The role of ethnic identity in children’s selective trust in others

Abstract

The present research examined the roles of informant ethnicity and early ethnic identity development in guiding children’s selective trust across scenarios, comparing White and Chinese Canadian children with children adopted from China by White parents. Experiments 1 and 2 investigated children’s selective learning from two contrasting sources that differed in race (White versus Chinese) and spoken accent (native versus foreign accent). Experiment 1 (White experimenter) indicated that the White children preferred to learn from White informants when race was the only cue to ethnic group status; no preference was observed when race was pitted against accent. The Chinese and adopted children showed no learning preference. Children’s social preference for same-race peers was associated with a preference to learn from same-race informants. Experiment 2 (Chinese experimenter) had similar findings, except that there was no relationship between children’s racial preference and selective learning. Experiment 3 explored children’s selective credulity toward misinformation from a single source. The Chinese children were credulous toward both Chinese and White (native- or foreign-accented) informants but the White and adopted children were not credulous or skeptical, regardless of the informant’s race and accent. The present findings contribute to our understanding of how ethnic intergroup attitudes develop in children of different ethnic and social-status backgrounds, including minority-status children that reside with majority-status parents, and provide practical implications for real-world issues related to children’s eyewitness testimony in forensic contexts.