The Development of Common Racial Stereotypes About Competence and Warmth

• In Event: The Origins of Inequality: Charting the Development of Stereotypes About Intelligence

Abstract

Although overt racism has steadily declined in the U.S., more subtle forms of racial attitudes persist and may influence children’s beliefs. Stereotypes about social groups are captured by two dimensions: competence and warmth (Fiske et al., 2002). For example, Black people are stereotyped as lower on both competence and warmth than White people, whereas Asian people are stereotyped as highly competent but not warm. These distinct stereotypes are harmful as they may elicit hostility and hinder educational and career outcomes (e.g., Smith et al., 2016; Leslie et al., 2015). Thus, it is crucial to investigate the development of racial stereotypes in early childhood to reveal the roots of racial inequality. Here, we examined when children endorse the stereotypical beliefs that competence and warmth are qualities associated with different races.

Experiment 1 tested the developmental trajectory of associating White people with high competence and high warmth relative to Black people. Five-, 6-, and 7-year-old children (N = 72) played a guessing game adapted from Bian et al. (2017). For example, children were told stories about a “really smart” and a “really nice” person (child-friendly terms akin to competence and warmth). After each story, children saw pictures of White people and Black people, all matched to the child’s gender, and were asked to guess which of them was the person in the story. We coded the proportion of trials that children selected a White person. Across all ages, children tended to select White people, as opposed to Black people, as being “really smart” (M = .64, SD = .31, p < .001) and “really nice” (M = .58, SD = .29, p = .02, Figure 1 left). The results suggest that children attribute both competence and warmth to White people relative to Black people.

Experiment 2 focused on the comparison of White people and Asian people in the dimensions of competence and warmth. The procedure was identical to that of Experiment 1, except that children (N = 72) were presented with pictures of White people and Asian people. Our analyses revealed a significant age by trait interaction, p = .02. Although 5- and 6-year-olds were equally likely to attribute competence and warmth to White people (ps > 0.10), 7-year-olds were significantly more likely to select a White person in nice trials (M = 0.65, SD = 0.25) than in smart trials (M = 0.39, SD = 0.29), p < .001. In addition, 7-year-old children’s tendency to associate competence with Asians was marginally higher than chance (p = .07), and their tendency to associate warmth with White people was significantly above chance (p = .006; see Figure 1 right).

Taken together, these findings suggest that children may be acquiring common racial stereotypes in early childhood. Five- to 7-year-olds attribute lower competence and warmth to Black people than White people, and 7-year-olds attribute higher competence and lower warmth to Asian people than White people. Given that specific racial stereotypes may develop at different ages, future work should pinpoint factors that influence these developments.

Authors

• Roya Baharloo, University of California - Berkeley
  Presenting Author

• Lin Bian, University of Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author

• Fei Xu, University of California - Berkeley
  Non-Presenting Author