Beliefs about social norms and racial inequalities predict variation in the early development of racial bias

Abstract

Bruneau passed away on September 30th, 2020. A memoriam about his life and accomplishments can be found here: https:// www.asc.upenn.edu/newsevents/news/memoriam-emilebruneau-peace-and-conflictneuroscientist

Imagination and social cognition in childhood

“…The final consequence of complexity is the potential for making mistakes. Attribution biases in children (Over et al, 2018;Rizzo et al, 2021), like attribution errors in adults, can result from only thinking about the most likely or available alternatives to inform interpretation (Heck et al, 2021). What counts as likely or available will depend on individual experience, and on causal principles that are most enforced by the surrounding culture.…”

Developmental Origins of Anti-Black Bias in White Children in the United States: Exposure to and Beliefs about Racial Inequality

“…Specifically, we expected that children who believe that racial inequalities are caused by intrinsic differences between people would hold more racial biases because they are coming to view race and status as inherently linked, whereas children who believe that inequalities are caused by extrinsic factors would hold fewer racial biases because of the recognition that it would be unfair and inaccurate to judge people based off these extrinsic circumstances. To shed light on this mechanism, we assessed children's endorsement of intrinsic and extrinsic explanations for racial inequalities, children's exposure to racial inequality in their residential zip code (i.e., Black/White disparities in income and education with children's age as a measure of the duration of exposure), and children's racial biases using two standard assessments of bias in childhood (i.e., children's choice to play with and attitudes about peers from different racial backgrounds [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] ). We then examined how children's exposure to and beliefs about racial inequalities interact to predict variation in anti-Black biases during childhood.…”

“…Explicit anti-Black biases emerge early and continue to develop throughout childhood 12 . By 4-5-years of age, children-and White children in particular-hold more negative attitudes towards Black than White peers, attribute more negative intentions to Black than White peers, and are less likely to form friendships with Black than White peers [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] . These biases are consequential: the vast majority of Black children and adolescents report experiencing racial prejudice and discrimination and suffer from increased stress, decreased social belonging, and restricted educational and extracurricular opportunities because of these experiences [15][16][17] .…”

“…Early emerging biases also serve as the developmental roots for the racial bias, prejudice, and discrimination that become deeply entrenched in adolescence and adulthood and lead people to support racist social policies [18][19][20] . Importantly, there is also substantial individual variation in the early development of racial bias-some children develop more racial biases than others 12,13 .…”

“…In the present study, we used a novel online platform for conducting remote, unmoderated psychological research with children 21 to examine the environmental and psychological factors that predict the development of anti-Black bias in a sample of 646 4-8-yearold White children (300 female, 346 male) living across the United States. We focused on White children in this age range because they are particularly likely to develop anti-Black biases and hold disproportionate power and influence over social contexts by virtue of their racial privilege [3][4][5][12][13] . Children participated from 464 unique zip codes representing 47 different states; this degree of cultural, geographic, and socioeconomic diversity allowed for an analysis of the variance in children's environment that is not possible with traditional, in-person, approaches to developmental science.…”