Evidence map›Paper›PMID 42827141›Full record

ArticleNature human behaviour2026

Gendered motives for group formidability among children and adults.

Erik K Fonn, Joakim H Zahl, Bjørn D Kristensen, Lotte Thomsen

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Article in Nature human behaviour, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
0citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

0 citing papers in PubMed.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Erik K FonnDepartment of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway. e.k.fonn@psykologi.uio.no.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4830-9053
Joakim H ZahlDepartment of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
Bjørn D KristensenDepartment of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.ORCID http://orcid.org/0009-0003-2897-4632
Lotte ThomsenDepartment of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway. lotte.thomsen@psykologi.uio.no.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5346-849X

Funding

EC | Horizon 2020 Framework Programme (EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation H2020) #101040978Norges Forskningsråd (Research Council of Norway) #335600
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Recent decades have seen a surge of research revealing the core, early emerging psychological building blocks for navigating human societies. Yet, how such core motives operate across life, undergirding political ideology, remains unknown. Here we use the same kind of minimal, abstract group stimuli across the lifespan to show that gendered preferences for majority groups manifest among preschoolers and adults alike (but not among preverbal infants) and that they motivate support for sustaining intergroup hierarchies (for example, ethnic persecution, militarism and social welfare opposition) among adults. Preschool (N = 317) boys, but not girls, preferred majority rather than minority members, whereas infants (N = 180) chose randomly between the two. Among adults (N = 3,467), males also liked the majority more than females, and these coalitional preferences correlated robustly with political ideology. These results indicate that gendered motives for intergroup formidability are rooted in earliest childhood once children begin navigating peer relationships independently.

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.