Understanding Gender Stereotype Transmission: How Biased Gestures Shape Children's Beliefs

Research has found that many children endorse gender brilliance stereotypes from an early age, associating brilliance with men and not women. However, less understood is how these beliefs are shaped by other subtle cues embedded in everyday context. The present study examines whether gestures can influence a child's stereotype endorsement. Children aged 4 to 9 (N = 120) were randomly presented with video stimuli in which a speaker describes gender groups' ability in novel activities using either no gesture or biased gestures. Participants were asked to judge the innate abilities in the novel activity based on what they saw and heard in stimuli videos. Results showed that exposure to biased gestures (e.g., "Girls [placing hand in higher position] and boys [placing hand in a lower position] are good at yuzzing.") led to a greater chance of stereotype endorsement, such that children were more likely to attribute greater natural ability to the gender group introduced with the biased gesture and favored the natural ability of the gender group placed at a higher vertical level. The findings suggest that gestures alone can act as a source of stereotypical information in young children, with distinct influence effects from the presence and position of biased gestures. This work further explains the role of nonverbal cues in social cognitive development and specifically how they can shape social beliefs.