Reducing Racial Prejudice and Stereotypes in Childhood: New Evidence for Debiasing Programs

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

The city of Minneapolis has been at the center of recent societal changes associated with the Black Lives Matter Movement. This revolutionary moment is inviting developmental psychologists to be a part of the solution to the pernicious problems associated with racial biases. Because these biases are very difficult to change after they have become entrenched, it is essential to find ways to prevent them from developing or to reduce them in early development. This symposium integrates the most recent research on approaches to reduce racial bias in childhood. The first speaker explores parents’ beliefs about their own and other children’s racial prejudice and bias. The second speaker moves into the question of attitude change and explores a community-based intervention leveraging parent-child conversations to reduce racial prejudice and biases. The third speaker tests reductions in children’s implicit and explicit attitudes using cross-race physical exercise. Finally, the fourth speaker compares three theoretically grounded interventions intended to reduce children’s negative attitudes toward low-status groups. Together, these diverse experiments–varying in age groups, measures (implicit and explicit), and methods of intervention–can shed new light on our theories of the malleability of racial attitudes in childhood and informs interventions to reduce racial prejudice and biases in childhood.

Sub Unit

• Solicited Content: Anti-Bias Research or Interventions

Chair

• Miao Qian, University of Detroit Mercy

Individual Presentations

• Parents underestimate children’s racial bias, especially when considering their own children - Presenting Author: Katharine Scott, Northwestern University; Non-Presenting Author: Bailey Immel, University of California - Santa Barbara; Non-Presenting Author: MaKayla Liebeck, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Non-Presenting Author: Patricia G. Devine, University of Wissonsin; Non-Presenting Author: Kristin Shutts, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Preempting the Development of Racial Bias: Parental Intervention Approaches - Presenting Author: Michael Thomas Rizzo, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: Marjorie Rhodes, New York University

• Reducing children’s implicit and explicit racial biases through physical exercise - Presenting Author: Miao Qian, University of Detroit Mercy; Non-Presenting Author: Gail D Heyman, University of California - San Diego; Non-Presenting Author: Paul C Quinn, University of Delaware; Non-Presenting Author: Genyue Fu, Hangzhou Normal University; Non-Presenting Author: Kang Lee, University of Toronto

• What Can We Tell Children to Improve Their Attitudes Toward Low-status Groups - Presenting Author: Vivian Liu, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: Andrei Cimpian, New York University