Children's implicit and explicit ethnic group attitudes, ethnic group identification, and self-esteem

Abstract

An increasing amount of research explores how children distinguish different aspects of ethnic group attitudes. However, little work has focused on how these aspects tie in with other social and psychological processes. In the present study, 112 black and white children aged 5-, 7- and 9-years completed tests of implicit and explicit ethnic group attitudes, racial and ethnic identification, and self-esteem. Whereas all children exhibited coherent identification with ethnicity defined in terms of family ancestry, only black children identified with ethnicity as defined by racial colour terms. There were no differences in black and white children's self-esteem. Children from both ethnic groups stereotyped only the black character. This stereotyping was stable with age. Positivity was greater towards the black than the white target on implicit and explicit tasks. Negativity towards the white target was evidenced on the implicit task. Positivity, but not stereotyping, was greater on the explicit task compared with the implicit task. Black but not white children's in-group identification was associated with implicit in-group stereotypes. Self-esteem was related to in- and out-group stereotyping and positivity for white but not black children. The implications of these results for social identity development theory and social identity theory are discussed.

Cross-ethnic friendships: Are they really rare? Evidence from secondary schools around London

“…Ford (2008) indicated a generational decline in prejudice among young British children as a result of social contact between ethnic groups. Although Ford"s study is based on explicit prejudice which is known to be transformed into subtle forms (e.g., Dovidio & Gaertner, 1986;Pettigrew & Meertens, 1995), recent research in London has shown that White British children"s both explicit and implicit attitudes were positive for Black children (Davis, Leman, & Barrett, 2007). Also, in the current sample, perceived ethnic discrimination was generally low (with a mean of 1.47 on a scale from 1 to 5).…”

Findings, theories and methods in the study of children's national identifications and national attitudes

“…He suggests that alternative measures of children's implicit rather than explicit attitudes are therefore required to test between the two theories. However, evidence from recent studies using implicit measures (e.g., Davis, Leman & Barrett, 2007;Dunham, Baron & Banaji, 2006) do not support SIDT, with levels of implicit prejudice either remaining steady after 6-7 years of age or declining rather than increasing after this age. SIDT also has difficulty explaining why, in countries which have experienced inter-ethnic conflict or warfare, extreme negativity can be exhibited towards enemy groups at the age of 2-3 years (Bar-Tal, 1996;Bar-Tal & Teichman, 2005;Povrzanovi?, 1997).…”

“…These studies have found that SoIS item scores always load onto a single factor (eigenvalues ranging between 2.02 and 3.30; % of variance explained ranging between 40.8 and 80.1) and scale reliably (Cronbach's alpha ranging between .60 and .91, with the sole exception of young white children's racial identifications in the study by Davis et al, 2007, where the reliability was only .41). In addition, the test-retest reliability of the SoIS over an eight week period has been found to be .68 (Barrett, 2007).…”

“…The SoIS has previously been used to measure the strength of national, ethnic, racial and religious identification in various populations, including national identifications in white English 11-to 16-year-olds (Dixon, 2002;Forrest & Barrett, 2001), national identifications in 6-to 11-year-olds in Scotland and Wales (Penny, Barrett & Lyons, 2001;Trimby, 2005), national and ethnic identifications in an ethnically mixed group of 11-to 16-year-olds in London (Alexander, 2002), religious identifications in Muslim, Hindu and Christian 5-to 11-year-olds in England (Takriti, 2002), national, ethnic and religious identifications in English, Indian and Pakistani 7-to 11-year-olds (Vethanayagam & Barrett, 2007), racial and national identifications in 5-to 9-yearold children in England (Davis et al, 2007), national identifications in Iranian 11-to 17-year-olds in England and Iran (Sahlabadi, 2002), national identifications in 12-to 18-year-olds in Germany (Maehr, 2005), and ethnic and religious identifications in Albanian 8-to 13-year-olds in Greece (Manouka, 2001). These studies have found that SoIS item scores always load onto a single factor (eigenvalues ranging between 2.02 and 3.30; % of variance explained ranging between 40.8 and 80.1) and scale reliably (Cronbach's alpha ranging between .60 and .91, with the sole exception of young white children's racial identifications in the study by Davis et al, 2007, where the reliability was only .41).…”

Explicit and implicit attitudes of Scottish and Maltese children to national identity

“…This study will look to see whether such differences are present. The inclusion of implicit and explicit measures of prejudice within this study and a focus upon whether children can self-regulate their explicit prejudice, is aligned with recent theorists approaches (e.g., Chevalier & Blaye, 2009;Davis, Leman, & Barrett, 2007;Dunham, Baron, & Banaji, 2006;Lorsbech & Reimer, 2008, 2011Marcovitch, Boseovski, & Knapp, 2007;Rutland, Cameron, Milne, & McGeorge, 2005) and will allow for an examination of the developmental sequence proposed by Devine (1989), that children first learn stereotypical labels associated with particular social groups (or categories); and it is only later that they develop the cognitive ability and flexibility to evaluate critically such stereotype's validity and acceptability. The advantage of this approach is that it provides a common ground for the use of implicitÁexplicit distinction in this field of research.…”