Collaborative and competitive motivations uniquely impact infants' racial categorization

Ferera, Matar; Baron, Andrew Scott; Diesendruck, Gil

doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2018.05.002

Cited by 14 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…In other words, affect was attached to the in-group proxy, not the out-group, suggesting the primacy of a positive motivation—for example, affiliation—as a driver of intergroup attitudes. Finally, exposing White 14-month-olds to brief videos of an affiliative interaction between two White actresses boosted infants’ subsequent racial (White vs. Black) categorization of women (Ferera et al, 2018).…”

Section: In the Beginning There Were “Us”mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Motivational Perspective on the Development of Social Essentialism

Diesendruck

2021

Curr Dir Psychol Sci

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The tendency to view groups as constituting essentially different categories emerges early in development. To date, most attempts at understanding the origins of this tendency have focused on cognitive processes. Drawing from social-psychological and evolutionary theory, I propose that motivations—in particular, a need to belong—may be foundational for the development of social essentialism. I review evidence indicating that this perspective not only is developmentally plausible but also may explain children’s tendency to consider intentional behaviors performed by in-group members as normative.

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Section: In the Beginning There Were “Us”mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Motivational Perspective on the Development of Social Essentialism

Diesendruck

2021

Curr Dir Psychol Sci

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“…One possibility is that the processing of familiar faces being more efficient, it is less resource intensive, and thus frees attentional and memory capacities for more fine-grained and peripheral analyses. A second intriguing possibility is that motivational factors are involved, with even infants becoming more engaged in identifying discriminating features of in-group vs. out-group faces [see 50 , for a discussion]. The latter possibility is also relevant for relating the phenomenon uncovered here, with the more general and abstract phenomenon of the out-group homogeneity effect.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

The effect of familiarity on infants’ social categorization capacity

et al. 2021

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Recent studies indicate that a preference for people from one’s own race emerges early in development. Arguably, one potential process contributing to such a bias has to do with the increased discriminability of own- vs. other-race faces–a process commonly attributed to perceptual narrowing of unfamiliar groups’ faces, and analogous to the conceptual homogenization of out-groups. The present studies addressed two implications of perceptual narrowing of other-race faces for infants’ social categorization capacity. In Experiment 1, White 11-month-olds’ (N = 81) looking time at a Black vs. White face was measured under three between-subjects conditions: a baseline “preference” (i.e., without familiarization), after familiarization to Black faces, or after familiarization to White faces. Compared to infants’ a priori looking preferences as revealed in the baseline condition, only when familiarized to Black faces did infants look longer at the "not-familiarized-category" face at test. According to the standard categorization paradigm used, such longer looking time at the novel (i.e., "not-familiarized-category") exemplar at test, indicated that categorization of the familiarized faces had ensued. This is consistent with the idea that prior to their first birthday, infants already tend to represent own-race faces as individuals and other-race faces as a category. If this is the case, then infants might also be less likely to form subordinate categories within other-race than own-race categories. In Experiment 2, infants (N = 34) distinguished between an arbitrary (shirt-color) based sub-categories only when shirt-wearers were White, but not when they were Black. These findings confirm that perceptual narrowing of other-race faces blurs distinctions among members of unfamiliar categories. Consequently, infants: a) readily categorize other-race faces as being of the same kind, and b) find it hard to distinguish between their sub-categories.

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“…A complementary possibility is that groups that are more similar in size (e.g., 8 vs. 12 people) may seem more like separate groups that are potentially in competition. Existing research suggests the presence of intergroup competition leads children to categorize novel (Rhodes & Brickman, 2011) and real‐world (Ferera et al, 2018) social groups as more different from one another. The present results hint that the reverse may also be true: When children think two groups are different from one another, they may be more likely to think the groups are in competition.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Small groups lead, big groups control: Perceptions of numerical group size, power, and status across development

2021

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Participants (N = 384 three‐ to ten‐year‐olds; 51% girls, 49% boys; 73% White, 18% multiracial/other, 5% Asian, and 3% Black; N = 610 adults) saw depictions of 20 individuals split into two social groups (1:19; 2:18; 5:15; or 8:12 per group) and selected which group was “in charge” (Experiment 1), “the leader” (Experiment 2), or likely to “get the stuff” (resources) in a conflict (Experiment 3). Whereas participants across ages predicted the larger group would “get the stuff,” a tendency to view smaller groups as “in charge” and “the leader” strengthened with age and when the smaller group was rarer. These findings suggest the perceived relation between numerical group size and hierarchy is flexible and inform theory regarding the developmental trajectories of reasoning about power and status.

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Collaborative and competitive motivations uniquely impact infants' racial categorization

Cited by 14 publications

References 46 publications

A Motivational Perspective on the Development of Social Essentialism

A Motivational Perspective on the Development of Social Essentialism

The effect of familiarity on infants’ social categorization capacity

Small groups lead, big groups control: Perceptions of numerical group size, power, and status across development

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