What Can We Tell Children to Improve Their Attitudes Toward Low-status Groups

• In Event: Reducing Racial Prejudice and Stereotypes in Childhood: New Evidence for Debiasing Programs

Abstract

As children develop an understanding of the status hierarchies in their society, they also begin to prefer higher-status groups (e.g., Hailey & Olson, 2013). Since these attitudes form the basis for discrimination toward low-status groups, it is important to investigate how they can be modified.

The current research compares three theoretically-grounded interventions intended to reduce children’s negative attitudes toward low-status groups. The first involves “colorblind” messages, which de-emphasize group membership by focusing on similarities between groups and drawing attention to individual differences within groups (Wolsko et al., 2000). The second intervention involves “multicultural” messages, which promote learning about group differences and appreciation of these differences (Rosenthal & Levy, 2010). The third intervention consists of extrinsic explanations (that is, explanations that appeal to contextual and historical reasons), which have been shown to prompt children to judge status disparities between groups as unfair (Hussak & Cimpian, 2015, 2018).

The present research examines how these different messages affect children’s attitudes towards low- and high-status groups. We presented a diverse sample of 4- to 7-year-old children (N = 182) with two novel groups that differed in both non-status traits (e.g., preferences) as well as status (e.g., wealth). Children then heard one of three messages about these differences: (1) colorblind messages that downplayed the differences (e.g., “differences don’t really matter”, “deep down, they are all the same,” “everyone is special in their own way”), (2) multicultural messages that celebrated the differences (e.g., “differences are what make them special,” “it is important to learn about these differences,” “it is a good thing that they are different”), and (3) extrinsic explanations for the differences (e.g., “they moved from a different country,” “they had to start over in this new place”). Instead of an intervention message, children in a fourth (control) condition simply heard the description of the disparities for a second time.

To measure the effects of the three types of messages on intergroup bias, we examined children’s attitudes towards the two groups (e.g., “Do you like this [member of the high-status group]?”), attitudes towards status disparity (e.g., “Do the [high status group] deserve to have more money?”), and resource allocation behavior. Because some of these messages have been found to increase essentialism (Wilton et al., 2019), we measured this potential side-effect by looking at children’s perceptions of innateness and homogeneity of the groups.

Intergroup bias and essentialism scores were calculated by standardizing and averaging the individual measures under each dimension. Overall, the only intervention that decreased children’s intergroup bias compared to the control condition was that involving extrinsic explanations (p = .029; see Figure 1). However, both the multicultural messages and extrinsic explanations increased essentialism compared to the control condition (ps = .081 and .049; see Figure 2).

A follow up study in progress explores different combinations of these messages in order to maximize the benefits of reducing intergroup bias without increasing essentialism. This research provides a promising first step toward devising interventions that improve children’s attitudes toward low-status groups.

Authors

• Vivian Liu, New York University
  Presenting Author

• Andrei Cimpian, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author