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Sex stereotypes influence adults' perception of babies' cries
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 00:49 authored by David Reby, Florence Levréro, Erik Gustafsson, Nicolas MathevonBackground: Despite widespread evidence that gender stereotypes influence human parental behavior, their potential effects on adults’ perception of babies’ cries have been overlooked. In particular, whether adult listeners overgeneralize the sex dimorphism that characterizes the voice of adult speakers (men are lower-pitched than women) to their perception of babies’ cries has not been investigated. Methods: We used playback experiments combining natural and re-synthesised cries of 3 month-old babies to investigate whether the interindividual variation in the fundamental frequency (pitch) of cries affected adult listeners’ identification of the baby’s sex, their perception the baby’s femininity and masculinity, and whether these biases interacted with their perception of the level of discomfort expressed by the cry. Results: We show that low-pitched cries are more likely to be attributed to boys and high-pitched cries to girls, despite the absence of sex differences in pitch. Moreover, low-pitched boys are perceived as more masculine and high-pitched girls are perceived as more feminine. Finally, adult men rate relatively low-pitched cries as expressing more discomfort when presented as belonging to boys than to girls. Conclusion: Such biases in caregivers’ responses to babies’ cries may have implications on children’s immediate welfare and on the development of their gender identity.
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Published version
Journal
BMC PsychologyISSN
2050-7283Publisher
BioMed CentralExternal DOI
Issue
19Volume
4Department affiliated with
- Psychology Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2016-04-07First Open Access (FOA) Date
2016-04-15First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2016-04-07Usage metrics
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