Who thinks girls are as smart as boys? One study found that it depends on a kid's age and gender. In a set of empirical studies, a team of researchersinvestigated gender differences in gender stereotypes. CNN covered the research.
The researchers asked young girls and boys (aged 5 to 7) to participate in several tasks.
In one test, researchers told the children a story about a person who was "really, really smart." "We were very careful to leave out any clues as to the person's gender," said researcher Lin Bian, a psychologist at the University of Illinois. The children were then asked to guess who the protagonist of the story was. [For this, kids were shown photos of four unfamiliar adults, 2 males and 2 females, and asked to select one.] At age 5, both boys and girls picked out characters of their own gender. But within a year, that had changed. Boys still picked boys, she said — but girls were picking boys, too. "Suddenly, at age 6, girls became less likely than boys to do this," Bian said.