Singaporean Children’s Implicit Ethnic Stereotypes about Intelligence

• In Event: 2-131 - Intergroup Stereotypes about STEM and Intellectual Abilities: Interdisciplinary Evidence from Singapore, USA, and Chile

Integrative Statement

Negative stereotypes about ethnic minority groups’ intellectual abilities (e.g., that African Americans are not smart) have a host of detrimental effects on the members of these groups (Steele, 1997). For instance, these stereotypes create a sense of psychological threat and undermine minority individuals’ performance in a range of situations (Walton & Cohen, 2007; Steele & Aronson, 1995). Over time, these stereotypes can create or maintain racial achievement gaps in contexts where intellectual ability is valued (Cohen et al., 2006; Leslie et al., 2015).

Although the presence and effects of ethnic stereotypes about intelligence have been well-documented among US adults, there is little research that investigates these beliefs in non-Western cultural contexts, and even less research examining their acquisition. The present study seeks to fill this gap in the literature.

We used an Implicit Association Test (Greenwald et al., 2003) to examine the acquisition of (implicit) ethnic stereotypes about intelligence among Singaporean children. Although racial/ethnic equality is formally taught as part of character education by Singapore’s Ministry of Education in elementary schools, we hypothesized that children will nevertheless associate intelligence with the majority ethnic group (Chinese) more than the largest minority group (Malay).

We recruited 43 Singaporean children aged 7 to 11 years (Mage = 9.46, 44.2% girls). To explore the sources of children’s stereotypes, we also tested the parents of 29 of these children. Both children and parents completed two IATs, in random order. One IAT assessed whether participants associate Chinese and Malay individuals (depicted as child-friendly cartoons) with the trait “smart” more than the control trait “creative” (selected to be similar in content and positivity to “smart”). The other IAT was the same, except the control trait was “strong.” Testing “smart” against two control traits allowed us to more accurately assess Singaporean children’s intelligence stereotypes. The two IATs were separated by a 5-minute break. A D-score was computed based on participants’ reaction times during the IAT, with a higher D-score indicating a stronger implicit association between Chinese (majority) individuals and “smart.

Strikingly, both children and their parents associated “smart” with Chinese over Malay individuals in both IATs (see Figure 1). Parents’ stereotypic associations were stronger than children’s, t(70) = 2.66, p < .01. These results suggest that implicit ethnic stereotypes about intelligence are found among both adults and children in a non-Western context where equality is explicitly (and legally) the norm. In addition, the more a parent associated Chinese with intelligence, the more their child tended to do so as well, r(27) = 0.34, p = .07, suggesting that these stereotypes may be transmitted in part via socialization.

It is also important to ask whether both majority and minority children display these stereotypes. The preliminary results from the 6 Malay children in our sample (data collection is ongoing) suggest that, although Malay children’s D-scores are lower than Chinese children’s, they are nevertheless positive (indicating a Chinese-“smart” association).

The present study fills an overlooked gap in the literature and contributes important information on the acquisition of ethnic stereotypes about intelligence.

Authors

• Peipei Setoh, Nanyang Technological University
  Presenting Author

• Siqi Zhao, Nanyang Technological University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Daniel Storage, University of Denver
  Non-Presenting Author

• Andrei Cimpian, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author