Learning About Others From Others: Implications for Stereotype Formation and Intervention

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Despite efforts to fight against racial sterotypes and discrimination, negative biases towards people of color are still prevalent. How do these biases emerge over childhood, and how can we minimize their negative consequences? By understanding what shapes children’s beliefs about others, we can develop interventions that not only fight existing stereotypes but also prevent formation of new ones. To this end, this symposium brings together studies that explore how different sources of social information--behavioral, linguistic, and emotional--shape learners’ beliefs about other individuals and groups.

Study 1 presents a computational model that characterizes how observations of others’ sampling behaviors (e.g., selectively checking some social groups) can reproduce existing disparities, with implications on the cognitive bases of selective policing and enforcement. Study 2 demonstrates that although generic language (e.g., “Black men end up in prison”) can promote children’s essentialist beliefs about social groups, emphasizing external, structural constraints mitigates this effect. Study 3 shows that even when students perform identically, children use teachers’ expressions of surprise to infer the students’ abilities, highlighting how our nonverbal, emotional responses can inadvertently signal and transmit implicit biases.

Together these studies provide insights into the representations and inferential processes underlying stereotype formation, suggesting how developmental and cognitive science can inform earlier, more effective interventions. Dr. Marjorie Rhodes, a leading expert on the development of social categories, will synthesize the findings and discuss their implications for early education and policy, highlighting the relevance and timeliness of these findings for the SRCD community and beyond.

Sub Unit

• Social Cognition

Chair

• Yang Wu, Stanford University

Discussant

• Marjorie Rhodes, New York University

Individual Presentations

• How Do Disparities Reproduce Themselves? “Ground Truth” Inference From Utility-Maximizing Agent’s Sampling Behavior - Presenting Author: Yuan Meng, University of California - Berkeley; Non-Presenting Author: Fei Xu, University of California - Berkeley

• When Children Do Not Essentialize Social Groups: Comparing Internalist and Structural Construals of Generics - Presenting Author: Nadya Vasilyeva, Princeton University; Non-Presenting Author: Alison Gopnik, University of California - Berkeley; Non-Presenting Author: Tania Lombrozo, Princeton University

• Emotion as Information: Children Infer Competence From Others’ Emotional Reactions to Performance - Presenting Author: Mika Asaba, Yale University; Non-Presenting Author: Yang Wu, Stanford University; Non-Presenting Author: Brandon Carrillo, Yale University; Non-Presenting Author: Hyowon Gweon, Stanford University