Abstract

Gender inequities in politics persist around the world. Research in political science and social psychology underscores how gender gaps in politics are fueled by societal messages that politics is a masculine domain. Developmental psychology offers a complementary, yet underappreciated, perspective on how gender inequities in politics are created and maintained. At first glance, children and politics may seem unrelated, yet broad cultural ideas can set in remarkably early in life. As an analogy, consider the gender inequities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM): Although gender gaps in this domain were initially theorized to begin during the college years, developmental research subsequently revealed how the societal messages and norms to which young children are exposed form the foundation on which gender gaps later emerge. We propose that the benefits of a developmental theory-driven approach to understanding gender gaps in STEM can be productively harnessed to understand and counteract gender gaps in political leadership as well. In our target article, we identified five critical areas of inquiry as a novel theoretical framework for investigating the developmental roots of gendered political disparities. Here, we situate these areas of inquiry within a sociocultural framework and integrate insights from the thoughtful commentaries on our target article. We discuss how societal ideas are transmitted to children through everyday interactions that shape children’s developing psychological tendencies within a larger system of institutions. This integrative developmental framework provides unique and valuable insights across multiple levels of inquiry, which will further benefit from embracing intersectional and global perspectives.

摘要

政治中的性别不平等在世界各地持续存在。政治科学和社会心理学的研究强调，政治是男性领域的社会信息是如何加剧政治中的性别差距的。发展心理学为政治中的性别不平等是如何产生和维持的提供了一种补充但未被充分认识的观点。乍一看，儿童和政治似乎无关，但广泛的文化观念可以在生命的早期形成。作为一个类比，考虑科学、技术、工程和数学 (STEM) 中的性别不平等：尽管这一领域的性别差距最初被理论化为在大学期间开始，但随后的发展研究揭示了年轻人所接受的社会信息和规范。儿童的暴露是后来出现性别差距的基础。我们建议，可以有效地利用发展理论驱动的方法来理解 STEM 中的性别差距的好处，以了解和抵消政治领导中的性别差距。在我们的目标文章中，我们确定了五个关键的研究领域，作为研究性别政治差异的发展根源的新理论框架。在这里，我们将这些研究领域置于社会文化框架内，并整合了对目标文章的深思熟虑的评论的见解。我们讨论如何 我们确定了五个关键的研究领域，作为研究性别政治差异的发展根源的新理论框架。在这里，我们将这些研究领域置于社会文化框架内，并整合了对目标文章的深思熟虑的评论的见解。我们讨论如何 我们确定了五个关键的研究领域，作为研究性别政治差异的发展根源的新理论框架。在这里，我们将这些研究领域置于社会文化框架内，并整合了对目标文章的深思熟虑的评论的见解。我们讨论如何社会观念通过日常互动传递给儿童，这些互动在更大的机构系统内塑造了儿童发展中的心理倾向。这种综合发展框架提供了跨多个探究层次的独特而有价值的见解，这将进一步受益于拥抱交叉和全球视角。