2-085 - Power, privilege, and position: How children use and reinforce social hierarchies

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Children are born into social hierarchies, with some groups possessing greater power, privilege, and position than others, frequently resulting in unfair status inequalities. For instance, White people occupy a higher social position than Black people, and men occupy a higher social position than women (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). Early on, children have nuanced representations of hierarchy (Gulgoz & Gelman, 2017), learn about hierarchy from their environment (Olson et al., 2012), develop preferences for high-status groups (Horwitz et al., 2014), and attempt to rectify inequalities (Elenbaas & Killen, 2016). Yet much is unknown about how children acquire concepts of hierarchy, and whether they connect hierarchies to unfair access to power, privilege and position. This symposium addresses this issue.

The first paper suggests that early exposure to gender pay gaps influences children (and adults) to infer that male-dominated jobs, compared to female-dominated jobs, are more difficult and prestigious. The second paper suggests that U.S. Christian children conceptualize God as a White man, and that this concept predicts perceiving White men as more “boss-like” than Black people and women. The third paper suggests that children infer that high-status, but not low-status groups, can determine other people’s social position. Collectively, these papers suggest that children acquire concepts of hierarchy through several means (e.g., environmental cues, religious iconography) and that these concepts have hierarchy-enhancing consequences. The discussant, an expert on children’s perceptions of inequality, will discuss the impact of these papers on furthering our understanding regarding development of status hierarchies and the connections to inequality.

Sub Unit

• Social Cognition

Chair

• Steven O. Roberts, Stanford University

Discussant

• Melanie Killen, University of Maryland

Individual Presentations

• Early exposure to gender inequality shapes children’s beliefs about gender and job status - Presenting Author: Lin Bian, Cornell University; Non-Presenting Author: Andrei Cimpian, New York University

• God as a White man - Presenting Author: Steven O. Roberts, Stanford University; Non-Presenting Author: Michelle Wang, Stanford University; Non-Presenting Author: Jonathan D. Lane, Vanderbilt University; Non-Presenting Author: Camilla Griffiths, Stanford University; Non-Presenting Author: Kiara Sanchez, Stanford University; Non-Presenting Author: Amber Williams, California Polytechnic State University; Non-Presenting Author: Mishaela Robison, Stanford University

• Caste and hierarchy: Children’s emerging belief that powerful groups can impose social roles - Presenting Author: Alexander Noyes, Yale University; Non-Presenting Author: Emily Gerdin, Yale University; Non-Presenting Author: Yarrow Dunham, Yale