Poster #192 - Children’s differential attribution of cognitions, emotions, and intentions based on racial group membership

• In Event: 2-055 - Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Section - Social Cognition

Integrative Statement

The ability to reason about the mental states of others emerges in a series of conceptual advances across early childhood (Wellman & Liu, 2004). Although there is a robust body of work documenting the unfolding of this knowledge, less is known about how children utilize their understanding of mental states within their broader social context. One important factor that may influence children’s attribution of mental states is a target’s membership in social categories such as gender or race. Group membership is a key social phenomenon to which even very young children have been shown to be keenly attuned (Hirschfeld, 2014). However, little is known about how group membership impacts mental state reasoning.

Extending work on dehumanization in adults (Leyens et al., 2000), there is some evidence that young children perceive outgroup members as experiencing fewer uniquely-human, secondary emotions relative to ingroup members (Costello & Hodson, 2014; Martin, Bennett, & Murray, 2008). One recent study (McLoughlin & Over, 2017) has also suggested that children may use a greater number of and more varied mental state words to describe ingroup (based on gender and geographic location) versus outgroup members. However, more work is needed to investigate the extent to which children differentially attribute mental states based on group membership. The aim of the present study was to test whether children attribute a broad range of mental states differently on the basis of the highly-salient social category of race.

Eight-three White 5.5- to 8-year-olds (M = 7.2) completed a forced-choice card sort task. Children were presented with a series mental state attributions across the domains of cognition (e.g., “thinks a lot”), emotion (e.g., “has really strong feelings”), and intention (e.g., “does things for a reason”; see Table 1 for the full list of items). Children were asked to choose which character each attribute applied to from a pair of gender-matched racial ingroup (White) and outgroup (Black) targets.

Differences between the number of mental state attributes assigned to White versus Black targets were examined across the dimensions of cognitions, emotions, and intentions. As depicted in Figure 1, children attributed significantly more cognitions and intentions to White versus Black targets. However, the pattern was reversed for emotions: children attributed significantly more emotions to Black versus White targets. Children also endorsed more general liking (e.g., “is a nice kid”) of the White targets, confirming the sensitivity of this measure. A median-split based on age suggested that the differences in attributions of cognitions and intentions were driven primarily by younger children whereas the difference in attributions of emotions was driven mainly by older children.

Together, these results suggest that children indeed engage in mental state reasoning differently for ingroup and outgroup members. Additional analyses will examine relations between these effects and other critical child measures including (1) implicit and explicit attitudes towards racial outgroup members, (2) exposure to diversity, and (3) parent socialization about race. The important implications of these findings for both models of theory of mind development and social bias formation will be considered.

Authors

• Wyntre Stout, Lehigh University
  Presenting Author

• Amanda C Brandone, Lehigh University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Deborah June Laible, Lehigh University
  Non-Presenting Author