"As a psychologist, I’m going to say we have to think about the environment, we have to think about the messages children are exposed to," says Dr. Kilbey. "We talk about parents and the influence of the media, but what really blew my mind and made me actually screech ‘Jude!’ was something I’d never seen before: he converted and co-opted the other boys into his portrayal of girls. That’s what made me scream. We completely underestimate the influence of the peer group. Even at such a young age, they’ve had a year of this peer group at school by the time we get to them on the show. So yes it’s parents and yes it’s broader society but hang on a minute, it’s also their peers. That just brings a whole new fascinating layer into it." So is Jude destined to be a sexist adult because he’s behaving this way now? Will he always try to influence the guys around him to be sexist, too? "We are talking about 5-year-olds here so I think we have to remain in context," says Dr. Kilbey. "We have to resist the urge to extrapolate and say 'Therefore this means that…' Because there’s quite a lot of developing that goes on between being 5 and being an adult. What it tells us I think is what our mechanisms of influence are. I don’t know how we can predict how these children will behave as adults but what we can say is that they are shaping their own peer group and that peer group is shaping them, in a kind of cycle. If the peer group they’re in are confirming the gender stereotypes they understand, then yes they will carry that onto adult life – unless there is a different path taken. Then absolutely you can see that the train has left the station to where this developmental journey is going." This is fascinating, to me. We can tell the difference in empathy between girls and boys as early as 3 to 4 months, and we may have laid the foundations for our attitude towards gender by the time we are 5. And our peers influence us as much as parents, school and the media. Watching Jude do his girly impression and talking to Dr. Kilbey afterwards, I can’t help but think this is how locker-room banter among boys starts. It’s difficult to watch this show without extrapolating what these kids do to adult behaviour. Just like them, we’re heavily influenced by the people around us and how they see gender. Thankfully, our brains and social consciences have grown a little since we were 5. Well, most of ours have, anyway.