Language shapes children’s attitudes: Consequences of internal, behavioral, and societal information in punitive and nonpunitive contexts.

Abstract

Research has probed the consequences of providing people with different types of information regarding why a person possesses a certain characteristic. However, this work has largely examined the consequences of different information subsets (e.g., information focusing on internal versus societal causes). Less work has compared several types of information within the same paradigm. Using the legal system as an example domain, we provided children (N=198 6to 8-year-olds) with several types of information-including information highlighting internal moral character, internal biological factors, behavioral factors, and societal factors-about why a specific outcome (incarceration) might occur. We examined how such language shaped children's attitudes. In Study 1, children reported the most positivity toward people who were incarcerated for societal reasons and the least positivity toward people who were incarcerated for their internal moral character; attitudes linked with behavioral information fell between these extremes. Studies 2a-2b suggested that Study 1's effects could not be fully explained by participants drawing different about individuals in Study 1. Study 3 replicated Study 1's results and showed that information linking incarceration with internal biological factors led to more positivity than information linking incarceration with internal moral character. Finally, Study 4 suggested that the patterns found in Studies 1 and 3 generalize to non-punitive contexts.Moreover, Study 4 found that the effects in Studies 1 and 3 emerged regardless of whether information was communicated via explanations or descriptions. These results demonstrate that how we express our beliefs about social phenomena shape the realities in which others live.

Children's socio‐moral judgments and behaviors toward peers with and without incarcerated parents

“…Any family with eligible children could participate. As in other studies (e.g., Dunlea & Heiphetz, in press; Marshall et al, 2020), recruitment method did not reliably predict children's responses. All children received a small prize such as a sticker.…”

Overheard evaluative comments: Implications for beliefs about effort and ability

“…Social learning theory posits that children are influenced by attitudes that adults convey (Bandura, 1971; Ma et al, 2018; Rhodes et al, 2012), and linguistic cues are an important mode of transmission of essentialist beliefs about people (Gelman & Heyman, 1999; Gelman et al, 2010; see Dunlea & Heiphetz, 2021). For example, Gelman and Heyman (1999) found that 5‐ and 7‐year‐old children judged novel descriptions of people (such as that someone eats carrots) in a more essentialized way when identified with a noun label (e.g., she is a carrot‐eater ) than with a verbal predicate (e.g., she eats carrots whenever she can ).…”

Children's structural thinking about social inequities

“…Children's tendency to engage in internal thinking about, for example, economic success (Mistry et al., 2021), classroom achievement (Goudeau & Cimpian, 2020), or gender differences in occupation (Garrett et al., 1977) can have negative consequences, including perceiving disadvantaged groups negatively and supporting initiatives and engaging in behaviors that maintain inequity and distance between groups (see Diesendruck & Menahem, 2015; Dunlea & Heiphetz, 2022; Hussak & Cimpian, 2015; Mandalaywala et al., 2018; Roberts et al., 2017; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999; Williams & Eberhardt, 2008). Since young children's beliefs in a variety of domains can become ingrained with long‐lasting consequences (Shtulman & Harrington, 2016; Shtulman & Valcarcel, 2012), children's internal thinking about social inequities may be particularly damaging because such thinking can persist into adulthood.…”