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Children’s Interpretation of Ambiguous Behavior: Evidence for a ‘Boys are Bad’ Bias
Author(s) -
Heyman Gail D.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
social development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.078
H-Index - 91
eISSN - 1467-9507
pISSN - 0961-205X
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9507.00161
Subject(s) - psychology , attribution , interpretation (philosophy) , developmental psychology , social psychology , attribution bias , computer science , programming language
Possible gender‐related evaluative biases were investigated among a group of 64 second and third graders (ages 6 y 11 m to 9 y 7 m). Participants were shown photographs of 8 unfamiliar children, and were told that each had performed a particular behavior. Each of the behaviors was consistent with multiple interpretations, including a positive interpretation and a negative interpretation. When the unfamiliar peers were male, participants were more likely to remember behaviors in unfavorable ways and to select more negative attributions for the behavior. This pattern of results held even among male participants, who reported greater expectations of liking the male peers.