Parental favoritism isn't a myth
Daughters, responsible kids more likely to be favored, study finds
American Psychological Association
WASHINGTON -- If you’ve ever wondered whether your parents secretly had a favorite child, they might have. Parents may be more inclined to confer the “favorite child award” to daughters and children who are agreeable and conscientious, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.
“For decades, researchers have known that differential treatment from parents can have lasting consequences for children,” said lead author Alexander Jensen, PhD, an associate professor at Brigham Young University. “This study helps us understand which children are more likely to be on the receiving end of favoritism, which can be both positive and negative.”
The research was published in the journal Psychological Bulletin.
The study examined the link between children's characteristics and differences in how their parents treat them, while considering potential moderators such as child age, parent gender and measurement methods.
The researchers conducted a meta-analysis of 30 peer-reviewed journal articles and dissertations/theses, along with 14 databases, encompassing a total of 19,469 participants. They examined how birth order, gender, temperament and personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness and neuroticism) were linked to parental favoritism.
Parents can show favoritism in numerous ways, including how they interact with their children, how much money they spend on them and how much control they exert over them, the researchers said. Altogether, they looked at five domains: overall treatment, positive interactions, negative interactions, resource allocation and control.
The researchers initially thought that mothers would tend to favor daughters and fathers would favor sons. However, the study found that both mothers and fathers were more likely to favor daughters.
Of the personality traits evaluated, children who were conscientious -- meaning they were responsible and organized -- also appeared to receive more favorable treatment. This suggests that parents may find these children easier to manage and may respond more positively. Jensen said he was surprised that extraversion was not associated with favoritism.
“Americans seem to particularly value extraverted people, but within families it may matter less,” he said.
When it came to birth order, parents were more likely to give older siblings greater autonomy, possibly because they were more mature, according to Jensen.
The researchers also examined whether parent-child relationships were influenced by other factors, such as the child's age, the parent's gender, or how favoritism was measured. They found that these factors might play a role, but if they did it was minimal, highlighting the complexity of parental favoritism.
Siblings who receive less favored treatment tend to have poorer mental health and more strained family relationships, according to Jensen.
“Understanding these nuances can help parents and clinicians recognize potentially damaging family patterns,” he said. “It is crucial to ensure all children feel loved and supported.”
The researchers said they hope their findings will encourage parents to be more aware of their biases and strive to treat all their children fairly.
“It is important to note that this research is correlational, so it doesn't tell us why parents favor certain children,” Jensen said. “However, it does highlight potential areas where parents may need to be more mindful of their interactions with their children.”
“So, the next time you're left wondering whether your sibling is the golden child, remember there is likely more going on behind the scenes than just a preference for the eldest or youngest. It might be about responsibility, temperament or just how easy or hard you are to deal with,” he said.
Article: “Parents Favor Daughters: A Meta-Analysis of Gender and Other Predictors of Parental Differential Treatment,” by Alexander Jensen, PhD, Brigham Young University and McKell Jorgensen-Wells, MS, Western University. Psychological Bulletin, published online Jan. 16, 2025.
Contact: Alexander Jensen, PhD, may be contacted via email at alexjensen@byu.edu.
Journal
Psychological Bulletin
Method of Research
Meta-analysis
Subject of Research
People
Article Title
Parents Favor Daughters: A Meta-Analysis of Gender and Other Predictors of Parental Differential Treatment
Article Publication Date
16-Jan-2025
Study finds gender gap with children when it comes to negotiating
Boys more likely than girls to ask for bigger bonuses—for the same work
New York University
Studies have shown a persistent gender gap when it comes to wages—disparities that stretch over decades. Past analyses have pointed to various causes for this discrepancy, but often overlooked is how such divides may surface early in life.
In a related new study of boys and girls, a team of psychology researchers has found that despite holding similar views on the purpose and value of negotiation, boys ask for bigger bonuses than girls do for completing the same work. The findings, reported in the journal Developmental Psychology, indicate that these outcomes are linked, in part, to differences in perceptions of abilities: in a series of cognitive tasks, boys had a higher opinion of their abilities and therefore asked for higher bonuses—even though they performed no better than girls did in these tasks.
“Our findings suggest that boys tend to overestimate their abilities compared to girls—and relative to their actual performance,” says Sophie Arnold, a New York University doctoral student and the lead author of the paper. “This inflated self-perception may lead boys to feel more entitled to push the boundaries during negotiations.”
“These findings offer new perspectives on the possible origins of negotiation disparities that exist between adult men and women in professional settings,” concludes NYU Psychology Professor Andrei Cimpian, the paper’s senior author.
The research, which also included Katherine McAuliffe, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Boston College, consisted of a series of three experiments. The first two of these were used to ascertain if boys and girls had similar perceptions of negotiation.
In a pair of hypothetical scenarios, boys and girls—aged six to nine—were introduced to situations in which they could negotiate a bonus with a teacher for completing classroom work or with a neighbor for completing neighborhood work. In these hypothetical scenarios, boys and girls revealed similar perceptions of negotiation: they thought other children were similarly likely to negotiate, that it was similarly permissible to negotiate, that they would receive similarly little backlash for negotiating, and that negotiating would lead to similar rewards. Furthermore, girls and boys reported that they would negotiate to a similar extent in these hypothetical situations.
Through a subsequent experiment that included more than 200 child participants, the researchers sought to understand how boys and girls would negotiate based on their performance and their perceptions of this performance. Here, the children were asked to quickly identify images on a computer screen. The boys and girls performed roughly the same.
After these cognitive tasks, all children—regardless of their performance—were told that because of how they did, they should receive a bonus: pictures of animals. The children were then asked how many pictures they thought they should receive for their achievement.
Despite performing at approximately the same levels, there was a noticeable gender gap in how the participants responded to the question about the size of the bonus they thought they should receive:
Despite having similar perceptions of negotiation, consistent with the findings from the hypothetical studies, boys asked for bigger bonuses than girls did for completing the same work. This difference was not trivial: the typical boy asked for more bonus pictures than about 65% of girls did.
While girls and boys performed equally well in the cognitive task, their perceptions of their own competence differed: boys thought better of their performance than girls thought of theirs. This difference in perceived competence, the authors conclude, helped explain why boys asked for more than girls: boys believed they did better, and those boys were also more likely to negotiate for higher bonuses.
Also notable among the findings was that the relationship between children’s perceptions of negotiation and their bonus requests differed by gender. Although girls’ and boys’ perceptions were similar on average, these perceptions only predicted boys’ requests, not girls’. For instance, among boys, those who thought negotiating was more permissible were also more likely to ask for higher bonuses. In contrast, perceptions of the permissibility of negotiation were not associated with request magnitude among girls.
“Boys leveraged their perceptions of how common and permissible it is to ask for more, while girls did not,” explains McAuliffe. “This meant that, for example, when both girls and boys thought it was more common and more permissible to negotiate, boys negotiated more than girls did.”
The research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (DGE-2234660).
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Journal
Developmental Psychology
Method of Research
Experimental study
Subject of Research
People
Article Title
Unraveling the Gender Gap in Negotiation: How Children’s Perceptions of Negotiation and of Themselves Relate to Their Bargaining Outcomes
Article Publication Date
16-Jan-2025
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