For some time now there have been campaigns to ensure the toys children play with better reflect the modern world, especially in terms of the roles depicted.  Girls are encouraged to play with construction toys, boys with dolls, and so on.  New research from the University of Sussex highlights how difficult these stereotypes are to shift in children, however, especially boys.

The study suggests that girls tend to exaggerate their gendered voices to imitate workers in various professions up to the age of about seven, but boys tend to continue on beyond that age, whilst also using overtly masculine voice even when imitating workers in gender-neutral roles.

In traditional experiments around gender stereotypes, there is a concern that participants say what they think is expected of them rather than their true thoughts.  The researchers attempted to get round this by tapping into the unconscious stereotypes of the children and asking them to speak in the voices of people in various occupations.

Testing stereotypicality

A group of children aged between five and ten took part in a voice production test where they were given descriptions of roles that are traditionally perceived as being either male, female or gender neutral.  The children were asked to give voices to the people in these roles, while also being asked to complete a questionnaire that specifically asked them about men and women performing certain jobs.

This allowed the team to develop an “Index of Stereotypicality”, which they believe will be useful in helping to quantify any implicit occupational stereotyping children may experience.  The researchers used software to extract pitch from the children’s voices.

“The strength of stereotypicality based on vocal pitch revealed stereotypes that were not found in children’s direct responses to the conventional questions about men and women doing different jobs,” they explain. “This suggests that children continue to entertain gender stereotypes even if they are not prepared to say so explicitly.”

Stereotyped roles

This showed that for stereotypically male jobs, both boys and girls would spontaneously masculinize their voices, and feminize their voices for stereotypically female occupations.  The researchers believe these findings should prompt authors and children’s TV writers to be vigilant about associating roles with specific genders to help children avoid falling into this stereotype trap.

“Our study found that boys were especially likely to accentuate the vocal masculinity or femininity of people doing different jobs,” the researchers explain. “This pattern suggests that children have differential evaluations of males and females engaging in stereotypical and counter-stereotypical occupations.”

They believe that if society is to successfully challenge these clear occupational stereotypes, we not only need to have characters and role models that can break any stereotypical molds, but also who adopt a range of vocal pitches.

“Unconscious bias training should also include voice cues to help teachers and parents become aware of and challenge biases about gender stereotypes in relation to particular jobs,” the researchers conclude.