Abstract：
Children form stereotyped expectations about the appropriateness of certain emotions for men versus women during the preschool years, based on cues from their social environments. Although ample research has examined the development of gender stereotypes in children, little is known about the neural responses that underlie the processing of gender-stereotyped emotions in children. Therefore, the current study examined whether 3-year-olds differ in the neural processing of emotional stimuli that violate gender stereotypes (i.e., male faces with fearful or happy expressions) or confirm gender stereotypes (i.e., female faces with fearful or happy expressions), and whether boys and girls differ in their neural processing of the violation and confirmation of gender stereotypes. Data from 72 3-year-olds (±6 months, 43% boy) were obtained from the YOUth Cohort Study. Electroencephalography data were obtained when children passively viewed male and female faces displaying neutral, happy, or fearful facial expressions. This study provided first indications that happy male faces elicited larger P1 amplitudes than happy female faces in preschool children, which might reflect increased attentional processing of stimuli that violate gender stereotypes. Moreover, there was preliminary evidence that girls had larger negative central (Nc) responses, associated with salience processing, toward female happy faces than male happy faces, whereas boys had larger Nc responses toward male happy faces than female happy faces. No gender differences were found in the processing of neutral and fearful facial expressions. Our results indicate that electroencephalography measurements can provide insights into preschoolers\' gender-stereotype knowledge about emotions, potentially by looking at the early occipital and late fronto-central responses.
摘要：
孩子们在学龄前对男性与女性的某些情绪的适当性形成了刻板的期望，基于他们社会环境的线索。尽管大量研究已经检查了儿童性别陈规定型观念的发展，对儿童性别定型情绪处理的神经反应知之甚少。因此,当前的研究检查了3岁儿童在违反性别刻板印象的情绪刺激的神经处理方面是否存在差异(即，带有恐惧或快乐表情的男性面孔)或确认性别刻板印象(即，带有恐惧或快乐表情的女性面孔），以及男孩和女孩在违反和确认性别定型观念的神经处理方面是否存在差异。来自72名3岁儿童的数据(±6个月，43%的男孩）来自YOUth队列研究。当儿童被动地查看显示中性的男性和女性面孔时，获得了脑电图数据，快乐,或者可怕的面部表情。这项研究提供了第一个迹象，表明学龄前儿童中快乐的男性面孔比快乐的女性面孔引起更大的P1幅度，这可能反映出违反性别刻板印象的刺激的注意力处理增加。此外，有初步证据表明女孩有更大的负中央（Nc）反应，与显著性处理相关，女性快乐的面孔比男性快乐的面孔，而男孩对男性快乐面孔的Nc反应要大于女性快乐面孔。在处理中性和恐惧的面部表情时没有发现性别差异。我们的结果表明，脑电图测量可以提供对学龄前儿童关于情绪的性别刻板印象知识的见解，可能通过观察枕骨早期和前脑中央晚期的反应。
