Examining the Impact of Exposure to Diversity on Early Social Categorization

• In Event: Investigating the Development of Social Affiliation Across Infancy and Early Childhood

Abstract

A growing body of research suggests that the tendency to form meaningful social categories has its roots in infancy (e.g., Jin & Baillargeon, 2017; Liberman, Woodward & Kinzler, 2017). Because social categorization can have nefarious downstream consequences, it is important to determine which experiences may lead to less rigid social categorization. Here, we present two studies asking about a specific type of experience: exposure to diversity. In particular, we examine whether exposure to linguistic diversity impacts infants’ language-based social categorization (Study 1), and whether exposure to racial diversity impacts children’s race-based social categorization (Study 2).

Study 1 builds off of work showing that monolingual infants expect same-language speakers to share food preferences, but expect different-language speakers to have different food preferences (Liberman, Woodward, Sullivan, & Kinzler, 2016). This study replicated the previous research, but tested infants from all language backgrounds (so far, N = 63, planned N = 96). Parents were given the Language and Social Background Questionnaire (LSBQ; Anderson, Mak, Keyvani Chahi, & Bialystok, 2018) which measures exposure to linguistic diversity. Scores on the LSBQ were related to infants’ expectations about different-language speakers in the looking time task: infants with more exposure to linguistic diversity were more likely to expect different-language speakers to agree (β = 0.01, p = .002). Interestingly, exposure to linguistic diversity did not impact infants’ expectations about same-language speakers: regardless of language background, infants expected same-language speakers to agree (Figure 1).

Study 2 builds off of research on flexibility in children’s categorization (Rhodes & Gelman, 2009). Participants (4 to 9 year olds; N= 96) were introduced to an alien named Feppy. On each trial, Feppy saw 3 pictures, and categorized two as “the same.” Participants were asked whether Feppy’s choice was “wrong” or “maybe right.” Race trials depicted three children, two of whom were the same race (e.g., two Asian children, one Black child). Object trials depicted three objects, two of which were the same type (e.g., two tables and one bookcase). Feppy always matched children or objects of different types (e.g., saying an Asian child and a Black child were “the same”). Racial flexibility scores were calculated by subtracting each participant’s number of flexible object trials from the number of flexible race trials. Overall, children’s scores were positive: (M = 0.719; t(95) = 5.99, p < .001), suggesting they were more flexible on race categorization than object categorization. We also calculated the racial diversity that participants were exposed to using Shannon Entropy, which has been successfully used in sociology and political science (e.g., Shannon, 1948; White, 1986). Shannon Entropy increases as a child’s social network has a greater number of racial groups, and as the proportion of those racial groups become more equal. According to regression models, higher neighborhood racial entropy (β = 0.866; p = .008) and higher social network racial entropy (β = 0.511; p = .023) both led to more racial flexibility (Figure 2).

Taken together, these studies suggest that exposure to diversity can lower rigid social categorization early in life.

Author

• Zoe Liberman, University of California - Santa Barbara
  Presenting Author