The Out-Group Homogeneity Effect Across Development

• In Event: 3-228 - The Essence of my Group and Yours: Using Research on Essentialism to Clarify Intergroup Processes

Integrative Statement

Adults typically hold discriminatory attitudes that favor their “in-group” and undermine their “out-group.” One reason for such discriminatory attitudes is that whereas the in-group is construed as consisting of a heterogeneous set of unique individuals, the out-group is viewed as consisting of a more homogeneous set of category exemplars. The present studies examined whether children in majority populations in Israel and Germany manifest this conceptual bias.

In Study 1, we reasoned that if children tend to view out-group members – compared to in-group members – more as tokens of a homogenous type, then they should be more willing to make broad inductive inferences about the whole group from less diverse samples of individuals. To test this, 150 5- and 8-year-old Israeli and German children from majority populations (Jews, or Germans from German descent) were introduced to a game in which they were asked to pretend they were scientists "who wanted to find out stuff about people." They were then presented with a series of questions, half about their in-group (Jews/Germans) and half about their out-group (Arabs/Turks). Half of the questions were about biological properties (e.g., "whether Jews/Arabs have blood type F"), and half about psychological properties (e.g., "whether Jews/Arabs prefer cucumbers over tomatoes"). For each question, children had to choose one of two samples that they thought would help them answer the research question - either a homogeneous sample (e.g., “three adults”), or a heterogeneous sample (e.g., “one adult, one child, and one old person”). It was found that across ages and countries, participants sampled less diversely when reasoning about out- compared to in-group members, for biological properties, but not for psychological properties (see Figure 1). This finding suggests that children expect out-group members to be more similar in their biological constitution.

Study 2 focused on a different manifestation of homogeneity: Namely, whether children are more likely to explain out-group members’ behaviors by reference to their group membership, and explain in-group members’ behaviors by reference to their individual properties. 103 majority children in Israel and Germany were presented with a series of novel behaviors, displayed by either three in-group or out-group members (e.g., “eating Razo"). Children were then asked to explain why, in their opinion, a fourth out- or in-group member acted in the same manner. We found that across ages and countries, children more often referred to group membership when explaining out-group as compared to in-group members’ behaviors (e.g., “because she is an Arab”), and more often referred to individual factors when explaining in-group than out-group members’ behaviors (e.g., “because she likes Razo”) (see Figure 2). These findings illustrates how subtle differences in the conceptualization of in- and out-groups are likely to impact our everyday reasoning about others.

Taken together, these findings reveal that already by age 5, and across different cultural contexts, children hold different conceptualizations of in- and out-group members, seeing the former more as individuals, and the latter as category exemplars. This differential conceptualization arguably potentiates the development of intergroup attitudinal biases.

Authors

• Gil Diesendruck, Bar-Ilan University
  Presenting Author

• Reut Shilo, Bar-Ilan University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Anika Weinsdorfer, University of Gottingen
  Non-Presenting Author

• Hannes Rakoczy, University of Gottingen
  Non-Presenting Author