Adam Stanaland

And then their concerns about being viewed by their peers as less than, right?

So we asked them about their self-esteem in the moment.

And then we also said, if your friends found out about this, how would they respond?

How would they feel about it?

And so we got three kinds of measures and looked at different things there.

I think the answer to that is yes.

All the things you said, right?

We're not exactly sure what's going on mechanistically, but we do know from our data that all kids, regardless of their age or gender, got concerned about their feedback, right?

They became, their self-esteem lowered.

They were concerned that their friends would not like the feedback that they had gotten.

What was really interesting, though, even though that happened, was that younger girls and older boys were the ones who were specifically trying to prove behaviorally that they were typical girls or typical boys.

And we think this is because past research shows that young girls around three to four are really into femininity.

They get lots of messages about wearing pink frilly dresses, and it's actually called the pink frilly dress effect.

And then as girls age, they kind of realize boys have it good, right?

I want to be more like a boy.

And they start getting encouraged to move into these traditionally historically male spaces, sports, leadership, science, etc.

As boys get older, they get the message that you must be like a boy to prove your masculinity.

And there's no other way to do that.

And you have to avoid being girly to do that.

And so it's kind of both things.