Week 10-11 Article 2 Flashcards
(45 cards)
What was the main objective of the study?
To examine how implicit links between social groups and high versus low status attributes affect the formation of intergroup attitudes in children.
What were the three types of classrooms used in the study?
1) Teachers made functional use of novel groups with varying status.
2) No explicit use of novel groups, but they varied in status.
3) Functional use of novel groups without status information.
What were the results of the study?
Children’s intergroup attitudes were influenced by group status, especially when teachers made functional use of the groups. Children in high-status groups developed in-group biased attitudes.
How does group status relate to the development of intergroup attitudes in children?
Children tend to develop biases towards their own group, with high-status groups fostering more positive in-group attitudes.
What is the concept of “functional use” in intergroup research?
Functional use refers to when authority figures, like teachers, use social group labels to organize the environment, making the groups more perceptually salient to children.
What does research on intergroup attitudes and group status suggest?
Research suggests that group status, particularly when linked to social stereotypes, affects how children form intergroup biases, with high-status groups typically being viewed more favorably.
How did previous research, such as Yee and Brown’s study, contribute to the current study?
Previous research showed that group status influences how children evaluate in-group and out-group performance. The current study extends this by looking at how implicit group status information shapes stereotypes and attitudes.
What does the study hypothesize about children’s development of intergroup attitudes?
The study hypothesizes that children will develop biases based on implicit information about social groups’ status, even if the groups are not explicitly different in other qualities.
What is the significance of implicit status information in shaping intergroup attitudes?
Implicit status information, such as seeing more high-status models from certain groups, can lead children to internalize and adopt stereotypes related to group status, affecting their intergroup attitudes.
What is necessary for social group status to affect intergroup attitudes in children?
Children must be able to detect a covariation between a social group and traits or behaviors that convey status.
What does research with adults suggest about covariation detection?
Adults are quite good at detecting covariation, both consciously and unconsciously, and once a correlation is detected, they act according to it.
What do recent studies suggest about children detecting covariations between social groups and attributes?
Studies suggest that even young children are capable of detecting such covariations.
What complicates the detection of group-to-attribute links in experiments?
Many laboratory tasks simplify the stimuli, which may promote attention to the group-to-attribute relation.
What was the experimental setup for the study on intergroup bias?
Elementary children were assigned to novel social groups (yellow or blue), with experimental conditions involving posters showing higher or lower status attributes linked to the groups.
How were the experimental conditions structured in the study?
Conditions included: (1) posters + functional use of groups, (2) posters only, and (3) no posters with functional use of groups.
What was expected in terms of intergroup bias?
Children in the experimental conditions were expected to detect the covariation between group status and attributes, forming stereotypes. High-status groups were expected to show stronger biases.
What individual differences might affect how children respond to intergroup bias manipulations?
Children’s self-esteem and classification skills were expected to moderate the effects of the experimental conditions on intergroup attitudes.
How does self-esteem relate to intergroup bias according to previous research?
Higher self-esteem, rather than lower, is associated with in-group bias, and self-esteem may motivate individuals to favor their own group when their group’s status is threatened.
How might group status manipulations affect children’s self-esteem?
Children in low-status groups might experience a threat to their self-esteem, particularly those with high self-esteem, potentially showing stronger intergroup bias.
How do children’s self-esteem and group membership interact in the study?
Children’s self-esteem was not expected to be affected by the group status manipulation at the group level, but cognitive skills might influence this relationship.
What was predicted regarding self-esteem in children with advanced classification skills?
Among children in low-status groups, only those with advanced classification skills were predicted to show lower self-esteem due to the experimental procedures.
How did classification skills differ across the conditions?
Children in the “posters plus functional use” condition showed significantly better classification skills (M = 7.81) compared to the “posters only” (M = 6.94) and “no posters” conditions (M = 6.33), which did not differ from each other.
Was there any significant difference in memory for the poster content?
No, there were no significant differences in memory for the shirt color of individuals depicted in the posters, suggesting any differences in intergroup attitudes were not due to memory differences.
What age-related effects were observed regarding stereotyping?
Older children generally showed lower levels of stereotyping across all conditions, especially in the “posters plus functional use” condition.
