3-036 - Stereotyping and Prejudice Among Youth: Lessons from Looking Across Domains

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Social stereotypes and prejudices are common among youth. These phenomena are also associated with a host of negative consequences, such as impaired information processing, self-stereotyping, and peer bullying. Developmental psychologists have increasingly sought to integrate literatures on multiple forms of stereotyping and prejudice (e.g., racial, gender), with the goal of constructing improved theoretical accounts of intergroup attitudes and behavior. Simultaneously, developmentalists are concerned with applying these newly generated theories to the problem of stereotyping and prejudice reduction. This symposium brings together papers on stereotyping and prejudice related to sexual orientation, gender, and class. The first paper documents the expression of stereotypes and prejudice toward lesbian, gay, and bisexual peers among middle school students. The second paper explores whether exposure to and discussions about gender discrimination and sexism are associated with proactive coping strategies in response to the gender discrimination faced by adolescents The final paper examines early elementary-school-age children’s responses to learning about economic inequality. A discussant, a senior scholar whose work addresses the formation and change of children’s intergroup attitudes, will focus on general mechanisms that appear to operate in formation and change of attitudes across forms of bias, as well as processes that appear unique to particular forms of bias.

Sub Unit

• Social Cognition

Chair

• Rebecca Sue Bigler, Univ of Texas-Austin

Discussant

• Rebecca Sue Bigler, Univ of Texas-Austin

Individual Presentations

• An Experimental Approach to Understanding Middle School Students' Stereotypes and Bias toward Ethnically Diverse LGB Peers - Presenting Author: Negin Ghavami, UCLA

• Discussions about Gender Discrimination: Links with Proactive Coping Responses and Gender Attitudes - Presenting Author: Christia Spears Brown, University of Kentucky; Campbell Leaper, University of California at Santa Cruz

• A Mixed-Methods Study of Learning About Poverty and Inequality in Primary Grade Classrooms - Presenting Author: Rashmita S. Mistry, University of California, Los Angeles; Lindsey Nenadal, University of California, Los Angeles; Katherine M Griffin, University of California, Los Angeles