Andrei Cimpian
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andreicimpian.bsky.social
Andrei Cimpian
@andreicimpian.bsky.social
380 followers 180 following 79 posts
Professor, Department of Psychology, New York University
Research: gender, stereotypes, motivation, explanation
President, @cogdevsoc.bsky.social
Married to @joecimpian.bsky.social
Website: https://cimpianlab.com
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andreicimpian.bsky.social
Thank you! Excited for our upcoming collaborative contribution on this topic as well! 🤗
January 16, 2026 at 4:52 PM
andreicimpian.bsky.social
Paper now out in the special issue of JEP:G @apajournals.bsky.social on Political Thinking (editors: Boli Reyes-Jaquez & Tamar Kushnir)

psycnet.apa.org/PsycARTICLES...

8/8
APA PsycNet
psycnet.apa.org
January 16, 2026 at 3:47 PM
andreicimpian.bsky.social
Grateful to my wonderful collaborators @rachelesh.bsky.social, @reutshachnai.bsky.social (co-first authors), @yuchentian.bsky.social, & Minghui Wang

Free pdf: drive.google.com/file/d/1_m9Q...

7/8
LeshinShachnaiTianWangCimpian_JEPG.pdf
drive.google.com
January 16, 2026 at 3:47 PM
andreicimpian.bsky.social
A practical implication (with many caveats: cross-sectional, convenience samples, self-report):

Encouraging girls' political aspirations early -- through family, friends, and community -- may help reduce gender gaps in political ambition.

6/8
January 16, 2026 at 3:47 PM
andreicimpian.bsky.social
How kids conceived of political leaders -- along three dimensions (dominance, charisma, fallibility) -- did not relate to their ambitions. Their concepts didn't consistently predict motivation in either country.

For those of you who like data, here is our factor analysis of kids' concepts.

5/8
To examine whether the traits constitute psychometrically distinct facets of children’s concepts of political leaders, we submitted all 20 items to a factor analysis (with principal axis factoring as the extraction method) separately for the U.S. and Chinese samples. The purpose of the factor analysis was to examine whether children conceptualize political leaders along dimensions previously established in the adult literature. To maintain our bottom-up approach and capture the full range of traits that might shape children’s concepts of political leaders, we included both the obligatory and the permissible traits in a single factor analysis rather than analyzing them separately. Parallel analyses (Horn, 1965) identified a three-factor solution as the best fit to the data in both countries. The traits that loaded onto each factor in this solution after an oblique rotation overlapped substantially across the two countries (see Table 2). Thus, to allow for descriptive comparisons between the United States and China, we selected the traits that loaded at .30 or higher onto the same factor in both countries and averaged their endorsement to form three composite measures of children’s concepts.
January 16, 2026 at 3:47 PM
andreicimpian.bsky.social
US girls expected more support than boys. Chinese girls expected less.

But -- again -- in both places, support was more strongly linked to ambition for girls.

4/8
Overall, children in the United States and China expected moderate to high levels of social support for their leadership ambitions (see Supplemental Table S1), with marked differences by gender and, in the United States, age. In the United States, older children anticipated more social support than younger ones (b = 0.08, SE = 0.02, p < .001; see Figure 1), and girls anticipated more social support than boys (b = 0.22, SE = 0.09, p = .021). Among Chinese children, we found a gender difference in the opposite direction to that observed in the United States. That is, Chinese boys expected to receive more social support than Chinese girls (b = −0.24, SE = 0.10, p = .019; see Figure 1).
January 16, 2026 at 3:47 PM
andreicimpian.bsky.social
Also important:

This link was stronger for girls than boys.

For example, among younger US kids, the association between anticipated support and interest in becoming president was more than twice as large for girls.

3/8
Figure 4 U.S. (Left) and Chinese (Right) Children’s Self-Efficacy as Political Leaders (Relative to an Other-Gender Peer) as a Function of Gender and Anticipated Social Support. With respect to children’s interest in political leadership, we observed that in the United States, the more social support children perceived for their political ambitions, the more interest they reported in becoming president (b = 0.59, SE = 0.12, p < .001). Importantly, this relation was qualified by a three-way interaction among age, gender, and perceived social support (b = –0.25, SE = 0.12, p = .045; see Figure 3). To interpret this interaction, we examined the two-way interaction between gender and anticipated social support separately for younger children (below the median age of 8.36 years) and older children (above this median age). Among younger children, anticipated social support was significantly associated with both boys’ and girls’ interest in becoming president, but it was more than twice as strong a predictor for girls (b = 1.05, SE = 0.22, p < .001) than for boys (b = 0.42, SE = 0.18, p = .019). For older children, perceived social support did not significantly predict either boys’ or girls’ interest in becoming president (ps > .099). In China, we observed a similarly strong positive relation between perceived social support and interest as we did in the United States. That is, the more social support children perceived for their political leadership aspirations, the stronger their reported interest in becoming chairman (b = 0.51, SE = 0.14, p < .001; see Figure 3). Unlike in the United States, however, this relation was not moderated by children’s gender or age (ps > .24). Figure 4. U.S. (Left) and Chinese (Right) Children’s Self-Efficacy as Political Leaders (Relative to an Other-Gender Peer) as a Function of Gender and Anticipated Social Support. With respect to children’s self-efficacy, we observed that in the United States, the more social support children perceived for their political leadership aspirations, the more self-efficacious they felt as future presidents (b = 0.38, SE = 0.10, p < .001; see Figure 4), with no moderation by children’s gender or age (ps > .12). We observed a similar pattern among children in China—that is, the more social support children anticipated, the more self-efficacious they felt as future chairmen—but with moderation by children’s gender (b = 0.62, SE = 0.22, p = .004; see Figure 4). Unpacking this two-way interaction, we found that anticipated social support was a positive predictor of Chinese girls’ self-efficacy as chairmen (b = 0.41, SE = 0.12, p = .001) but was unrelated to Chinese boys’ self-efficacy (b = −0.21, SE = 0.18, p = .23).
January 16, 2026 at 3:47 PM
andreicimpian.bsky.social
We looked at two factors:

1) how kids think about political leaders

2) the social support they expect for their own political aspirations

Main finding:

Kids who expected support from family and friends reported higher political ambition. This held in both countries.

2/8
January 16, 2026 at 3:47 PM
andreicimpian.bsky.social
Good question! See pp. 19-23 in the supplement. Key bit of script below.
January 6, 2026 at 7:14 PM
andreicimpian.bsky.social
Indeed.
January 6, 2026 at 6:20 PM
andreicimpian.bsky.social
Thanks for your interest! The kids were between 5 and 9 years of age.
January 6, 2026 at 6:19 PM
andreicimpian.bsky.social
Thanks for the kind words, Lisa! 😊
January 6, 2026 at 6:16 PM
andreicimpian.bsky.social
Yes, interesting question: Is it approach or avoidance? Are you actively seeking approval (approach) or trying to avoid disapproval (avoidance)? Our data don't differentiate these. (But importantly, both would count as "affiliative" -- both maintain the bond with the group, in different ways.)
January 6, 2026 at 6:14 PM
andreicimpian.bsky.social
Yes, your interpretation is right, including the role of peer pressure. (Although "peer pressure" sounds like some of these behaviors are imposed, whereas in reality kids are often freely choosing to endorse the ingroup's claims because they want to be accepted, etc.)
January 6, 2026 at 6:11 PM
andreicimpian.bsky.social
Related: My colleagues and I have also been speculating about individual differences in proto-political ideologies (RWA, SDO) -- e.g., here:

1) drive.google.com/file/d/1UvN2...

2) drive.google.com/file/d/1bUOB...
ReifenTagarZreikCimpianShenhav_JEPG.pdf
drive.google.com
January 6, 2026 at 6:08 PM
andreicimpian.bsky.social
Totally agreed! I find the individual difference angle fascinating. Here's some relevant work in adults: doi.org/10.1111/j.14...
doi.org
January 6, 2026 at 6:08 PM
andreicimpian.bsky.social
Thanks, Jennifer! Very kind of you to say. Happy new year!
January 6, 2026 at 3:27 PM
andreicimpian.bsky.social
Full paper + supplement: doi.org/10.31234/osf...

With amazing 1st author Bethany Lassetter + @nataliehutchins.bsky.social, @lucaspbutler.bsky.social

Building on work by @jayvanbavel.bsky.social, @candicemmills.bsky.social, @lkfazio.bsky.social, @pearlhanli.bsky.social, & many others!

11/11
OSF
doi.org
January 6, 2026 at 3:03 PM
andreicimpian.bsky.social
This matters for understanding misinformation and polarization. If partisan endorsement starts as social signaling, it may gradually become genuine belief through repetition and self-perception.

What begins as fitting in may end as sincere conviction.

10/11
January 6, 2026 at 3:03 PM
andreicimpian.bsky.social
Putting it all together: Children's partisan endorsement looks more like affiliative "cheerleading" than epistemic trust.

Public agreement with the group may be less about belief and more about belonging.

9/11
January 6, 2026 at 3:03 PM