School and family environments influence children’s essentialism of ethno-religious categories in Northern Ireland

• In Event: 3-027 - The socialization of prejudice: New insights from international samples

Integrative Statement

Children construe certain categories as ‘kinds’ that are biologically inherited and cohesive (Gelman, 2003). Such essentialist thinking can have negative consequences when applied to social categories, leading to increased stereotyping (Pauker et al., 2016). Children’s tendency toward essentialist thinking about social categories might be universal (Hirschfeld, 1996), but which specific categories become essentialized, and when, varies by specific social contexts (e.g, Seeb et al., 2011). Northern Ireland (NI) presents a unique opportunity to study environmental influences on essentialism. Here, children are often exposed to intergroup conflict between Catholics and Protestants, two perceptually similar, yet culturally distinct, ethno-religious groups. While the majority of children attend segregated schools, some families choose integrated education, allowing the study of family and school influences on essentialism. Study 1 investigated effects of age and school environment on children’s essentialist beliefs about ethno-religious categories. Study 2 explored relationships among Family Ethnic Socialization (FES), essentialism, and outgroup attitudes.
In Study 1, 149 5 to11 year-olds (75 males, Mage= 8.2) sampled from Catholic-maintained (98% Catholic), State-controlled (93% Protestant), and Integrated (62% Protestant, 38% Catholic) schools in NI reported essentialist beliefs about an ethno-religious category (Catholic/Protestant) and control category (guitar/trombone-players; questionnaire adapted from Gelman, Heyman, & Legare, 2007). A mixed ANOVA (within-subjects: category type, between-subjects age and school type) revealed that children essentialized religious categories to a greater extent than musical categories (Figure 1; F(1, 143)= 12.02, p= .001), segregated school children held greater essentialist beliefs than integrated school children (F(1, 143)= 24.3, p <.001), and an age x category interaction demonstrating that essentialist beliefs declined with age for music categories, but not religion categories ((F(1, 143)= 19.5, p <.001).
Study 2 further explored the origins and outcomes of such essentialist beliefs. With a subsample of Study 1, parents (N= 56) responded to a 9-item scale on FES (Umaña-Taylor, 2001), adapted for NI context. Children (N= 61, 34 males, Mage= 8.7) reported the number of outgroup children they believed showed eight positive and negative traits (e.g. nice, mean; Stathi, et al., 2014). Responses were coded such that higher scores represented assigning positive traits to more outgroup members and negative traits to fewer outgroup members. Parent report of FES was positively related to children’s essentialist beliefs about ethno-religious categories (r(56)=0.28, p<.05), but not music categories (r(55) = 0.14, p = ns). A multiple linear regression (F(2, 52)=6.91, p<.01, R2=.21) found both higher FES (β = -.32, p = .02 ) and children’s essentialism of ethno-religious categories (β = -0.25 p = .05) to be significant predictors of children attributing more negative/fewer positive traits to the outgroup.
These findings highlight school and family influences on children’s essentialist beliefs and resulting outgroup attitudes. While FES has positive outcomes for some populations in the U.S. (e.g. Umaña-Taylor et al., 2002), discussions and practices highlighting ethno-religious identity may also have negative consequences for the development of essentialist beliefs and outgroup attitudes in post-conflict NI. Future research will explore relationships between home (e.g. FES, generic labelling) and school environments (e.g. intergroup contact), and essentialist beliefs.

Authors

• Jocelyn B Dautel, Queen's University, Belfast
  Presenting Author

• Laura K Taylor, Queen's University Belfast
  Non-Presenting Author

• Aidan Feeney, Queen's University, Belfast
  Non-Presenting Author

• John D Coley, Northeastern University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Risa Rylander, Queen's University, Belfast
  Non-Presenting Author