Do children consider male authority to be more legitimate than female authority?
Research
On January 9, 2026
By the age of four, children already understand that male figures more often hold power than their female counterparts in mixed-gender interactions. Nevertheless, do they simply witness this inequality, or do they consider it as legitimate?
To address this question, a research team from the CNRS, involving the Laboratoire inter-universitaire de psychologie (Université Grenoble Alpes/Université Savoie Mont Blanc), individually exposed children aged 3 to 8 to interactions in which a character, sometimes male, sometimes female, was in a position of power over another.
In each scenario, the children were given an odd number of stickers to distribute between the two characters. By choosing which one to favour, the children revealed their views on this inequality. Giving more stickers to the character in power signalled recognition of the legitimacy of their position, whereas favouring the subordinate character reflected a desire to restore some form of justice within the relationship.
Conducted with a panel of 653 children, this experiment did not show any bias towards male characters in positions of power. However, the results suggest that age influences choices. Younger children tended to favour characters in positions of power, whether female or male, while those aged 7 to 8 generally preferred subordinate characters. This study also highlighted that children tended to favour characters of their own gender. This behaviour was particularly pronounced among girls, who showed a stronger preference for females than boys did for males.
The results of this study, published in Child Development, suggest that children aged 3 to 8 do not show greater approval of male power. Nevertheless, further studies are needed to verify whether a legitimisation of masculine power could appear in other situations or other cultures, or whether such biases develop at a later age.
Published on January 9, 2026
Updated on January 9, 2026
Bibliography
Three- to eight-year-old children do not favor male power when allocating resources. Helmlinger, A. E., Foncelle, A., Galusca, C-I., Maire, H., Van der Henst, J-B., Charafeddine, R. Child Development, 7 January 2026.
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