Salience of race in young children's cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses to social environments

Context Influences Preschool Children's Decisions to Include a Peer with a Physical Disability in Play

“…Others have found that young children may use overt physical characteristics, such as race and gender, as a basis for discriminations among potential playmates (Ramsey & Myers, 1990). Even though preschool children do not have a complete understanding of what it might mean to have a disability, our findings suggest that disability, particularly one associated with easily recognized equipment such as a wheelchair, may serve as a basis for discriminating among potential playmates for some types of activities.…”

The economics of identity: The origin and persistence of racial identity norms

“…If the majority of othergroup parents raise their children to accept the binary descriptor, then it is in the best interest of all own-group parents to raise their children to accept the binary descriptor. McGuire et al (1978) and Ramsey and Myers (1990) observed that children take notice of their race or ethnicity more spontaneously when their group is in the minority. Semons (1991) reported that the significance of racial identity to Black and White adolescents increased when they were in the presence of peers of the other racial group and that both groups were cognizant of the history of inter-group conflict between Blacks and Whites.…”

Ethnic Cognition and Affect of British-Born Chinese Children

“…The latter pattern is in line with the existing research findings of other British children (e.g., Lam et al, 2011) and those of children from most other countries (Aboud, 1988;Katz & Kofkin, 1997). This finding also supports the idea that, provided that other categorical and non-categorical attributes are available, ethnicity does not offer the most salient characteristics for person perception (cf., Bennett et al, 1991;Ramsey & Myers, 1990). This was the case in spite of the current context-being a study about ethnic cognition and affect conducted within a Chinese community school setting-which was considered to potentially raise the salience of ethnicity.…”

“…For the younger preoperational child, the key cognitive skill that is pertinent for person perception is perceptual categorisation, such as object classification, which requires the child being able to register both similarities and differences between group members along multiple dimensions (e.g., Bigler, Jones, & Lobliner, 1997;Ramsey & Myers, 1990). In this vein children evaluate group members in such a way where those similar to themselves are liked or seen as "good", and those more different are less liked or perceived as "bad", due to the focus on the self with perception dominated by affective processes featuring a fear of the unfamiliar (Aboud, 1988).…”