New research explores the roots of gender conformity in children

Why do children feel pressure to act “like a boy” or “like a girl,” and what happens when they feel they’re falling short?

Understanding why and how children conform to gender norms is crucial for promoting healthy development. In this experimental study, the first of its kind, University of Richmond psychology professor Adam Stanaland and his colleagues engaged children between ages 5–10 years old in an experiment that evaluated their responses to gender-based feedback. The results suggest that the social pressure to conform to a specific gender may take hold surprisingly early. 

Do young children feel pressure to conform to gender identities? How does that pressure affect them?

Stanaland: In this study, we momentarily made 5- to 10-year-olds feel as though they were either typical for their gender group or atypical — what we call a “typicality threat” — and observed what happened next. Regardless of their gender, children as young as five responded to these challenges to their identity. Their self-esteem worsened, and they were especially concerned about what their peers might think of them for being gender atypical.   

Does a child’s gender conformity change as they grow up?

Our study also found that children’s behavioral responses to gender-based threats diverge based on their gender and age. Younger girls actively leaned into femininity; older boys leaned into masculinity; and boys across all ages went out of their way to avoid appearing feminine. To us, this indicates that boys become increasingly motivated to demonstrate their masculinity with age (while avoiding femininity), whereas girls become less concerned with proving their femininity through childhood.

Why is this research important?

Gender norms shape children’s lives in profound ways — influencing everything from the clothes they wear to the careers they'll eventually pursue. Even children of a very young age can experience gender pressure in their daily lives from a variety of sources, including peers, parents, teachers, and coaches (e.g., to a boy, “stop crying,” or to a girl, “don’t be bossy”).

Yet most of what we know about gender conformity comes from studies on adults or correlational research about children (where it’s difficult to establish causality). To our knowledge, this study is the first to experimentally test whether everyday threats to children’s gender identities drives conformity, and to bring that framework — developed almost entirely in research on adults — into a developmental context. Our findings offer causal evidence rather than speculation or correlation: When certain children feel judged for being gender-atypical, they don’t simply shrug it off. They double down, and this seems to happen much earlier than most people assume.