Young children seek out biased information about social groups

Over, Harriet; Eggleston, Adam; Bell, Jenny; Dunham, Yarrow

doi:10.1111/desc.12580

Cited by 35 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Many years of research drawing on developmental social identity theories (Abrams & Rutland, ; Nesdale, ; Verkuyten, ) indicates that children are motivated to view their own social groups in a positive light. In minimal in‐group contexts, for example, children remember (Dunham, Baron, & Carey, ), expect (Baron & Dunham, ; Dunham & Emory, ), and actively seek out (Over, Eggleston, Bell, & Dunham, ) positive information about their social in‐groups. When deciding whether to help others, children are more responsive to the needs of members of their social in‐groups than members of social out‐groups (Abrams et al., ; Sierksma, Thijs, & Verkuyten, ; Weller & Lagattuta, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children's Perceptions of Economic Groups in a Context of Limited Access to Opportunities

Elenbaas

Killen

2018

Child Development

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Children (N = 267, ages 8-14 years, M = 11.61 years, middle to upper-middle income) made predictions regarding groups of same-aged peers from high-wealth and low-wealth backgrounds. The context involved granting access to a special opportunity. From middle childhood to early adolescence children increasingly expected both high- and low-wealth groups to want access to opportunities for their own group. However, children viewed high-wealth groups as motivated in part by selfishness and low-wealth groups as concerned in part with broader economic inequality. Finally, the higher children's family income, the more they expected group-serving tendencies. These findings revealed children's perceptions of exclusive preferences between economic groups, negative stereotypes about high-wealth children, and awareness of some of the constraints faced by low-wealth children.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children's Perceptions of Economic Groups in a Context of Limited Access to Opportunities

Elenbaas

Killen

2018

Child Development

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“…The key question for the field is not so much whether social learning influences the development of intergroup bias but rather how it influences the development of intergroup bias and how it interacts with other cognitive constraints (Bigler & Leaper, 2015;Bigler & Liben, 2007;Gelman et al, 2004;Over, Eggleston, Bell, & Dunham, 2017;Over & Cook, 2018;Rhodes et al, 2012). Experimental research directly investigating this question is relatively rare.…”

Section: Revisiting Social Learning Accountsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Becoming us and them: Social learning and intergroup bias

Over

McCall

2018

Social & Personality Psych

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In recent years, research has demonstrated that the basic features of prejudice and discrimination emerge early in children's development. These discoveries call into question the role of social learning in intergroup bias. Specifically, through what means do we learn to distinguish "us" from "them?" Here, we explore this question, focusing on three key issues: how children respond to biased information they receive from others, how children selectively seek out certain types of biased information, and how children communicate biased information to others. We close by discussing the implications of this research for interventions to reduce stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination.

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“…Importantly, the extent of a child's in-group bias can affect judgments of group members' moral actions (Abrams, Rutland, Ferrell, & Pelletier, 2008). Individuals selectively encode and attend to the actions of group members that fit with their in-group bias (Dunham et al, 2011;Over, Eggleston, Bell, & Dunham, 2017) and generate justifications for the acceptability of in-group members' wrongdoings (Branscombe & Miron, 2004). Strong in-group favoritism has the potential to bias expectations and evaluations and can work through a variety of psychological mechanisms.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Strong in-group favoritism has the potential to bias expectations and evaluations and can work through a variety of psychological mechanisms. Individuals selectively encode and attend to the actions of group members that fit with their in-group bias (Dunham et al, 2011;Over, Eggleston, Bell, & Dunham, 2017) and generate justifications for the acceptability of in-group members' wrongdoings (Branscombe & Miron, 2004).…”

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confidence: 99%

Children's neural processing of moral scenarios provides insight into the formation and reduction of in‐group biases

Meidenbauer

Cowell

Decety

2018

Developmental Science

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Survival is dependent on sociality within groups which ensure sustenance and protection. From an early age, children show a natural tendency to sort people into groups and discriminate among them. The computations guiding evaluation of third-party behaviors are complex, requiring integration of intent, consequences, and knowledge of group affiliation. This study examined how perceiving third-party morally laden behavior influences children's likelihood to exhibit or reduce group bias. Following a minimal group paradigm assignment, young children (4-7 years) performed a moral evaluation task where group affiliations and moral actions were systematically juxtaposed, so that they were exposed to disproportionately antisocial in-group and prosocial out-group scenarios. Electroencephalography was recorded, and group preference was assessed with a resource allocation game before and after the EEG session. Across all children, evaluations of others' moral actions arose from early and automatic processing (~150 ms), followed by later interactive processing of affiliation and moral valence (~500 ms). Importantly, individual differences in bias manifestation and attitude change were predicted by children's neural responses. Children with high baseline bias selectively exhibited a rapid detection (~200 ms) of scenarios inconsistent with their bias (in-group harm and out-group help). Changes in bias corresponded to distinct patterns in longer latency neural processing. These new developmental neuroscience findings elucidate the multifaceted processing involved in moral evaluation of others' actions, their group affiliations, the nature of the integration of both into full judgments, and the relation of individual differences in neural responses to social decision-making in childhood.

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Young children seek out biased information about social groups

Abstract: Article:Over, Harriet orcid.org/0000-0001-9461-043X, Eggleston, Adam, Bell, Jenny et al.(1 more author) (2017) Young children seek out biased information about social groups.

Cited by 35 publications

References 38 publications

Children's Perceptions of Economic Groups in a Context of Limited Access to Opportunities

Children's Perceptions of Economic Groups in a Context of Limited Access to Opportunities

Becoming us and them: Social learning and intergroup bias

Children's neural processing of moral scenarios provides insight into the formation and reduction of in‐group biases

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