Children’s Subjective Social Status and SES Essentialism Predict Resource and Inclusion Bias

• In Event: Understanding and Responding to Bias from Childhood to Adulthood

Abstract

Background: Young children often hold essentialist beliefs about social groups (i.e., believing groups share an underlaying and unchangeable reality) that are associated with prejudiced beliefs and behaviors (e.g., Cimpian & Salomon, 2014; Prentice & Miller, 2007; Rizzo et al., 2021). Thus, socioeconomic status (SES), being a prominent social categorization of U.S. society, may serve as a salient social group for young children as they learn to utilize social cues to categorize others (Developmental Intergroup Theory; Biger & Liben, 2006). Indeed, children as young as 4-years-old can recognize other’s SES (Adler et al., 2000; Tan et al., 2020). Moreover, children’s awareness and perception of their own social status relative to others (subjective social status, SSS) may also impact how children allocate resources towards and include or exclude others (e.g., Burkholder et al., 2021; Li et al., 2014). Here we ask: How then might children’s SES essentialism and SSS influence their cross-class social interactions?

Methods: Children ages 4 to 9-years-old (N = 127; 49.6% female; 54% White) completed the study in-person (prior to COVID-19). Participants selected a character card to represent themselves and were then presented with a small wooden ladder designed to represent different SES levels (e.g., “Kids at the top of the ladder have lots of toys and new clothes… kids at the bottom of the ladder don’t have any toys or new clothes”). After completing comprehension checks, participants were asked to place their character on the ladder based on their perceived subjective social status (SSS) and then completed survey items about SES essentialism (e.g., “Families cannot change their spot on the ladder”). Next, participants completed a series of resource allocation and inclusion tasks (within-subject, three trials for each task type) designed to make participants distribute either an unequal amount of resources between or choose only one of two peers of opposite SES backgrounds (one high-SES and one low-SES peer). Finally, participants were instructed to imagine they were members of the opposite SES group (i.e., low-SES children imagined they were now high-SES and vice versa) and completed the resource allocation and inclusion tasks again.

Results: Our analyses revealed that children’s SSS and SES essentialism beliefs mediate the relationship between age and inclusion and resource bias (i.e., giving more resources to or including more frequently a high-SES peer over a low-SES peer). Specifically, we find that with age, children’s SSS decreases and this is associated with decreased resource bias overall. Also, with age, children’s SES essentialism decreases and this is associated with decreases in inclusion bias (see Figure 1). Further, results show that with higher age and lower SSS or lower SES essentialism, children prioritize equity over equality by giving more resources to or including more frequently low- rather than high-SES peers (see Figure 2). Lastly, we find that older children and those with lower SES essentialism were more influenced by the group-switch manipulation. These findings elucidate developmental trends regarding children’s understanding of SES and suggest these beliefs about SES may influence social interactions with children of different SES backgrounds.

Authors

• Brenda Straka, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Presenting Author

• Analia Albuja, Duke Univeristy

• Jane Leer, Boston College

• Kaelah Brauher, Duke University

• Sarah Elizabeth Gaither, Duke Univeristy