Preschool Children's Attention to Environmental Messages About Groups: Social Categorization and the Origins of Intergroup Bias

Patterson, Meagan M.; Bigler, Rebecca S.

doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00906.x

Cited by 196 publications

(188 citation statements)

References 83 publications

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“…He, Baillargeon, and Premack (2011a) conducted a series of third-party experiments to address this question. Rather than using real-life social categories (e.g., categories based on age, race, gender, or language), He et al built on the well-established finding from social psychology that almost any salient basis for categorization, however minimal or arbitrary, can lead adults to categorize individuals into distinct social groups and foster preferential treatment of ingroup members (e.g., Ashbrun-Nardo, Voils, & Monteith, 2001;Brewer, 1999;Gregg, Seibt, & Banaji, 2006;Tajfel et al, 1971; for similar results with older children, see Dunham, Baron, & Carey, 2011;Master & Walton, 2013;Patterson & Bigler, 2006;Vaughan, Tajfel, & Williams, 1981). Accordingly, He et al created two novel social groups, using highly distinctive outfits as group markers, and asked whether 13-month-olds would detect a violation if a target individual helped an outgroup perpetrator who had stolen a toy from the target individual's ingroup member.…”

Section: Do Infants Expect Individuals To Co-retaliate Against Outgromentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychological and sociomoral reasoning in infancy.

Baillargeon¹,

Scott²,

He³

et al. 2015

APA Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology, Volume 1: Attitudes and Social Cognition.

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IntroductionConsider the following scene: A man wearing a backpack is pacing leisurely back and forth in a large airport room. As he strolls, he occasionally crosses his arms, twirls the dangling straps of his backpack, or stuffs his hands in his pant pockets. At one point, he sits down, takes off his backpack, and removes from it a bag filled with assorted gummy bears; as he peers intently inside the bag, he selects and eats, one at a time, five red gummy bears.As adults, we would have no difficulty interpreting the man's actions. We might view his initial actions-pacing, crossing his arms, and so on-as intentional (as opposed to accidental) though not as directed toward any particular goal. In contrast, we might perceive his subsequent actions-removing the bag of gummy bears from his backpack and eating five red ones in succession-as both intentional and goal-directed. In analyzing these actions, we might build an explanation that attributes to the man a causally coherent set of motivational and epistemic mental states: He wants to eat gummy bears, he is particularly fond of red ones, and so when he spies one in the bag, he removes it and eats it.Next, consider a new scene: As the man is happily chewing on red gummy bears, he notices a second man approaching who is carrying two heavy suitcases. At this point, our scene might unfold according to different scenarios. In one, the first man greets the second man, offers to carry one of the suitcases, and holds out his bag of gummy bears. In another scenario, the first man continues to watch the second man but makes no move to approach him. In yet another scenario, the first man sticks out a leg to trip the second man, causing him to fall heavily.As adults, we would interpret and evaluate the first man's actions in the three scenarios very differently. In the first scenario, we might infer that the two men have a social group in common: They might be friends, coworkers, or relatives, for example. In the second scenario, we 3 would conclude that the two men are strangers. In both the first and second scenarios, we would view the first man's behavior as acceptable: Offering help and sharing food are expected prosocial behaviors in interactions with ingroup, but not outgroup, individuals. In contrast, the first man's behavior in the third scenario would seem to us beyond the pale: Unprovoked harmful actions, even against outgroup individuals, are generally viewed as unacceptable. We would categorize the first man as an antisocial lout, and we might file away distinctive characteristics as possible markers of a social group to be avoided in the future.Our discussion of the two scenes above illustrates the rich analyses that adults spontaneously engage in when watching others act. What are the developmental origins of these interpretations? Over the past 25 years, there has been a great deal of research on social cognition in infancy. This research can be roughly organized into two sets of questions that map neatly onto the two scenes above. First, when watching an agen...

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Section: Do Infants Expect Individuals To Co-retaliate Against Outgromentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychological and sociomoral reasoning in infancy.

Baillargeon¹,

Scott²,

He³

et al. 2015

APA Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology, Volume 1: Attitudes and Social Cognition.

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show abstract

“…From 4-5 years, children favor those sharing transient features, arbitrarily assigned colored teams such as blue vs. red team that minimally define "in-group" characteristics (Patterson & Bigler, 2006). In the preschool years, such minimal group affiliation can determine significant social preference and in-group favoritism at both explicit and implicit levels (Dunham, Baron, & Carey, 2011).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

White Bias in 3–7-Year-Old Children across Cultures

2015

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Total Word Count (excluding abstract and references): 7,662 2 White bias in children across cultures Abstract (222) words)In 3 studies, we report data confirming and extending the finding of a tendency toward a White preference bias by young children of various ethnic backgrounds. European-American preschoolers who identify with a White doll also prefer it to a Black doll. In contrast, same age African-American children who identify with a Black doll do not show a significant preference for it over a White doll. These results are comparable in African American children attending either a racially mixed (heterogeneous), or an Afro-centric, all African American (homogenous) preschool. These results show the persistence of an observation that contributed to school desegregation in the United States (Clark & Clark, 1940;1947). Results also reveal a lack of congruence between skin color identity and preference is not limited to African Americans.There is a comparable, if not stronger White preference bias in five to seven-year-old Polynesian and Melanesian children tested in their native island nations. Using a modified procedure controlling for binary forced choice biases, we confirm these findings with second generation American children of Indian descent showing clear signs of a White (lighter skin preference) bias.These results are consistent with the idea that during the preschool years children are sensitive and attracted to signs of higher social status that, for historical reasons and across cultures, tends to be associated with lighter skin color.

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“…Indeed, both Ichheiser (1949) and Allport (1954Allport ( /1979 had once suggested that the visible differences can imply to the perception of real differences between racial and ethnic groups. The explicit labelling used by adults, such as teachers (Bigler, Brown, & Markell, 2001;Patterson & Bigler, 2006), was also found to influence children's attitudes toward other groups such as in the case of the Jewish children towards Arab (Bar-tal, 1996). Specifically, the explicit use of labelling by adults or authority figures allowed children to create links between the implicit messages, such as classroom posters, with the groups' social status (Bigler et al, 2001).…”

Section: The Developmental Intergroup Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Many Colors Children See: Development and Intervention of Children’s Social Prejudices

Pertiwi

2017

buletinpsikologi

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In light of the current socio-political situation that magnifies the majority-minority group division in the country, it is essential for parents and other elements of the society to discuss about how this situation may affect the development of the next generation. Both explicit and implicit information on social categorization provided by adults and other resources assist in the formation of children's stereotype and prejudice towards various social groups. This paper reviews empirical studies on the development of prejudice across childhood and the strategy that can potentially facilitates the reduction of prejudice among children. It is evident that children have begun to use social categories to describe different social groups from a very young age and promoting intergroup contact may be used as a promising solution to lower prejudice among children.

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Preschool Children's Attention to Environmental Messages About Groups: Social Categorization and the Origins of Intergroup Bias

Cited by 196 publications

References 83 publications

Psychological and sociomoral reasoning in infancy.

Psychological and sociomoral reasoning in infancy.

White Bias in 3–7-Year-Old Children across Cultures

The Many Colors Children See: Development and Intervention of Children’s Social Prejudices

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