A preference for being on the side of the larger group may emerge surprisingly early in childhood, but new research suggests that the pattern is neither universal nor present from infancy. A study published in Nature Human Behaviour on 2 October 2026 found that preschool boys, but not preschool girls, were more likely to prefer members of larger groups. Preverbal infants, by contrast, showed no average preference between larger and smaller groups.
The researchers then carried the same basic idea into adulthood. Across adult samples, men showed a stronger preference for majority-group members than women, and individual differences in those preferences were associated with measures of social dominance orientation and several political attitudes related to group hierarchy. The findings offer evidence that some sex-linked differences in how people respond to group strength can be detected once children begin navigating peer relationships, while stopping well short of showing that such preferences are biologically fixed or inevitable.
Testing group size without familiar social labels
Research on social hierarchy often uses real-world categories such as nationality, ethnicity or political affiliation. Those categories carry histories, stereotypes and learned meanings that make it difficult to isolate a basic response to group strength itself. Erik K. Fonn and colleagues at the University of Oslo instead used minimal, abstract groups designed to strip away much of that baggage.
Participants saw animated groups that differed in size and moved in synchrony in separate territories. A member of each group was then presented for a choice. For preschool children, the procedure was automated and delivered through a narrated touchscreen while the child wore headphones, reducing the possibility that an experimenter could unintentionally cue a preferred response.
The developmental component included 317 preschool children. From about three years of age, boys showed a preference for a member of the larger group across measures framed around liking, friendship and play. Girls did not show the same larger-group preference. This distinction matters because it suggests that the result was not simply a general childhood tendency to choose whichever group contained more members.
Infants did not show the same choice pattern
The researchers also tested 180 preverbal infants. On average, the infants reached randomly between members of the larger and smaller groups rather than consistently favouring the majority-group member.
That null result is important for interpreting the preschool finding. The researchers argue that the difference between infancy and preschool age is consistent with a preference developing as children begin independently navigating peer groups and social resources. However, the design does not identify the mechanism that produces the developmental change. Social learning, peer experience, cultural gender norms, maturation and other developmental processes may all contribute.
The infant result also should not be read as evidence that babies were unable to understand anything about the displays. Related work using the same paradigm indicates that infants can make systematic inferences about the coalitional motives of third parties. In the present research, what was absent was an average personal preference for one group member over the other.
The adult pattern echoed the preschool difference
The adult portion of the research included 3,467 participants. Men, on average, liked members of larger groups more than women did. The researchers also examined whether these abstract coalitional preferences related to broader attitudes about hierarchy and intergroup relations.
They found robust correlations between stronger majority-group preferences and political ideology. In the reported adult samples, preference for the larger group was positively associated with social dominance orientation, a psychological measure of preference for hierarchy between social groups. It was also associated with willingness to participate in ethnic persecution, support for militarism, and opposition to social welfare and minority aid.
These associations are striking because the group-size task itself used abstract stimuli rather than asking participants to choose between familiar political or ethnic groups. That makes it less likely that the correlations simply reflect reactions to the identity of a particular real-world group. At the same time, correlation does not establish that an abstract preference for larger groups causes later political beliefs. Adult ideology is shaped by many interacting influences, including family, institutions, social networks, education and historical context.
What the findings do and do not imply
The study’s central contribution is developmental. The same broad type of minimal group stimulus was used across infancy, preschool childhood and adulthood, allowing the researchers to ask when a sex-linked difference in majority-group preference becomes detectable. The pattern was absent among infants, present among preschool boys relative to girls, and visible again in adult men relative to women.
The authors interpret this as evidence that gendered motives related to group formidability may take shape in early childhood once children start navigating peer relationships more independently. Their theoretical account draws on research suggesting that male social competition has historically involved more coalition-based conflict. The present experiments, however, cannot by themselves separate evolutionary explanations from developmental and cultural ones.
It is equally important not to convert average group differences into assumptions about individuals. A statistical difference between male and female samples does not mean that every boy prefers larger groups, that every girl prefers smaller ones, or that adult political attitudes can be predicted from sex. The adult results themselves show meaningful variation within each group.
Why abstract group experiments are useful
Minimal-group methods can reveal psychological tendencies that are difficult to see when participants respond to familiar social categories. By removing names, histories and explicit status labels, researchers can examine whether something as basic as numerical strength changes social preference.
That simplicity is also a limitation. Real groups are not coloured shapes moving across a screen. People join, leave and evaluate groups based on shared values, identity, trust, kinship, reputation, institutions and personal experience. A preference observed in a stripped-down laboratory task therefore cannot be treated as a direct model of how someone will behave in a school, workplace, election or conflict.
Limitations and questions for future research
The study combines multiple age groups rather than following the same individuals from infancy into adulthood. It therefore identifies age-related differences across samples, not the developmental trajectory of any one person. Longitudinal research would be needed to test whether an early preference for stronger groups predicts later attitudes or whether such preferences change substantially with experience.
The research also cannot establish why the sex difference appears in preschool. Future studies across a wider range of societies could test how strongly the pattern depends on local gender norms, peer structures and childhood socialisation. Experiments that manipulate competitive and cooperative contexts could help determine whether larger-group preferences strengthen specifically when group conflict or resource competition becomes salient.
Finally, the links with adult political attitudes are correlational. They support the possibility that basic coalitional preferences form one psychological ingredient in attitudes toward social hierarchy, but they do not show that childhood preferences cause adult ideology. The most defensible conclusion is narrower: abstract preferences for group strength show a gendered pattern by preschool age, and related individual differences in adults covary with attitudes toward hierarchy.
Source Information
Study: Gendered motives for group formidability among children and adults
Authors: Erik K. Fonn, Joakim H. Zahl, Bjørn D. Kristensen and Lotte Thomsen
Journal: Nature Human Behaviour
Published: 2 October 2026
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02606-1
