Het oordeel van kinderen over genderstereotypering in reclamefoto's

In advertisements directed at children, advertisers tend to portray both adults and children in a gender stereotypical way, assuming this is what children like to see. In the present study, 96 children aged eight to twelve years evaluated 14 pairs of pictures. There were pictures with a boy or a girl, who adopted either a tough or a cute pose, and pictures that depicted a man or a woman, either in a household setting or doing handyman jobs. Children individually indicated which picture of a pair they considered as (a) most similar to reality, (b) most realistic as an advertisement, and (c) most likeable. Overall, our hypotheses were confirmed: children liked the stereotypical pictures better, and evaluated them as more similar to reality, and more like real advertisements. One type of pictures contradicted this general conclusion: the pictures that depicted girls in a tough pose were liked more and were seen as more realistic advertisements than pictures where girls adopted a cute pose.