Young children perceive less humanness in outgroup faces

McLoughlin, Niamh; Tipper, Steven P.; Over, Harriet

doi:10.1111/desc.12539

Cited by 47 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…Dispositional levels of anthropomorphism and dehumanization work in concert with knowledge and stimulus cues. Similarly, not only are developmental considerations important to further our understanding of the behavioral and brain mechanisms supporting the attribution of socialness, they are crucial given that both children and the elderly are target groups for the deployment of social robots, and age‐dependent effects have been reported with regard to socialness attribution . Finally, group and cultural differences that determine the scope of attribution of socialness are likely at play.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From automata to animate beings: the scope and limits of attributing socialness to artificial agents

Hortensius

Cross

2018

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

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Understanding the mechanisms and consequences of attributing socialness to artificial agents has important implications for how we can use technology to lead more productive and fulfilling lives. Here, we integrate recent findings on the factors that shape behavioral and brain mechanisms that support social interactions between humans and artificial agents. We review how visual features of an agent, as well as knowledge factors within the human observer, shape attributions across dimensions of socialness. We explore how anthropomorphism and dehumanization further influence how we perceive and interact with artificial agents. Based on these findings, we argue that the cognitive reconstruction within the human observer is likely to be far more crucial in shaping our interactions with artificial agents than previously thought, while the artificial agent's visual features are possibly of lesser importance. We combine these findings to provide an integrative theoretical account based on the "like me" hypothesis, and discuss the key role played by the Theory-of-Mind network, especially the temporal parietal junction, in the shift from mechanistic to social attributions. We conclude by highlighting outstanding questions on the impact of long-term interactions with artificial agents on the behavioral and brain mechanisms of attributing socialness to these agents.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From automata to animate beings: the scope and limits of attributing socialness to artificial agents

Hortensius

Cross

2018

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

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“…McLoughlin and Over () found that 5‐ and 6‐year‐olds used more mental state words (e.g., knowing, deciding, pretending, tricking) to describe characters they believed were from their in‐group (same‐gender or from the same geographical region) compared to out‐group members. In another study, McLoughlin, Tipper, and Over () found that children perceived less humanness in out‐group members compared to in‐group members. Prejudice toward dissimilar out‐groups was not directly measured in these studies, yet some form of in‐group favoritism (i.e., prejudice) might also be related to children's mentalizing (Brown, ; McLoughlin & Over, ).…”

Section: Mindreading For In‐group Vs Out‐groupmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Because our sample consisted of Turkish children, the target in‐group was Turkish. This allowed us to examine whether previous studies’ findings regarding mindreading in out‐group members (e.g., McLoughlin et al., ) would extend beyond children in Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) cultures. In addition, whereas past research examined a single out‐group, this study used two out‐groups (Syrians and Northern Europeans), allowing us to compare similarity, threat and prejudice as contributors to mindreading.…”

Section: Mindreading For In‐group Vs Out‐groupmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Capricious Nature of Theory of Mind: Does Mental State Understanding Depend on the Characteristics of the Target?

et al. 2019

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Using a between‐groups design and random assignment, this study examined 214 Turkish children's (M = 11.66 years) mindreading and general reasoning about in‐group members (Turks), similar out‐group members (Syrians within Turkey) and dissimilar out‐group members (Northern Europeans). Children heard four mindreading and four general reasoning stories with in‐group or out‐group members as targets. Whereas children's general reasoning about three groups was equivalent, accuracy of mental state inferences differed by target with more accurate mindreading of in‐group targets compared to both sets of out‐group targets. In this Turkish sample, mindreading of Syrian targets was the least accurate. Prejudice and perceived realistic threat predicted lower mindreading. These findings have important implications for understanding how similarity and intergroup processes play a role in children's mindreading.

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“…For example, by the age of five, children prefer members of their own gender, language and racial group on both explicit and implicit measures (Aboud, ; Dunham, Baron, & Banaji, ; Kinzler, Dupoux, & Spelke, ). Young children growing up in a number of different cultural contexts are also observed to report greater liking for national and ethnic ingroup members compared to individuals whose national or ethnic identity is different to their own (Bar‐Tal, ; Bennett, Barrett, Karakozov, Kipiani, Lyons, Pavlenko, & Riazanova, ; Cameron, Rutland, Brown, & Douch, ; McLoughlin, Tipper, & Over, ). These social group preferences extend to how prosocial children are towards other people.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Encouraging children to mentalise about a perceived outgroup increases prosocial behaviour towards outgroup members

McLoughlin

Over

2018

Developmental Science

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We investigated whether encouraging young children to discuss the mental states of an immigrant group would elicit more prosocial behaviour towards them and impact on their perception of a group member's emotional experience. Five‐ and 6‐year‐old children were either prompted to talk about the thoughts and feelings of this social group or to talk about their actions. Across two studies, we found that this manipulation increased the extent to which children shared with a novel member of the immigrant group who was the victim of a minor transgression. The manipulation did not lead to greater sharing towards a victim from the children's own culture and did not influence their perception of a victim's negative emotions. These results may ultimately have implications for interventions aimed at fostering positive intergroup relations within the context of immigration.

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Young children perceive less humanness in outgroup faces

Abstract: Article:McLoughlin, Niamh Caitriona, Tipper, Steven Paul orcid.org/0000-0002-7066-1117 and Over, Harriet orcid.org/0000-0001-9461-043X (2017) Young children perceive less humanness in outgroup faces.

Cited by 47 publications

References 69 publications

From automata to animate beings: the scope and limits of attributing socialness to artificial agents

From automata to animate beings: the scope and limits of attributing socialness to artificial agents

The Capricious Nature of Theory of Mind: Does Mental State Understanding Depend on the Characteristics of the Target?

Encouraging children to mentalise about a perceived outgroup increases prosocial behaviour towards outgroup members

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