ethnicity by birth-assigned gender, χ2 (2, N = 142) = 9.08, p = .01, Cramer’s V = .25. Ethnicity was also found to be significantly correlated with child-reported responses on focal questions pertaining to the child’s desire to be friends with and engage in similar activities as the masculine target boy (Table 3) and, therefore, was controlled for in subsequent analyses of relevant outcome variables.

3.1 Correlational Analyses Among the Focal Measures

Table 4 presents the zero-order correlations among the focal measures for all four target children. There were moderate associations between the personal friendship ratings and the other three rating scales, measuring: (1) perceptions of other children’s friendship preferences, (2) the desire to imitate the target child, and (3) perceptions the target child’s happiness. As for the agreement among measures of social preference, the SDT was only negatively associated with children’s personal friendship rating for the feminine target boy. Personal friendship ratings were also negatively associated with the ROT for all target children except the masculine target girl. Moderate associations were found between the SDT and ROT for all target children except the feminine target girl.

3.2 Personal Friendship Preferences

The means and 95% confidence intervals (CI) of the ratings for the children’s willingness to be friends with each target child as a function of the participants’ gender and age-group are presented in Figure 1. A mixed-model ANCOVA with ethnicity as a covariate revealed a significant four-way interaction of Gender x Age-Group x Target Gender x Target Gender 2 Presentation, F(1,137) = 2.64, p = .004, ηp = .059. Further within-group analyses showed that friendship preferences across the four target children did not significantly differ among 4-to-5- 2 year-old boys, F(3,108) = 2.21, p = .091, ηp = .054; but, a significant difference was found

2 among 8-to-9-year-old boys, F(3,87) = 12.0, p < .001, ηp = .29, with a stronger preference for the masculine target boy relative to feminine target boy (p = .03), feminine target girl (p < .001), and masculine target girl (p < .001). Among girls, a significant difference was found across the

2 four target children for both the 4-to-5-year-old, F(3,126) = 7.75, p < .001, ηp = .16, and 8-to-9- 2 year-old cohort, F(3,93) = 4.83, p = .004, ηp = .14. Younger girls demonstrated a stronger preference for both female peers compared to both male peers (all p < .01) whereas older girls only showed a stronger preference for the feminine target girl (p = .001), feminine target boy (p = .01) and masculine target girl (p = .039) relative to the masculine target boy.

With respect to within-gender age-group effects for each target child, results from an independent-samples t-test showed that the main effect of age-group did not significantly differ for both boys and girls for any target child (all p > .05). However, significant within age-group gender effects were found showing that 8-to-9-year-old girls more strongly endorsed being friends with the feminine target boy, t(60) = -2.46, p = .018, Cohen’s d = .62, and the feminine target girl, t(60) = -3.22, p = .002, Cohen’s d = .82, relative to the 8-to-9-year-old boys. In addition, when compared to same-aged girls, boys more strongly preferred the masculine target boy as a friend in both the 4-to-5, t(78) = 2.053, p = .04, Cohen’s d = .46, and 8-to-9-year-old cohorts, t(60) = 3.93, p < .001, Cohen’s d = .98.

3.3 Perceptions of Other Children’s Friendship Preferences

Figure 2 presents means and 95% CI for children’s ratings of other children’s desire to be friends with the target children as a function of the participants’ gender and age-group. Results from a mixed-model ANOVA revealed a four-way interaction of Gender x Age-Group x Target Gender 2 x Target Gender Presentation, F(1,138) = 8.33, p = .005, ηp = .057. A one-way repeated measures ANOVA indicated a within-group effect among 4-to-5-year-old boys, F(3,108) = 2.96, 2 p = .036, ηp = .076. Subsequent pairwise comparisons indicated a significant perceived preference for the masculine target boy (p = .044), feminine target boy (p = .01), and feminine target girl (p = .044) over the masculine target girl. No significant differences across the four 2 target children were found among 4-to-5-year-old girls, F(3,126) = 1.57, p = .20, ηp = .036. In the 8-to-9-year-old cohort, a significant difference was found for both boys, F(3,87) = 12.30, p <

2 2 .001, ηp = .30, and girls, F(3,93) = 9.54, p < .001, ηp = .24. For 8-to-9-year-old boys, the masculine target boy was rated as more preferred by other children relative to the feminine target

20 boy (p < .001), the feminine target girl (p = .03), and the masculine target girl (p = .018); and, both the feminine target girl (p = .002) and masculine target girl (p = .002) were rated more favourably than the feminine target boy. For 8-to-9-year-old girls, the feminine target boy was also rated as the less preferred by other children relative to the masculine target boy (p < .001), the feminine target girl (p < .001), and the masculine target girl (p = .003).

Within-gender age-group comparisons revealed that 8-to-9-year-old boys rated the feminine target boy as less preferred by other children relative to 4-to-5-year-old boys, t(65) = 4.29, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 1.01. Likewise, when compared to 4-to-5-year-old girls, 8-to-9-year-old girls rated the feminine target boy as less preferred by other children, t(73) = 3.66, p = .001, Cohen’s d = .85. With respect to within-gender age-group effects, 4-to-5-year-old boys and girls did not significantly differ in ratings of target children (both p > .05); but, 8-to-9-year-old boys rated the masculine target boy more favorably than same-aged girls, t(60) = 2.36, p = .02, Cohen’s d = .59.

3.4 Perceptions of Peers’ Level of Happiness

The mixed-model ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of Target Gender Presentation, 2 F(1,138) = 6.27, p = .013, ηp = .043, on children’s ratings of the target children’s happiness (Figure 3). This finding suggested that the gender-typical target peers (i.e., the masculine target boy and feminine target girl) were judged as being happier than gender-variant target peers (i.e., the feminine target boy and masculine target girl).

3.5 Imitation of Target Child Behaviour

The mean ratings and 95% CI for rating of the participants’ desire to participate in the same activities as the target children are presented in Figure 4. A significant four-way interaction of Gender x Age-Group x Target Gender x Target Gender Presentation was found for children’s 2 interest in imitating the target activities, F(1,137) = 3.82, p = .039, ηp = .031, while controlling for ethnicity as a covariate. Within-group comparisons using a one-way repeated measures ANOVA indicated that children’s interest in participating in the activities depicted in the vignettes significantly differed across the four target children for the 4-to-5-year-old boys, 2 2 F(3,108) = 5.67, p = .004, ηp = .14, 4-to-5-year-old girls, F(3,126) = 8.14, p < .001, ηp = .16, 8- 2 to-9-year-old boys, F(3,87) = 32.08, p < .001, ηp = .53, and 8-to-9-year-old old girls, F(3,93) = 5.65, p = .012. Post-hoc comparisons revealed that boys had stronger preference for imitating the

21 masculine peers relative to the feminine peers in both the 4-to-5-year-old (all p < .05) and 8-to-9- year-old cohort (all p < .001). In contrast, girls showed a stronger preference for imitating feminine peers in both the 4-to-5-year-old (all p < .01) and for 8-to-9-year-old cohorts (all p < .05).

Using independent-samples t-tests, within-gender age-group comparisons demonstrated that only 4-to-5 and 8-to-9-year-old boys were found to differ in their interest in imitating the feminine target boy, t(65) = 3.12, p = .003, Cohen’s d = .76, and feminine target girl, t(65) = 4.75, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 1.16, with younger boys being more willing to engage in feminine activities. There was no significant difference in gender-typed activity preferences for girls based on age- group (all p > .05). In terms of within-age-group gender effects, boys showed a stronger preference than girls for imitating the masculine target boy in both the 4-to-5, t(76.9) = 2.74, p = .008, Cohen’s d = .60, and 8-to-9-year-old cohort, t(57.8) = 2.94, p = .005, Cohen’s d = .74. In addition, 4-to-5-year-old boys were more interested than same-aged girls in imitating the masculine target girl, t(75.2) = 2.82, p = .006, Cohen’s d = .63; and, 4-to-5-year-old girls had a stronger preference than same-aged boys for imitating the feminine target girl, t(66.3) = -2.23, p = .029, Cohen’s d = .50, and feminine target boy, t(65.3) = -2.65, p = .01, Cohen’s d = .59. Likewise, 8-to-9-year-old girls also showed a stronger preference than same-aged boys for imitating the feminine target girl, t(60) = -6.24, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 1.59, and feminine target boy, t(59.6) = -5.29, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 1.34.

3.6 Sticker Distribution Task

Figure 5 presents the means and corresponding 95% CI of the number of stickers distributed to each target child as a function of the participants’ gender and age-group. The results from a mix- model ANOVA revealed three significant interaction effects: a two-way interaction of Gender x 2 Target Gender, F(1,138) = 6.81, p = .01, ηp = .047, a three-way interaction of Gender x Age-

2 Group x Target Gender Presentation , F(1,138) = 5.09, p = .026, ηp = .036, and a three-way interaction of Age-Group x Target Gender x Target Gender Presentation, F(1,138) = 8.23, p = 2 .005, ηp = .056.

With respect to the two-way interaction of Gender x Target Gender, an effect of gender was found for the distribution of stickers to male peers, t(139.7) = 2.67, p = .008, Cohen’s d = .46, showing that boys shared more stickers with the male target children. Within-gender

22 comparisons of the number of stickers given to the male and female target children showed that girls shared a significantly greater number of stickers with the female target children relative to male target children, t(74) = -2.81, p = .006, Cohen’s d = .28. There was no significant difference between the number of stickers shared with the male and female target children among boys, t(66) = .961, p = .34, Cohen’s d = .12.

For the three-way interaction of Gender x Age-Group x Target Gender Presentation, within- group comparisons using paired-samples t-tests showed that 8-to-9-year-old boys shared significantly more stickers with gender-typical target peers relative to gender-variant target peers, t(29) = 5.62, p < .001, d = 1.94. In contrast, 4-to-5-year-old girls shared a significantly greater number of stickers with the gender-variant target peers relative to the gender-typical target peers, t(41) = -3.15, p = .003, Cohen’s d = .55. With regards to within-age-group gender effects, results from independent samples t-tests revealed a significant difference between 8-to-9- year-old boys and girls in the distribution of stickers to gender-typical target peers, t(59.3) = 8.93, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 2.26, suggesting that boys gave a greater number of stickers than girls to the gender-typical target children. In the 4-to-5-year-old cohort, boys were found to share a significantly greater number of stickers than girls to both the gender-typed, t(71.3) = 5.5, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 1.24, and gender-variant target peers, t(69.8) = 2.91, p = .005, Cohen’s d = .66. Within-gender age-group comparisons revealed that 8-to-9-year-old boys gave a greater number of stickers than 4-to-5-year-old boys to the gender-typical target peers, t(65) = -5.35, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 1.30. Compared to 4-to-5-year-old girls, 8-to-9-year-olds gave a greater amount of stickers to both the gender-typed, t(70.5) = -3.13, p = .003, Cohen’s d = .72, and gender-variant target peers, t(71) = -2.64, p = .01, Cohen’s d = .62.

For the three-way interaction of Age-Group x Target Gender x Target Gender Presentation, within-age-group comparisons of the number of stickers given to each target child revealed no 2 significant difference within the 4-to-5-year-old cohort, F(3,237) = 1.79, p = .15, ηp = .02. However, there was a significant difference in the distribution of stickers across the target 2 children within the 8-to-9-year-old cohort, F(3,183) = 3.62, p = .014, ηp = .14. Further post-hoc analyses showed that 8-to-9-year-old children gave a significantly greater number of stickers to the masculine target boy (p = .009) and masculine target girl (.033) relative to the feminine target boy. Comparisons across age-group for each target child revealed that 8-to-9-year-old children

23 gave a significantly greater number of stickers to each target child relative to 4-to-5-year-old children (all p < .001).

3.7 Rank Order Task

Figure 6 presents the mean ranks for each target child as a function of the participants’ gender and age-group. Nonparametric Friedman tests revealed significant differences in the ranking of the four target children for all four groups: 4-to-5-year-old boys, χ2(3) = 7.93, p = .047, 4-to-5- year-old girls, χ2(3) = 58.98, p < .001, 8-to-9-year-old boys, χ2(3) = 53.72, p < .001, and 8-to-9- year-old girls, χ2(3) = 35.37, p < .001. With respect to 4-to-5-year-old boys, Wilcoxon Signed- ranks tests indicated that the feminine target girl target child was less preferred relative to both the masculine target boy, Z = -2.42, p = .015, and feminine target boy, Z = -2.36, p = .018. There was no significant difference in preferences between male target peers, Z = -.36, p = .72. In contrast, 8-to-9-year-old boys ranked the gender-typical target boy significantly higher than all other target peers (all p < .001). The gender-variant girl was ranked significantly higher than the gender-variant boy, Z = -2.79, p = .005, and the gender-typical girl, Z = -4.13, p < .001; and the gender-variant boy was ranked significantly higher than the gender-typical girl, Z = -2.55, p = .011. For 4-to-5-year-old girls, Wilcoxon Signed-rank tests showed that they rated the feminine target girl significantly higher than all other target children (all p < .05). The masculine target girl was rated significantly higher than both male target peers (both p < .001), and the masculine target boy was ranked as the least preferred target peer (all p < .05). For 8-to-9-year-old girls, there was no significant difference between the female target peers, Z = -1.90, p = .057, and between the male target peers, Z = -1.80, p = .071; however, both female target peers were rated significantly higher than both male target peers (all p < .01).

In terms of within-gender age-group effects, older boys rated the masculine target boy more favourably than younger boys, U = 275.5, p < .001, whereas younger boys gave more favourable ratings to the feminine target boy, U = 339.5, p = .004, and feminine target girl, U = 360, p = .008, relative to the older boys. With respect to girls, there were no significant effects of age- group on their ratings of the four target children (all p > .05).

With respect to within-age-group gender effects, in the 4-to-5-year-old cohort, a Mann-Whitney test indicated that boys more strongly preferred the masculine target boy, U = 330, p < .001, and feminine target boy, U = 451, p = .001, whereas girls more strongly preferred the feminine target

24 girl, U = 223.5, p < .001. In the 8-to-9-year-old cohort, boys strongly preferred the masculine target boy, U = 55, p < .001, and girls more significantly preferred the feminine target girl, U = 71.5, p = .001; however, there were no significant differences between boys and girls regarding preferences for the gender-variant peers (all p > .05).

3.8 Parent and Child Attitudes and/or Behaviour

For girls and boys, respectively, Table 5 presents zero-order correlations between the difference scores pertaining to children’s personal friendship preferences for the male and female targets, respectively, and measures of children’s gender-typed behaviours (i.e., GIQC) and implicit biases (i.e., D-score) as well as parental attitudes about gender (i.e., ATWS, PAQ-M, PAQ-F, PAQ-MF, CRSRAS, CGSS). At the zero-order level, significant positive associations were found for the GIQC total score, r = .31, p = .006, CRSRAS total score, r = .26, p = .026, and Activities Stereotyped for Girls subscale, r = .27, p = .02, among girls for predicting personal friendship difference scores for the feminine minus masculine target girls. Among boys, there was a significant negative association between the PAQ-F and personal friendship difference scores for the masculine minus feminine target boys, r = -.32, p = .008.

Next, hierarchical linear regression analyses predicting personal friendship difference scores were performed separately for boy and girl participants, and for the target boys and girls, respectively. For each analysis, age group (and when appropriate, ethnicity) was controlled on Step 1; the GIQC, implicit bias D-scores, and parental attitudes about gender variables were entered on Step 2; and interactions between age-group and the variables included in Step 2 were entered on Step 3. For boys, parental self-endorsement of feminine attributes on the PAQ-F was associated negatively with difference scores for the masculine minus feminine target boy (Table 6); and parental endorsement of more contemporary female gender-roles on the ATWS was positively associated with difference scores for the feminine minus masculine target girl (Table 7). In Step 3, significant interactions of age-group were found for the PAQ-F and DOGC subscales in terms of predicting difference scores for the feminine minus masculine target girl. The PAQ-F was positively associated with these difference scores among 4-to-5-year-old boys, Pearson’s r = .40, p = .013, whereas there was no such significant association among 8-to-9- year-old boys, Pearson’s r = -.23, p = .23. For the DOGC, the zero-order correlations were nonsignificant; however, it is possible that the interaction of DOGC x Age-Group was driven a

25 trend in the positive direction among 4-to-5-year-old boys, r = .21, p = .21, and a marginally significant association in the negative direction among 8-to-9-year-old boys, r = -.35, p = .055, suggesting that parental disapproval of GV may impact younger and older boys differently in terms of how they appraise GV among female peers.

For girls, a significant interaction of PAQ-F x Age-Group subscale was found in Step 3 of the regression predicting difference scores pertaining to personal friendship ratings of masculine minus feminine target boys (Table 8). Inspection of the zero-order correlations showed that parental self-endorsement of feminine characteristics on the PAQ-F was associated negatively with these difference scores among 4-to-5-year-old girls, r = -.36, p = .028; however, among 8- to-9-year-old girls, there was a marginal positive association between these variables, r = .30, p = .081. With regards to difference scores pertaining to the personal friendship ratings of feminine minus masculine target girls (Table 9), the Activities Stereotyped for Girls subscale and CRSRAS were significant predictors. Parental encouragement of girl-typed activities at home and parental endorsement of less traditional attitudes towards gendered behaviour in children were associated positively with the difference scores for feminine minus masculine target girls.

Discussion

Developmental research on children’s appraisals of GV has focused predominantly on the influences of age, gender, and gender expression on children’s evaluations of gender-variant peers (Alexander & Hines, 1994; Berndt & Heller, 1986; Carter & McCloskey, 1984; Gülgöz et al., 2018; La Freniere et al., 1984; Langlois & Downs, 1980; Maccoby & Jacklin, 1987; Maccoby, 1990; Martin et al., 2005; Stoddart & Turiel, 1985; Verkuyten & Thijs, 2001; Wallien et al., 2010; Yee & Brown, 1994; Zucker et al., 1995). Within this literature, studies have relied solely on children’s verbal reports on rating scales, which may be subject to response biases. Thus, it is not clear whether children’s social preference patterns in this domain would remain consistent across different types of measures. In addition, there is some evidence to suggest that children’s own gender-typed behaviour and attitudes as well as parental endorsement of gender- stereotypes influence children’s gender-related schemas (Biernat, 1991; Fagot et al., 1992; Lobel & Menashri, 1993; Martin & Little, 1990; Patterson, 2012; Susskind & Hodges, 2007); however, no study has yet examined the relative contributions of such child and parent factors in the context of children’s appraisals of gender-variant peers.

To address these research gaps, the goals of the present study were twofold. First, in a sample of children ages 4-to-5 and 8-to-9-years old, this study employed multiple measures to examine age- and gender-related patterns in children’s appraisals of hypothetical target peers who varied in their gender and gender expression. Second, it considered the possible moderating roles of children’s gender-typed attitudes and behavior as well as parental attitudes on children’s appraisals of GV.

4.1 The Roles of Age, Gender, and Gender Expression on Appraisals of Gender Variance.

With regards to the first aim of this study, children’s personal friendship ratings were examined as a focal measure of social preference to parallel previous studies in this field (e.g., Zucker et al., 1995). The findings suggested that children’s desire to be friends with each target child did not differ by age-group for both boys and girls; however, older boys showed a specific preference for the masculine target boy whereas younger boys showed no preference across the four hypothetical peers. For girls, the results showed a strong preference for same-gender peers in both age-groups. There was no support for boys showing a stronger preference for the gender- variant girl; however, in agreement with a previous sociometric study (Wallien et al., 2010), older girls did show an interest in being friends with the gender-variant boy.

Although the within- and between-group patterns of social preferences for the personal friendship ratings did not align precisely with those revealed by the sticker sharing and rank order measures, these latter measures did show patterns that were consistent with the personal friendship ratings in important respects. Children’s behavioural responses on the sharing task showed gender-segregated patterns such that boys shared more stickers with male peers and girls shared more stickers with female peers. Similarly, higher rankings were given to same-gender peers on the forced-choice ROT. There was also some evidence on these behavioural and rank- order measures to suggest that targets’ gender-typed behavior influenced social preferences in relation to participant gender and age. Older boys tended to share stickers less with gender- variant peers and more with gender-typical peers relative to both younger boys and same-aged girls, respectively. On the ROT, older boys and younger girls showed differential preferences for same-gender peers on the ROT as function of the targets’ gender expression (i.e., older boys ranked the masculine target boy higher than the feminine target boy and ranked the masculine target girl higher than the feminine target girl; younger girls ranked the feminine target girl

27 higher than the masculine target girl and the feminine target boy higher than the masculine target boy). These findings suggest that while boys may be more discriminant about their peers’ gender and/or gender expression with age, girls show the opposite pattern in that they become increasingly flexible in their social preferences. Also, age-related patterns of social preference for the gender-typical vs. gender-variant target peers were consistent across the three focal measures for children’s ratings of same-gender peers (i.e., boys consistently showed a decrease in acceptance towards the gender-variant target boy relative to the gender-typical target boy with age; girls show no change in acceptance towards either target girl with age); however, there were inconsistencies in children’s appraisals of GV among opposite-gender peers. Collectively, these findings suggest that the method of assessment is important in different contexts and should, therefore, be considered in order to improve the methodological rigor of future studies.

The more general patterns of social preference observed in this study are in line with the phenomenon of childhood gender-segregated peer preferences (Gülgöz et al., 2018; Hayden- Thomson, Rubin, & Hymel, 1987; Maccoby & Jacklin, 1987; Maccoby, 1990; Martin et al., 2005). Also, these findings are consistent with other studies showing that peer preferences can be moderated by information about a peer's gender-typed behavior (Alexander & Hines, 1994; Gülgöz et al., 2018; Martin et al., 2013; Zucker et al., 1995). Furthermore, these findings are consistent with studies demonstrating that girls show stronger preferences for same-gender peers as well as an earlier onset of gender rigidity than boys (Halim et al., 2014; La Freniere et al., 1984; Verkuyten & Thijs, 2001; Yee & Brown, 1994).

With regards to age-related effects on personal friendship preferences, the results of this study replicated several studies showing that older children are more discriminating based on peers’ gender and gender presentation, and that they may be more inclined to consider gender-typed preferences when deciding who they would prefer as friends (Berndt & Heller, 1986; Carter & McCloskey, 1984; La Freniere et al., 1984; Zucker et al., 1995). It is important, however, to note that these patterns resulted in more negative appraisals of gender-variant target peers, particularly among older boys with regards to the gender-variant target boy.

The present findings are not consistent with previous studies that have found no effect of age (Blakemore, 2003) or the opposite pattern (i.e., more negative views about GV among younger children; Stoddart & Turiel, 1985). Perhaps this discrepancy within the literature regarding the

28 relationship between age and appraisals of GV could stem from methodological differences. For example, Stoddart and Turiel (1985) evaluated children’s appraisals of GV as a function of how wrong they perceived gender-variant behaviour. As such, opinions regarding the degree to which one’s behaviour is wrong may not be directly related to whether a child would choose to affiliate with that individual. Future studies should attempt to replicate these findings using similar measures as well as assess the agreement among measures of wrongness and social preference. Moreover, given that the way boys and girls appraised the gender-variant peers differed in the present study, it may be important to examine more carefully age-related changes in appraisals of GV for boys and girls separately.

Additional rating scale questions were used to provide a more nuanced view of children’s schemas regarding gender-typical and gender-variant peers. These questions assessed children’s perceptions of how children think others evaluate GV, the emotional state of peers who exhibit GV, and their own desire to model the gender-typed behaviour of peers. In the present study, the personal friendship preference ratings were associated with children’s beliefs about other children’s friendship preferences; but, there were different patterns of responses across the two measures. Younger boys did not indicate any differences across the target children in terms of how much they thought others would be the target’s friend. Older boys, however, rated the masculine target boy as most preferred by other children. Among girls, a similar pattern was observed in that there were no differences among younger girls, but older girls rated the female peers as being preferred by others. Furthermore, while the present findings regarding personal friendship preferences did not confirm that the feminine target boy was most negatively appraised by the children themselves (Alexander & Hines, 1994; Berndt & Heller, 1986; Carter & McCloskey, 1984; Wallien et al., 2010; Zucker et al., 1995), the feminine target boy was rated by both older boys and older girls as the least preferred by other children. These findings confirm that children seem to think that other children are more critical of gender-variant individuals (Mulvey & Killen, 2015; Olson & Enright, 2018) and often view gender-variant boys to be lower in status (Wallien et al., 2010). Also, the present study found effects that were more pronounced among older children supporting the notion that negative appraisals of GV begin to manifest more strongly in middle-childhood (Berndt & Heller, 1986; Carter & McCloskey, 1984; Zucker et al., 1995). The extent to which children’s personal friendship preferences could be influenced by social-desirability remains unclear; however, the latter finding was consistent with studies

29 that show children are more likely to criticize cross-gender behavior in boys compared to girls (Fagot, 1977; Fagot, 1985; Langlois & Downs, 1980). A possible explanation for this finding could be related to cultural standards whereby children are socialized by parents and teachers to believe that cross-gender behaviour in girls is more acceptable than in boys (Langlois & Downs, 1980; Sandnabba & Ahlberg, 1999).

As for ratings of happiness, the present study also found that children rated the gender-variant peers as being less happy relative to gender-typical peers. To date, only one other study has asked children to rate the happiness of target peers based on their level of GV. This study yielded similar results showing children perceived a given target child as less happy as the number of gender-nonstereotypical behaviours increased (Zucker et al., 1995). Furthermore, the present study also found that ratings of happiness were generally correlated with both personal and other children’s friendship preferences for all target children except the feminine target girl. Considering these associations, it is possible that appraisals of the target children’s emotional state could stem from an awareness that gender-variant children often have a lower social position within peer groups (Wallien et al., 2010).

To better understand this hypothesis, it is important to note that children in middle-childhood tend to associate popularity with many positive rewards such as being seen as attractive, socially competent, intelligent, and prosocial (LaFontana & Cillessen, 2002). Also, positive social relationships are known to promote happiness in children (Holder & Coleman, 2007). For boys and girls, popularity is often attained differently. In middle childhood, boys are expected by their peers to act in ways that are seen as “masculine” (e.g., toughness, athleticism) whereas girls often attain popularity through their physical appearance (Adler, Kless, & Adler, 1992; Moller, Hymel, & Rubin, 1992). Previous studies suggest that these gender-role expectations are not only more strongly endorsed by male peers (Moller et al., 1992); but, as shown in both child (e.g., Smetana, 1986) and adult (e.g., Coyle, Fulcher, & Trübutschek, 2016) samples, gender-role transgressions are often viewed most negatively in boys. While gender-variant girls are often found to have more positive peer relations compared to gender-variant boys, most of these relationships are with opposite-gender peers (Wallien et al., 2010), and they are often considered neither likeable nor dislikeable by others (Coyle et al., 2016). Given this literature, it would not be surprising if children were aware of how GV could influence popularity, such perceptions

30 may be related to their own affiliative preferences and appraisals of the target’s child’s emotional well-being.

Lastly, with regards to the imitation ratings, the present findings suggested gender-typed imitative preferences such that boys were most interested in imitating masculine peers whereas the girls were most interested in imitating feminine peers. A positive association between the imitation rating and personal friendship rating supports the notion that same-gender preferences may often be attributed to behavioral compatibility with other children who share similar gender- typed interests (Braun & Davidson, 2017; Martin el al., 2013). Not only were the effects for gender-typed preferences more robust when comparing boys and girl in the older cohort, but also, younger boys were more willing to imitate the feminine peers relative to older boys which is consistent with previous studies (Cherney & London, 2006; Hartup, Moore, & Ager, 1963; Vieira & Miller, 1978). To explain these trends, researchers have argued that boys tend to become increasingly rigid in their gender expression and highly avoidant of femininity with age (Halim et al., 2014). In addition, boys are found to be less variable in their gender-typed play behaviour across situations (Green, Bigler, & Catherwood, 2004). Several possible explanations have been offered for this “avoidance of femininity” hypothesis. For both genders, research shows that engaging in feminine activities predicted less peer-reported acceptance and greater victimization while engaging in masculine activities or affiliating with male peers predicted greater peer acceptance (Kreiger & Kochenderfer-Ladd, 2012). It is possible, then, that boys begin to avoid femininity once they have recognized that power differentials in social status favour males over females (Rudman & Glick, 2012). In relation to previous sociometric studies on peer group status (e.g., Wallien et al., 2010), it was also proposed that boys might avoid feminine objects and behaviours in order to avoid ridicule and rejection by peers (Smetana, 1986) and attain greater success in cross-sex relationships (Adler et al., 1992). Furthermore, Halim et al. (2014) highlighted research that suggests the avoidance other-gender behaviour takes longer to learn (e.g., Chiu et al., 2006; Reynold, 2001). As such, it is possible that boys begin avoiding femininity in one domain (e.g., feminine clothing), and that avoidance later extends to other domains of behaviour as they learn to censor their behaviours (Adler et al., 1992; Halim et al., 2014). The latter hypothesis aligns with the current finding of an early emergence of gender-typed imitation preferences in 4-to-5-year-old boys, which were then more pronounced among the older cohort.

Despite the findings suggesting greater preferences for certain peers based on their gender and/or their gender presentation, it is important to highlight the mean ratings for each target child were neutral or higher. Therefore, it would not be accurate to characterize the current sample as showing dislike towards any of the target children. One possibility is that children avoided giving ratings indicating dislike due to socially desirable responding. Alternatively, it is possible that these ratings genuinely reflect general acceptance of others, including those who exhibit GV (Gülgöz et al., 2018). In hopes that the latter hypothesis is true, future studies should continue to assess changes in children’s appraisals of GV as well as aim to develop empirically driven strategies for reducing gender bias in children.

4.2 Moderating Influences of the Child and Parent on Social Preference

The second aim of this study was to examine whether children’s own gender-typed behaviour and implicit attitudes as well as parent attitudes moderate their social preferences. The results suggested that parental attitudes, particularly those regarding expressions of femininity, influence children’s appraisals of gender-variant relative to gender-typical peers. For boys, increased parental self-endorsement of feminine characteristics that are seen as desirable for both genders was associated with more favourable evaluations towards the feminine target boy and the feminine target girl. In terms of their appraisals of GV among target girls specifically, the valuing of feminine characteristics was only associated with younger boys’ preferences towards the feminine target girl. Similarly, parental disapproval of other-gender characteristics in their children might be related to boys’ preferences regarding the target girls; but, since the associations within age-groups were not significant, the direction of this relationship remains unclear. Interestingly, endorsement of a more contemporary, pro-feminist female gender-role was also associated with a bias towards the feminine target girl relative to the masculine target girl. Although the opposite finding might be expected, it is possible that preferences for the feminine target girl may not necessarily be due to a preference for gender-typical patterns of behaviour, but rather from a greater appreciation for femininity.

In line with research suggesting that parental attitudes tend to differentially impact boys and girls (e.g., Endendijk et al., 2017), this study showed different relationships between girls’ social preference ratings and the parent variables. In particular, this study found that parents’ self- endorsement of feminine characteristics was associated with a bias in favour of the feminine

32 target boy; however, this relationship was also only found among younger girls. In contrast to boys, parents’ self-endorsement of feminine characteristics was not associated with girls’ preferences regarding target girls. Instead, parents’ endorsement of more stereotypically “girl- typed” activities for their children at home (e.g., playing with dolls, helping with chores) was associated with a greater bias towards the feminine target girl. Surprisingly, this study also showed that parental endorsement of less traditional attitudes regarding gender was also associated with a stronger preference for the feminine target girl. This finding was contradictory to the expectation that parents who hold more traditional attitudes regarding gender roles may have children who have more strongly internalized gender stereotypes (Fagot et al., 1992), thus leading to stronger preferences for gender-typical peers. It is important to recognize that this finding could be Type I error; however, it is also possible that more liberal parental attitudes may not necessarily be important to children’s appraisals of gender-variant peers, but rather promote greater acceptance of feminine gender expression.

The findings regarding associations between parents’ valuing of feminine characteristics and more positive appraisals of feminine peers seems to be common among both boys and girls, particularly in the younger cohort. It is possible that parents’ encouragement of femininity might play an important role influencing children’s acceptance of feminine peers through challenging societal views that masculinity is superior to femininity. Research has shown that the devaluation of feminine activities begins to emerge as early as middle childhood for both genders such that children prefer engaging with gender-typical boys and gender-variant girls (Braun & Davidson, 2017; Kreiger & Kochenderfer-Ladd, 2012). In these studies, preferences for masculine peers were often motivated by engagement in masculine activities (Braun & Davidson, 2017) as well as affiliations with other male peers (Kreiger & Kochenderfer-Ladd, 2012). As such, engaging in feminine activities not only predicted less peer-reported acceptance but also greater victimization (Kreiger & Kochenderfer-Ladd, 2012). Consistent with these findings, discouragement of masculine-oriented behaviors was in fact disadvantageous for development in girls (Colaner & Rittenour, 2015). Taken together, this body of research in combination with the present findings indicate the importance of encouraging both feminine and masculine characteristics as valued parts of children’s daily activities and interactions.

4.3 Limitations and Future Directions

Although these results inform our understanding of the factors that promote negative appraisals of gender-variant peers, the present study has limitations. Compared to previous sociometric studies that have based their results on reports from real-life peers (e.g., Wallien et al., 2010), this study employed an experimental paradigm. The benefits of an experimental design include the ability to control for a host of possible extraneous variables that might impact appraisals of target peers (e.g., peer personality, preferences for both masculine and feminine gender presentation within the same individual); however, these controlled conditions may limit the ecological validity of this study. Relatedly, the current sample was recruited from a large city in Canada and consists of mostly educated, middle-to-upper class families. Thus, the conclusions drawn from this study might not generalize to the larger population.

Another limitation is that this study failed to replicate certain effects that have been found in previous studies. For example, this study did not find support for the influence of children’s own gender-typed attitudes and behaviours on their preference for the gender-typical peers relative to the gender-variant peers (e.g., Biernat 1991; Martin & Little, 1990; Olson et al., 2015). An important methodological distinction of this study is that it used difference scores to provide a measure of relative preference for one target peer over the other based on their gender presentation. However, given the sample size of this study, it is also possible that it may have lacked sufficient statistical power to detect these effects. Further, only parent-report data of children’s gender-typed behaviour was collected in this study; and the IAT employed only focused on implicit gender biases relating to toys. It remains unclear to what extent the parents’ ratings reflect their children’s actual gender-typed behaviors instead of the parents’ own gender stereotypes. Moreover, implicit biases across other domains of gender-typed behaviour (e.g., clothing and hairstyle preferences) may differentially impact attitudes towards GV. Future studies should consider using behavioural or child-interview measures (e.g., Martin, Andrews, England, Zosuls, & Ruble, 2017) to confirm children’s gender-typed behaviour and overcome possible issues regarding parent-report as well as explore the role of implicit attitudes beyond gender stereotypes relating to toy preferences.

Several aspects of the present study could be modified in future research to advance this literature. First, the current study employed parental measures that are several decades old and,

34 therefore, includes items that perhaps reflect overly traditional and outdated views regarding gender roles. In particular, the ATWS was found to have a low Cronbach’s alpha of .44 in the present sample; and the scores were non-normally distributed with significant skewness of .93 (SE = .20), suggesting a bias towards more liberal attitudes regarding the female gender-role in this sample. Possible ceiling or floor effects as well as lowered internal reliabilities may limit the variability and accuracy of the data collected and, in turn, limit the statistical power of the relevant analyses. Future studies should attempt to replicate these findings using updated measures that reflect the more current traditional-to-nontraditional spectrum of attitudes regarding gender roles. Second, when asking about children’s perceptions of other children’s willingness to be friends with the targets, it may be valuable to measure judgements based on gender (i.e., “Do you think other [girls/boys] would like to be friends with [name of target child]”). In addition, it is important to consider that boys and girls may be evaluated differently depending on the domains in which they endorse or violate gender-stereotypical behaviour (Adler et al., 1992; Blakemore, 2003). For example, one study demonstrated that children tend to be less critical of gender-nonstereotypical toy preferences in both genders; meanwhile, boys who violate hairstyle and clothing norms are more negatively evaluated than girls who do so, and girls who show masculine play styles are more negatively evaluated than boys who have feminine play styles (Blakemore, 2003). Thus, future research should extend the present research by examining how GV across different behavioural domains, in combination with the other child and parent factors included in this study, effect appraisals of target peers.

With regards to examining the moderating effect of external factors on children’s appraisals of GV, there are several other variables that may be valuable to include in future research. The present study includes measures of parents’ explicit gender biases (i.e., responses on questionnaires); however, it is important to consider that parents also hold implicit biases regarding gender. One study showed differential patterns of endorsement for such stereotypes between mothers and fathers in that mothers had stronger implicit gender stereotypes than fathers, whereas fathers had stronger explicit stereotypes than mothers (Endendijk et al., 2013). Also, there is evidence to suggest mothers and fathers differ in their parenting practices toward boys and girls (e.g., gender talk, physical control; Endendijk et al., 2014; Endendijk, Groeneveld, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & Mesman, 2016; Endendijk et al., 2017). Taking these studies into consideration, future research should attempt to replicate this current study using both mothers’

35 and fathers’ responses on measures of explicit and implicit gender stereotypes to determine whether they have different effects on children’s appraisals of gender-variant peers. In addition, peers also function as important agents of socialization with regards to gender preferences (Kreiger & Kochenderfer-Ladd, 2012; Witt, 2000); and therefore, it would be equally important explore the influence of peers’ gender biases and stereotypes on children’s appraisals of GV at varying ages. In addition, while there is a large literature showing the role of socialization processes in the development of individuals’ gender-related behaviours, researchers have argued that these theories do not fully explain variations within each gender (Berenbaum, Blakemore, & Beltz, 2011). Other studies have, therefore, examined the influence biological factors (e.g., hormones) may have on gender-typed play and playmate preferences (e.g., Berenbaum & Snyder, 1995; Iervolino, Hines, Golombok, Rust, & Plomin, 2005). It would be interesting for future research to consider the role of biological-related factors associated with gender-typed behaviour in relation to children’s appraisals of gender-variant peers.

Importantly, these data highlight several factors that should be considered in the design of possible interventions for reducing gender bias in children. In particular, these findings suggest that empirically-driven strategies are needed to reduce negative appraisals of GV among older children – particularly older boys. In addition, different approaches for reducing gender bias in boys and girls may be necessary given gender differences in patterns of behaviour and peer preferences. Perhaps efforts to challenge stereotypical information about gender-variant children’s interests and abilities could also improve children’s perceptions in other domains (e.g., the happiness of gender-variant children; Bigler & Liben, 1990; Bigler & Liben, 1993). Lastly, this study suggests that encouraging parents to emphasize the value of feminine characteristics and more liberal gender roles may influence children to think more positively of feminine peers. It is important to consider, however, that the effectiveness of parents' explicit attempts to promote more positive attitudes towards peers may be undermined by general socialization from the larger society (Quintana, 1998). For instance, Maccoby (1990) found that children's attitudes toward opposite-sexed peers remained unchanged despite interventions by parents and teachers promoting less gender segregation. Therefore, it may be important for future studies to also consider the role of societal influences (e.g., media, children books) on children’s appraisals of GV.

Conclusion

The present study reinforces the notion that the gender and age of a child influences the way they perceive their peers of varying gender expression. In terms of age, these findings help to resolve the lack of clarity around the issue of mixed age effects within the current literature. In addition, this study was the first to employ several measures of social preference including rating scales, a behavioural measure, and a forced-choice task. While the findings across these various measures were somewhat consistent in showing same-gender and gender-typed peer preferences, there were many differences in the specific patterns observed within different subsets of children. As such, this study highlights that the method of assessment is important to consider when making conclusions regarding social preference.

Further, this study used other measures relating to ratings of others’ desire to be friends with the target child, the target child’s happiness, and their own desire to imitate the target child to provide a more nuanced view of children’s schema regarding gender-variant peers. Lastly, this study considered a range of parent and child variables regarding gender-typed behaviours and/or attitudes as potential moderators of children’s personal friendship preferences. Parental variables regarding femininity and traditional gender roles were found to be important moderators of their preference for feminine target peers relative to the respective masculine target peer of the same gender. It is important to highlight that some of these effects were found to vary across children’s development for boys and girls. In combination, this information is valuable going forward for informing future research as well as for thinking about strategies for reducing children’s bias toward gender-variant expressions. This information could ultimately be valuable for creating more inclusive environments and, in turn, improve the psychological well-being of gender-variant children.

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Table 1. The mode and range for the number of times the vignettes were replayed for each target child based on the domain of gender-typed behaviour in the full sample. Target Masculine boy Feminine boy Feminine Girl Masculine girl Child Clothing Toys Activity Toys Activity Playmate Activity Clothing Playmate Toys Activity Clothing Playmate Toys Clothing Playmate Domain

Mode 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Maximum 1 2 3 3 1 2 1 3 2 1 3 3 1 2 1 2

Table 2. Descriptive statistics for demographic variables based on age group and gender. 4-to-5-year-old 8-to-9-year-old

Variables Boys Girls Total Boys Girls Total

Age (in years) n 37 43 80 30 32 62

M (SD) 5.1 (.57) 5.2 (.44) 5.2 (.50) 9.2 (.49) 9.2 (.50) 9.2 (.49)

Annual income, n (%)a

< $23,999 0 (0) 1 (2.4) 1 (1.3) 1 (3.4) 0 (0) 1 (1.8)

$24,000 – 3 (8.3) 1 (2.4) 4 (5.2) 2 (6.9) 0 (0) 2 (3.6) 49,999

$50,000 – 6 (16.7) 9 (22.0) 15 (19.5) 3 (10.3) 2 (7.4) 5 (8.9) $79,999

$80,000 – 9 (25.0) 8 (19.5) 17 (22.1) 10 (34.5) 15 (55.6) 25 (44.6) $124,999

> $125,000 18 (50.0) 22 (53.7) 40 (51.9) 13 (44.8) 10 (37.0) 23 (41.1)

Parent 1’sb Education, n (%)

No high school 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) diploma

High school 1 (2.8) 2 (5.0) 3 (3.9) 0 (0) 4 (13.3) 4 (7.0) diploma

College or Trade 5 (13.9) 8 (20.0) 13 (17.1) 4 (14.8) 5 (16.7) 9 (15.8)

University, 18 (50.0) 17 (42.5) 35 (46.1) 15 (55.6) 14 (46.7) 29 (50.9) Bachelors

University, 9 (25.0) 10 (25.0) 19 (25.0) 5 (18.5) 5 (16.7) 10 (17.5) Masters

Doctorate or 3 (8.3) 3 (7.5) 6 (7.9) 3 (11.1) 2 (6.7) 5 (8.8) Professional degree

Parent 2’s Education, n (%)

No high school 3 (8.1) 1 (2.7) 4 (6.5) 1 (4.0) 2 (6.7) 3 (5.5) diploma

High school 5 (13.9) 3 (8.1) 8 (11) 2 (8.0) 3 (10.0) 5 (9.1) diploma

College or trade 8 (22.2) 8 (21.6) 16 (21.9) 8 (32.0) 9 (30.0) 17 (30.9) school

University, 12 (33.3) 11 (29.7) 23 (31.5) 9 (36.0) 9 (30.0) 18 (32.7) Bachelors

University, 6 (16.7) 13 (35.1) 19 (26.0) 4 (16.0) 6 (20.0) 10 (18.2) Masters

Doctorate or 2 (5.6) 1 (2.7) 3 (4.1) 1 (4.0) 1 (3.3) 2 (3.6) Professional degree

Parent’s marital status, n (%)

Married/ 33 (89.2) 41 (95.3) 74 (92.5) 28 (93.3) 29 (90.6) 57 (91.9) Common-law

Other 4 (10.8) 2 (4.5) 6 (7.5) 2 (6.7) 3 (9.4) 5 (8.0)

Area type, n (%)

Urban 8 (21.6) 16 (38.1) 24 (30.4) 12 (40.0) 12 (37.5) 24 (38.7)

Suburban 26 (70.3) 26 (61.9) 52 (65.8) 17 (56.7) 18 (56.3) 35 (56.5)

Rural 3 (8.1) 0 (0) 3 (3.8) 1 (3.3) 2 (6.3) 3 (4.8)

Ethnicity, n (%)

European 20 (54.1) 11 (25.6) 31 (38.8) 15 (50.0) 10 (31.3) 25 (40.3)

South Asian 2 (5.4) 6 (14.0) 4 (10.0) 4 (13.3) 6 (18.8) 10 (16.1)

East Asian 4 (10.8) 4 (9.3) 8 (10.0) 4 (13.3) 1 (3.1) 5 (8.1)

African 2 (5.4) 1 (2.3) 3 (3.8) 0 (0) 1 (3.1) 1 (1.6)

Latin 1 (2.7) 3 (7.0) 4 (5.0) 0 (0) 1 (3.1) 1 (1.6)

Caribbean 1 (2.7) 2 (4.7) 3 (3.8) 1 (3.3) 2 (6.3) 3 (4.8)

Indigenous 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 1 (3.1) 1 (1.6)

Arab 1 (2.7) 2 (4.7) 3 (3.8) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0)

Multiple 6 (16.2) 14 (32.6) 20 (25.0) 6 (20.0) 10 (31.3) 16 (25.8)

Religion, n (%)

Roman Catholic 13 (35.1) 15 (34.9) 28 (35.0) 9 (30.0) 10 (31.3) 19 (30.6)

Protestant 2 (5.4) 1 (2.3) 3 (3.8) 2 (6.7) 0 (0) 2 (3.2)

Christian 4 (10.8) 3 (7.0) 7 (8.8) 3 (10.0) 6 (18.8) 9 (14.5)

Muslim 1 (2.7) 7 (16.3) 8 (10.0) 1 (3.3) 2 (6.3) 3 (4.8)

Jewish 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 1 (3.3) 0 (0) 1 (1.3)

Buddhist 0 (0) 1 (2.3) 1 (1.3) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0)

Hindu 1 (2.7) 1 (2.3) 2 (2.5) 2 (6.7) 2 (6.3) 4 (6.5)

No religion 9 (24.3) 5 (11.6) 14 (17.5) 5 (16.7) 4 (12.5) 9 (14.5)

Multiple 7 (18.9) 10 (23.3) 17 (21.3) 7 (23.3) 8 (25.0) 15 (24.2)

M = mean, SD = standard deviation aThe percentage (%) refers to the percent within the child’s birth-assigned gender (i.e., the “boys” and “girls” columns) for each age group. In the “Total” column, this value refers to the percent of the total 4-to-5 or 8-to-9 age group, respectively. b“Parent 1” refers to the participating parent (i.e., the parent reporting on their child’s and their own information, attitudes and behaviours).

Table 3. Zero-order correlations between the focal outcome variables and ethnicitya. Focal Outcome Variables Masculine boy Feminine boy Feminine girl Masculine girl Personal friendship preferences -.17* .05 -.14 -.02 Perceptions of other children’s -.04 .01 .10 -.01 friendship preferences Happiness -.04 .05 -.01 -.01 Imitation -.17* .03 .045 -.11 Sticker distribution -.13 -.04 .04 -.01 Rank order .21* .01 -.11 -.15

Masculine vs. feminine target boy Personal friendship preferencesb -.20*

Feminine vs. masculine target girl Personal friendship preferencesb .14 aEthnicity was recoded as a dichotomous variable such that 1 = European origins, 2 = Other ethnic origins bDifference scores were calculated by subtracting the rating of children’s desire to be friends with the gender-variant peer from the rating of gender-typical peer of the same gender (i.e., a higher score indicates a greater preference for the gender-typical peer).

* p-value < .05

1 2 3 Variables4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. Personal friendship -- .20* .34** .35** .19* -.19* -- .24** .21* .40** .05 -.04 preferences 2. Other children’s .37** -- .14 .35** -.12 -.01 .28** -- .17* .08 .19* -.07 friendship preferences 3. Happiness .30** .42** -- .20* .25* .06 .01 .08 -- .14 .11 .05

4. Imitation .59** .29** .25** -- -.08 -.11 .59** .18* .06 -- .06 .05

5. Sticker distribution .15 .12 .17* .16 -- .01 .13 -.04 .13 -.04 -- -.26**

6. Rank ordera -.37** -.08 -.05 .32** .18* -- -.30** .14 .06 -.43** -.02 -- a Spearman rank correlation coefficients (ρ) were used for the ranked data.

** p-value < .01 * p-value < .05

1. Personal friendship -- -.11 -.09 .12 .02 -.13 -.32** .06 -.07 -.01 .13 -.01 difference score for target boysa 2. Personal friendship -.20 -- -.04 -.10 .21 -.05 .15 .14 .11 -.10 -.16 .03 difference score for a target girls 3. D-scores -.07 .00 -- .08 .11 .08 .02 -.10 .06 .10 .01 .15

4. GIQC total .05 .31** .02 -- -.10 .19 -.03 .07 -.27* .23 .26* -.18

5. ATWS total -.06 .12 .01 .03 -- -.03 .15 -.01 .66** -.49** -.20 .43**

6. PAQ-M .05 -.04 -.14 .23* -.08 -- .19 .26* .02 -.13 .17 .08

7. PAQ-F -.02 -.07 .16 .04 .18 .07 -- .29* .26* -.07 .07 .04

8. PAQ-MF -.12 .06 .07 .07 .11 .50** -.22 -- -.00 -.19 -.08 .01

9. CRSRAS total -.00 .26* .04 .00 .73** .15 .22 -.10 -- -.60** -.10 .56**

10. DOGC .18 -.14 -.09 .13 .54** .02 .19 .00 -.58** -- -.03 .50**

11. Stereotyped for boys -.16 .08 -.04 -.01 15 .06 .08 .27* .25* -.09 -- .52**

12. Stereotyped for girls -.11 .27* .03 .35** .14 .03 .29* -.07 .14 -.05 .54** -- GIQC = Gender Identity Questionnaire for Children, ATWS = Attitudes Towards Women Scale, PAQ-F = Personal Attributes Scale (Femininity), PAQ-M = Personal Attributes Scale (Masculinity), PAQ-MF = Personal Attributes Scale (Masculinity-Femininity), CRSRAS = Child-Rearing Sex-Role Attitudes Scale, DOGC = Disapproval of Other-Gender Characteristics aDifference scores were calculated by subtracting the rating of children’s desire to be friends with the gender-variant peer from the rating of gender-typical peer of the same gender (i.e., a higher score indicates a greater preference for the gender-typical peer).

** p-value < .01 * p-value < .05

Age-group .47 .21 .26 2.2 .033

Ethnicity -2.2 .21 -.12 -1.0 ns Step 2: Parent and child variables

GIQC .14 .24 .08 .58 ns D-scores -.27 .19 -.17 -1.4 ns

ATWS .00 .03 .02 .10 ns PAQ - F -.07 .03 -.31 -2.3 .024

PAQ - M -.06 .03 -.23 -1.7 .099

PAQ - MF .01 .03 .04 .28 ns CRSRAS -.00 .02 -.05 -.25 ns

DOGC -.08 .06 -.22 -1.3 ns Stereotyped for boys .03 .02 .23 1.6 ns Stereotyped for girls -.01 .02 -.06 -.34 ns Step 3: Interactions with age-group GIQC x age-group -.38 .52 -.89 -.72 ns D-scores x age-group -.19 .53 -.10 -.36 ns ATWS x age-group .02 .08 .53 .32 ns PAQ - F x age-group -.02 .07 -.22 -.23 ns PAQ - M x age-group .02 .07 .21. 24 ns PAQ - MF x age-group .15 .08 1.3 1.9 .069 CRSRAS x age-group .04 .04 1.7 1.0 ns DOGC x age-group .23 .14 .81 1.7 ns Stereotyped for boys x age-group .05 .04 1.0 1.3 ns Stereotyped for girls x age-group -.04 .04 -.91 -1.0 ns GIQC = Gender Identity Questionnaire for Children, ATWS = Attitudes Towards Women Scale, PAQ-F = Personal Attributes Scale (Femininity), PAQ-M = Personal Attributes Scale (Masculinity), PAQ-MF = Personal Attributes Scale (Masculinity-Femininity), CRSRAS = Child-Rearing Sex-Role Attitudes Scale, DOGC = Disapproval of Other-Gender Characteristics

Note: Difference scores were calculated by subtracting the rating of children’s desire to be friends with the feminine target boy from the rating of the masculine target boy (i.e., a higher score indicates a greater preference for the gender-typical male peer).

61 62

Age-group .34 .19 .22 1.8 ns

Ethnicity -.14 .19 -.09 -.75 .083 Step 2: Parent and child variables

GIQC -.15 .22 -.09 -.68 ns D-scores -.09 .18 -.07 -.50 ns

ATWS .06 .03 .36 2.1 .044 PAQ - F .04 .03 .21 1.6 ns

PAQ - M -.02 .03 -.07 -.50 ns

PAQ - MF .4 .03 -.18 1.3 ns CRSRAS .00 .02 -.00 -.01 ns

DOGC .054 .055 .17 .98 ns Stereotyped for boys -.02 .02 -.18 -1.2 ns Stereotyped for girls .01 .02 .15 -.79 ns Step 3: Interactions with age-group GIQC x age-group .25 .48 .67 .53 ns D-scores x age-group .60 .48 .01 -.30 ns ATWS x age-group -.06 .07 -1.5 -.87 ns PAQ - F x age-group -.17 .06 -2.6 -2.6 .012 PAQ - M x age-group -.03 .06 -.38 -.42 ns PAQ - MF x age-group -.12 .07 -1.2 -1.6 ns CRSRAS x age-group .03 .03 1.8 1.0 ns DOGC x age-group -.28 .12 -1.1 -2.3 .028 Stereotyped for boys x age-group .03 .03 .79 .98 ns Stereotyped for girls x age-group -.02 .03 -.62 -.66 ns GIQC = Gender Identity Questionnaire for Children, ATWS = Attitudes Towards Women Scale, PAQ-F = Personal Attributes Scale (Femininity), PAQ-M = Personal Attributes Scale (Masculinity), PAQ-MF = Personal Attributes Scale (Masculinity-Femininity), CRSRAS = Child-Rearing Sex-Role Attitudes Scale, DOGC = Disapproval of Other-Gender Characteristics

Note: Difference scores were calculated by subtracting the rating of children’s desire to be friends with the masculine target girl from the rating of the feminine target girl (i.e., a higher score indicates a greater preference for the gender-typical female peer).

Age-group -.30 .17 -.21 -1.8 .073

Ethnicity -.22 .18 -.14 -1.2 ns Step 2: Parent and child variables

GIQC -.16 .24 -.10 -.69 ns D-scores .01 .20 .01 .04 ns

ATWS -.02 .03 -.13 -.70 ns PAQ - F -.00 .03 -.00 -.03 ns

PAQ - M .02 .02 .14 .94 ns

PAQ - MF -.02 .03 -.11 -.66 ns CRSRAS .02 .02 .25 1.3 ns

DOGC .07 .05 .23 1.5 ns Stereotyped for boys -.02 .02 -.16 -.96 ns Stereotyped for girls -.00 .02 -.03 -.14 ns Step 3: Interactions with age-group GIQC x age-group -.25 .58 -.69 -.43 ns D-scores x age-group -.13 .48 .08 .27 ns ATWS x age-group -.09 .05 -2.6 -1.7 .088 PAQ - F x age-group .14 .05 2.5 2.7 .01 PAQ - M x age-group -.00 .05 -.05 -.06 ns PAQ - MF x age-group .03 .06 .35 .50 ns CRSRAS x age-group -.01 .03 -.44 -.23 ns DOGC x age-group -.06 .09 -.20 -.63 ns Stereotyped for boys x age-group .02 .03 .62 .59 ns Stereotyped for girls x age-group -.03 .03 -.84 -.98 ns GIQC = Gender Identity Questionnaire for Children, ATWS = Attitudes Towards Women Scale, PAQ-F = Personal Attributes Scale (Femininity), PAQ-M = Personal Attributes Scale (Masculinity), PAQ-MF = Personal Attributes Scale (Masculinity-Femininity), CRSRAS = Child-Rearing Sex-Role Attitudes Scale, DOGC = Disapproval of Other-Gender Characteristics

Age-group .19 .15 .15 1.3 ns

Ethnicity -.01 .16 -.01 -.05 ns Step 2: Parent and child variables

GIQC -.33 .19 .23 1.8 .084 D-scores -.02 .02 -.19 -.15 ns

ATWS -.02 .02 -.19 -1.1 ns PAQ - F -.03 .02 -.22 -1.7 .095

PAQ - M -.01 .02 -.07 -.52 ns

PAQ - MF .02 .02 .11 .74 ns CRSRAS .03 .01 .41 2.3 .024

DOGC -.02 .04 -.07 -.48 ns Stereotyped for boys -.02 .01 -.18 -1.2 ns Stereotyped for girls .03 .01 .34 2.14 .037 Step 3: Interactions with age-group GIQC x age-group -.04 .49 -.14 -.09 ns D-scores x age-group .44 .40 .32 1.1 ns ATWS x age-group .05 .05 1.6 1.1 ns PAQ - F x age-group -.06 .04 -1.1 -1.3 ns PAQ - M x age-group .04 .04 .69 .93 ns PAQ - MF x age-group -.03 .05 -.36 -.54 ns CRSRAS x age-group -.01 .03 -.171 -.38 ns DOGC x age-group -.08 .08 -.29 -.97 ns Stereotyped for boys x age-group -.01 .03 -.41 -.47 ns Stereotyped for girls x age-group .02 .03 .74 .72 ns GIQC = Gender Identity Questionnaire for Children, ATWS = Attitudes Towards Women Scale, PAQ-F = Personal Attributes Scale (Femininity), PAQ-M = Personal Attributes Scale (Masculinity), PAQ-MF = Personal Attributes Scale (Masculinity-Femininity), CRSRAS = Child-Rearing Sex-Role Attitudes Scale, DOGC = Disapproval of Other-Gender Characteristics

3.5

2.5 Masculine boy 2 Feminine boy Preferences Feminine girl 1.5 Masculine girl Rating of Personal Friendship Friendship Personal of Rating 1 Boys Girls Boys Girls 4-to-5 years 8-to-9 years Participant Group

Figure 1. The mean (±95% confidence interval) ratings of the children’s willingness to be friends with each target child as a function of participant gender and age-group.

3.5

2.5 Masculine boy 2 Feminine boy

Preferences Feminine girl 1.5 Masculine girl 1 Boys Girls Boys Girls Rating of Other Children's Friendship Friendship Children's Other of Rating 4-to-5 years 8-to-9 years Participant Group

3.5

2.5 Masculine boy 2 Feminine boy Feminine girl

Ratings of Happiness of Ratings 1.5 Masculine girl 1 Boys Girls Boys Girls 4-to-5 years 8-to-9 years Participant Group

Figure 3. The mean (±95% confidence interval) ratings of the perceived happiness of each target child as a function of the participant’s gender and age-group.

3.5

2.5 Masculine boy 2 Feminine boy Feminine girl

Child's Behvaiour 1.5 Masculine girl 1

Ratings of Desire to Imitate Target Target Imitate to Desire of Ratings Boys Girls Boys Girls 4-to-5 years 8-to-9 years Participant Group

Figure 4. The mean (±95% confidence interval) ratings of the children’s desire to imitate the behaviour of each target child as a function of the participant’s gender and age-group.

3.5

2.5 Masculine boy 2 Feminine boy Feminine girl 1.5 Masculine girl 1 Boy Girl Boy Girl Mean Number of Stickers Distributed Stickers of Number Mean 4-to-5 years 8-to-9 years Participant Group

Figure 5. The mean number of stickers (±95% confidence interval) shared with each target child as a function of the participant’s gender and age-group.

MASCULINE BOY FEMININE BOY FEMININE GIRL MASCULINE GIRL 1

2 4-to-5-year-old boys

4-to-5-year-old girls

8-to-9-year-old boys

MEAN RANKS 3 8-to-9-year-old girls

Figure 6. The mean ranks (and standard error bars) for each target child as a function of the participant’s gender and age-group.

Appendix A

The sample illustrations provided below corresponds to the vignette of the gender-variant boy target child.

Illustration 1: This is a boy named Johnny. Johnny is in the same grade as you.

Illustration 2: Johnny’s favourite toy is a Barbie doll. Johnny likes to play with his Barbie doll in a dream doll house.

Illustration 3: Johnny's favourite activity is to play house with his toy kitchen.

Illustration 4: When it is time to play dress-up, Johnny likes to dress like mom. He puts on mom's old dress, mom's high heels, nail polish, sparkly jewelry and make-up. He also wears a long hair wig and a barrette in his hair.

Illustration 5: Johnny's best friends who he likes to play with most are Jane and Emily. They like to play board games together.