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Well, I would say girls are fairer than boys — but that may be a gender stereotype!
Well, that’s precisely what Marijn van Wingerden and colleagues of the Heinrich-Heine-University in Düsseldorf, Germany, wanted to find out. They researched whether there are gender stereotypes to being fair — we do know that human beings are very sensitive to unfairness.
For this they turned not to adults though, but to children between 3 and 8 who lack some of the moral constraints that most of us adults have.
Oh fascinating! Did these boys and girls conform to any gender stereotypes?
Yes, they did — depending on what your gender stereotypes are. Most would probably agree with what you said, namely that girls are generally fairer than boys and this because they value social cohesion more.
And…?
And they did find that girls were generally fairer than boys but there were a few nuances and surprises to this.
The study was conducted with a total of 332 children and fairness was measured by their willingness to distribute or withhold smileys — chocolate might have been a good one to use in place of smileys but excluded for health and hence ethical reasons!
