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Gender stereotypes underlie child custody decisions
Author(s) -
Costa Luiza Lopes Franco,
Esteves Ana Beatriz Dillon,
Kreimer Roxana,
Struchiner Noel,
Hannikainen Ivar
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
european journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.609
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1099-0992
pISSN - 0046-2772
DOI - 10.1002/ejsp.2523
Subject(s) - psychology , child custody , generosity , social psychology , stereotype (uml) , context (archaeology) , trustworthiness , dictator game , developmental psychology , criminology , paleontology , philosophy , theology , biology
Using hypothetical divorce cases we examine the role of gender stereotypes in decisions about child custody. Good mothers received greater custody allocations than did good fathers across a tightly matched pair of vignettes in three culturally distinct samples: Argentina, Brazil, and the United States (Study 1). Two follow‐up studies indicated that the warmth dimension of stereotype content partly accounted for the asymmetry in custody awards: The proportion of maternal‐primary custody was predicted by the tendency to ascribe warmth‐related traits—such as friendliness, generosity, or trustworthiness—to mothers (Study 2) and associate them with female over male nouns (Study 3). We also found that endorsing shared custody mitigated the asymmetry in custody awards documented in our studies. Together, these results highlight the interplay of stereotyped attitudes and egalitarian commitments in the context of judicial decisions about child custody.