Poster #166 - The development of race-based social preferences in 3- to 8-year-old Taiwanese children

• In Event: 2-002 - Special Poster Session 05 with Continental Breakfast Reception
  In Poster Session: PS 05 - International Section

Integrative Statement

Background: In daily social interactions, people are not only guided by the actions of individuals but also influenced by the social categories to which they belong. In a single glance, one can quickly encode a person’s gender, race, and age; and these features consequently affects how one evaluates the individuals (Fiske, 1998). Among these, race carries weighted social meaning for adults, but not for children under age 4 (Shutts, 2015, for a recent review). Up to date, several studies reported race-based social preference in 4- or 5-year-old White, Black, or biracial children, demonstrating that while White children in late preschool age tend to prefer members of their own race, but members of other ethnic or racial groups often do not (Aboud & Skerry, 1984; Shutts et al.,2011). These findings indicate the relevance of social status on interpreting children’s racial preferences. The present study aims to test the generality of race-based social preferences and the influence of social status in children from East Asian countries. In particular, we examined the social preferences for high- versus low-status racial groups in 3- to 8-year-old Taiwanese children with a toy-giving task and a friend-selection task.

Methods: Experiment 1 was a toy-giving task designed for testing 3- and 4-year-olds’ social preference, modified from the age-appropriate tasks previously used to test race-based preferences in young children (Kinzler & Spelke, 2011). Twenty-one 3- and 4-year-old children (10 girls; Mean age = 4.13, SD = 0.45) viewed three simultaneously presented video clips modeled by a Taiwanese (own race, high social status), a Southeast Asian (near race, low social status) and a Caucasian (other race, high social status) young female waving and smiling at them. Children were instructed to give toys to their most and second preferred individuals. They received two practice trials and four test trials. A group of adults (N=20) pre-rated the likeability, attractiveness, and the racial representativeness of the actresses and found no significant difference among them. Experiment 2 was a friend-selection task for children aged 5 to 8. Twenty-two 5- and 6-year-olds (11 girls; Mean age = 6.02, SD = 0.53) and 21 7- and 8-year-olds (10 girls; Mean age = 7.92, SD = 0.57) viewed three simultaneously presented video clips modeled by the same females as in Experiment 1. They were asked to choose their most and second favorable persons as friends (by doing a give-me-five).

Results & Discussions: Results showed that 3-4-year-olds preferred to give toys to the Taiwanese actress the most (50%). 5-6 year-old children preferred to make friends with the Taiwanese actress the most (69%), while both the Caucasian (54%) and the Southeast Asian actresses (43%) were the least preferred. Lastly, 7-8 year-old preferred to choose the Caucasian actress (57%) as a friend the most, followed by the Taiwanese actress (38%), and the Southeast Asian actress.

In sum, our findings provide cross-cultural evidence for race-based social preference in Taiwanese preschool-age children, and the influence of social status become increasingly important as children enter elementary school.

Authors

• Sarina Hui-Lin Chien, China Medical University
  Presenting Author

• Pei-Chun Hsu, China Medical University
  Non-Presenting Author