The Power of Peers: Children’s Gender-Based Peer Interactions and Cognitions Contribute to Changes in Felt Gender Similarity Over Time

Although peers are acknowledged as playing a significant role in gender development, less is known about how they shape gender identity. Here we assessed two broad processes: gendered peer interactions (i.e., interaction frequency, quality) and gendered cognitions about peers (i.e., efficacy, inclusion, and costs with same- and other-gender peers), and how they predict changes in children’s felt gender similarity, a central component of gender identity. Participants included 884 children (48.30% girls, 50.68% boys, 1.02% gender diverse; Mage = 9.04, SD = 0.90) from southwestern U.S. elementary schools. Data were collected from students in Fall (T1) and Spring (T2) of an academic year. Longitudinal path analyses demonstrated that both gendered interactions and cognitions were related to changes in children’s felt gender similarity. Results highlighted the importance of interaction quality with peers in children’s felt-gender similarity over time as it directly predicted gender similarity over and above other constructs. In contrast, interaction frequency showed a moderated pattern by gender. For girls but not boys, with more frequent other-gender interactions, felt similarity to other-gender decreased over time. Further, gendered cognitions moderated the relation between interaction frequency and similarity to other-gender peers: for children with less positive cognitions about the other gender, more frequent interactions with them led to less similarity to other-gender peers over time (at the trend level). Overall, findings have implications for fostering inclusive peer environments that support children’s gender identity development.