European Journal of Social Psychology

Dunham, Yarrow; Degner, Juliane

doi: 10.1002/ejsp.758pmid: N/A

Prejudice and stereotyping are central to research and theorizing in social psychology. Yet, all too often this work tacitly assumes that these phenomena spring into existence fully formed in adults. This special issue originates from the need to integrate adult social psychological approaches with developmental inquiry into the ontogenetic and phylogenetic origins of prejudice and stereotyping. The diverse set of nine papers in this special issue demonstrates the utility of this interdisciplinary approach. In this introduction, we make the case for giving developmental research a seat at the social psychological table, and briefly summarize the contributions contained in this special issue. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Dunham, Yarrow; Degner, Juliane

doi: 10.1002/ejsp.752pmid: N/A

Group biases based on broad category membership appear early in human development. However, like many other primates humans inhabit social worlds also characterised by small groups of social coalitions which are not demarcated by visible signs or social markers. A critical cognitive challenge for a young child is thus how to extract information concerning coalition structure when coalitions are dynamic and may lack stable and outwardly visible cues to membership. Therefore, the ability to decode behavioural cues of affiliations present in everyday social interactions between individuals would have conferred powerful selective advantages during our evolution. This would suggest that such an ability may emerge early in life, however, little research has investigated the developmental origins of such processing. The present paper will review recent empirical research which indicates that in the first 2 years of life infants achieve a host of social‐cognitive abilities that make them well adapted to processing coalition‐affiliations of others. We suggest that such an approach can be applied to better understand the origins of intergroup attitudes and biases. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Dunham, Yarrow; Degner, Juliane

doi: 10.1002/ejsp.739pmid: N/A

In this paper we review evidence from social, developmental, and evolutionary psychology to raise a common question: Are there priorities in how humans categorize their social world? Are some social groupings more prominent in childhood, and more resilient in adulthood than others? We review and compare evidence from each field, with a particular emphasis on exploring the relative robustness of gender, race, age, and language as social categories. We highlight the value of developmental approaches for characterizing the origins and nature of social categories in adults, and provide suggestions for how collaborative research from social, developmental, and evolutionary psychology could inform our understanding of potential priorities in social categorization. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Dunham, Yarrow; Degner, Juliane

doi: 10.1002/ejsp.732pmid: N/A

For children as well as adults, object categories (e.g., dog, animal, car, vehicle) serve as a rich base for inductive inferences. Here, we examine children's inferences regarding categories of people. We showed 4‐year‐old children a picture of an individual (e.g., a white woman), taught them a novel property of the individual (e.g., is good at a new game called zaggit), and examined children's projections of that property to other individuals. Experiment 1 revealed that children used the broad category person as an inductive base: they extended the novel property to other people, regardless of their race or gender, but not to non‐human animals or artifacts. However, naming prompted children to use more specific social categories as an inductive base. When the target individual was identified as a member of a named, novel social category, children were more likely to extend the property to members of the same race‐based (Experiment 2) or gender‐based (Experiment 3) category as the target. Implications of naming in children's formation of social categories based on race or gender are discussed, and the consequences on the emergence of stereotypes are considered. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Dunham, Yarrow; Degner, Juliane

doi: 10.1002/ejsp.761pmid: N/A

The present study sought to determine whether children discriminate between different group types with respect to perceived entitativity, and if so, whether the group properties that determine their perceptions of entitativity differ from those of adults. Ten‐year‐old children and adults were required to rate 12 social groups on a number of properties, including entitativity. In a further task, participants also sorted 30 social groups into discrete group types. Two major findings emerged. First, over the two tasks both children and adults were found to classify groups in terms of at least four main group types: Intimacy groups, task groups, social categories and loose associations. Second, children and adults appeared to have different perceptions concerning which group properties determine the degree of entitativity of the different group types. In particular, children put much more emphasis on the level of interaction among group members whereas adults emphasized the importance of the group among its members. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Dunham, Yarrow; Degner, Juliane

doi: 10.1002/ejsp.733pmid: N/A

Intergroup attitudes were assessed in 7 and 10 years old European American and African American children from ethnically heterogeneous schools and in 7 and 10 years old European American children from ethnically homogeneous schools in order to test hypotheses about racial biases and judgments regarding cross‐race peer interactions (N = 302). Using an Ambiguous Situations Task, the findings revealed that European American children attending homogeneous schools displayed racial bias in their interpretations of ambiguous situations as well as in their evaluations of cross‐race friendship. Bias was not found, however, in the interpretations and evaluations of European American or African American children from heterogeneous schools. This study is the first to empirically demonstrate significant and direct relationships between intergroup contact in the school environment and children's intergroup biases as well as judgments about the potential for cross‐race friendships. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Dunham, Yarrow; Degner, Juliane

doi: 10.1002/ejsp.745pmid: N/A

Based on Schwartz' theory of cultural values, the present research tested whether the level of outgroup negativity among adolescents is influenced by the preferred values shared by the individual's cultural group. Furthermore, it was expected that this correspondence increases during adolescence, due to (individual and social) identity development in that age period. Measures of cultural values as well as derogatory attitudes towards outgroups were administered to young (age 9‐12) and older (age 15‐18) adolescents in Germany (Native Germans, Turkish and Former Soviet Union immigrants) and Israel (Native Israelis, Former Soviet Union immigrants, Arab Israelis). Data were analysed on both the individual and the group level. Results confirm the hypothesis that cultural values are associated with outgroup negativity, especially for the culture‐level value dimension of hierarchy versus egalitarianism. Both the degree to which a cultural group prefers one value and the degree to which the individual accepts this value for itself are influential for the level of outgroup negativity. On both levels of analyses, our data show that the relationship between the culture‐level value dimension of hierarchy versus egalitarianism and outgroup negativity is stronger among older compared to younger adolescents. Our data imply that the cultural context an individual lives in needs more attention when examining origins of outgroup negativity among adolescents. Furthermore, it is argued that relationships between outgroup negativity and relevant predictors undergo crucial changes during adolescence. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Dunham, Yarrow; Degner, Juliane

doi: 10.1002/ejsp.747pmid: N/A

This study provides an experimental investigation of the consequences of conflict between children's personal identities and experimentally manipulated group identities. Elementary‐school‐aged children (N = 82, ages 5–11) attending a summer school program rated their own academic and athletic abilities and were then randomly assigned to one of two novel groups. Children's views of the academic and athletic skills of the novel groups were assessed both before and after information about the groups' academic and athletic skills was manipulated via posters placed in their classrooms. Following the manipulation, children's self‐views, ingroup identification, and intergroup attitudes were assessed. Results indicated that (a) in the absence of information about the novel groups, children projected their personal identities onto their ingroup identities, (b) children maintained their ingroup identities in the face of new information that should have altered their ingroup identities, and (c) more positive personal identities predicted ingroup bias, which in turn predicted happiness with one's ingroup membership. The latter finding suggests that a tendency for children to generalize from their idiosyncratic positive self‐views, rather than an indiscriminate desire for self‐enhancement or positivity, may be responsible for ingroup bias. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Dunham, Yarrow; Degner, Juliane

doi: 10.1002/ejsp.734pmid: N/A

Using a longitudinal approach, we examined intergroup bias based on randomly assigned novel groups in fourth‐ and fifth‐grade children (roughly 9–11 years old) involved in an afterschool program. We investigated not only the development of intergroup bias but also its persistence over multiple weeks. Our intergroup bias measure assessed children's evaluations of group members uninvolved in the program to determine if intergroup bias could be applied beyond the immediate context. We found that children's intergroup bias toward group members outside their program developed when they were first segregated into classrooms based on their novel groupings and persisted over multiple weeks, adding to our understanding of the impact of categorization on the development and persistence of children's intergroup biases. We consider our findings both in terms of how categorization influences the development of intergroup bias and ways to use re‐ and cross‐categorization to defeat children's intergroup biases. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Dunham, Yarrow; Degner, Juliane

doi: 10.1002/ejsp.746pmid: N/A

The aim of this research was to identify what factors deter explicit intergroup bias in childhood. Two studies were conducted to examine what facilitates the control of ethnic bias amongst 6–9‐year‐old majority children. In both studies in‐group accountability was either low (i.e., only accountable to experimenter) or high (i.e., also accountable to classmates and teachers). Study 1 (n = 287) found that only 8–9‐year‐old with low social emotions reduced their bias with increased accountability. Study 2 (n = 236) showed children with low “Theory of Social Mind” (ToSM: Abrams, Rutland, Ferrell, & Pelletier, 2009), who perceived an anti‐prejudice in‐group norm, decreased their bias when accountability increased. In both studies children high in social emotion and ToSM showed low bias irrespective of accountability. Together these studies make a novel contribution by showing for the first time affective and social‐cognitive factors that influence how children learn to control explicit bias. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.