Do school-aged children dehumanise gender non-conforming peers? : an investigation from the mind perception perspective

Abstract

Gender nonconforming (GN) children are more likely to experience behavioral maltreatments than gender conforming (GC) children, contributing to long-term disparities in psychosocial difficulties between GN and CC individuals. The current study adopted the mind perception perspective of dehumanization to examine whether GN children were less mentalized than GC children and to explore the association of reduced mind perception with disgust and behavioral outcomes. A prior study published in Psychological Science, McLoughlin and Over (2017), found that children dehumanized peers of the other gender (i.e., the opposite sex) by spontaneously attributing fewer mental states to them. However, the prior study did not examine gender conformity, affective process, or behavioral outcomes. The current study was designed to extend this line of research. Chinese children (N = 39, 9 to 11 years old) were asked to describe actions of geometric shapes associated with hypothetical peers of different genders and levels of gender conformity. Boys were found to dehumanize GN girls, as reflected by a lower proportion of mental state words used to describe GN girls. No other significant differences in mental state words across gender and gender conformity conditions were found. Associations between mentalization and disgust or behavioral outcomes were non-significant. Limitations and future research directions were discussed.