What children remember about ingroup and outgroup peers: effects of stereotypes on children's processing of information about group members

Three studies are reported about children's memory for stereotypic behaviors attributed to ingroup and outgroup members. According to research and theory in social cognition, cues present in the situation make cultural representations about group members accessible, and once primed, influence all phases of the information processing sequence. In Study 1, Euro Canadian and Native Canadian children (N=98) recalled stereotypic behaviors attributed to ingroup and outgroup members. In Study 2 (N=87), the influence of individual difference variables was explored. In Study 3 (N=32), the memory of Native Canadian children living on a First Nation reserve for behaviors attributed to ingroup and outgroup members was studied. Biases in recall were found in Studies 1 and 2, but in Study 3, outgroup favoritism, typically found among low status group members, was reversed among children attending a heritage school. Among the individual difference measures examined, age and level of cognitive development predicted what was remembered about group members. Older Euro Canadian children recalled more negative behaviors about outgroup members than did younger children, and more cognitively mature children recognized more information about ingroup than outgroup members. Results were discussed in terms of cognitive and situational factors influencing children's processing of group-relevant information and the challenges children in low status groups face in maintaining a sense of cultural identity.     

Young children with a positive reputation to maintain are less likely to cheat

The present study examined whether having a positive reputation to maintain makes young children less likely to cheat. Cheating was assessed through a temptation resistance paradigm in which participants were instructed not to cheat in a guessing game. Across three studies (total N = 361), preschool‐aged participants were randomly assigned to either a reputation condition, in which an experimenter told them that she had learned of their positive reputation from classmates, or to a control condition in which they received no such information. By age 5, children in the reputation condition cheated less often than those in the control condition even though nobody was watching and choosing not to cheat conflicted with their personal interest. These findings are the first to show that informing children that they have a positive reputation to maintain can influence their moral behavior.     

The loyal member effect: on the preference for ingroup members who engage in exclusive relations with the ingroup

The goal of this article was to investigate an indirect form of intergroup differentiation in children in the context of racial attitudes: the preference for ingroup members who interact positively with other ingroup members rather than with outgroup members. Study 1 confirmed this general hypothesis with preschool and 1st-grade children, demonstrating that respondents preferred the ingroup member who played only with other ingroup members, evaluated this child more positively, and felt more similar to him or her. Studies 2 and 3 tested the boundary conditions of the phenomenon. Study 4 analyzed developmental changes demonstrating that the effect is no longer observed among 9- to 11-year-old children. Overall, these studies suggest that engaging in positive interactions with the outgroup might have its costs in terms of a relative devaluation and rejection by one's peers. Results are discussed by stressing the importance of intragroup processes for the regulation of intergroup relations among very young children.     

Young adults talk about their problems

This study aims to explore how young adults in psychotherapy and young adults in general describe their problems and how their problem formulations change over time. Two matched samples from longitudinal prospective studies were compared using thematic analysis. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted at baseline, 1.5 years after termination of psychotherapy (N=12) in the clinical sample and 3 years after baseline in the non clinical sample (N=12). Inductive thematic analysis revealed six themes: problems associated with oneself, family, intimate relationships, sense of belonging, occupation, and social roles. The psychotherapy sample was characterized by problems with oneself closely related to other problematic areas, at both pre-treatment and at follow-up 1.5 years after termination, while problematic sense of belonging was a general theme only prior to psychotherapy. However, they were less troubled by their problems after psychotherapy. Problems with oneself decreased considerably in the non-clinical sample, while problems with intimate relationships were twice as frequent at follow-up. In the psychotherapy sample, the initial experience of being passively trapped within their problems was transformed into an experience of being an active agent in their own life. However, considerable differences between the psychotherapy sample and non-clinical sample still persisted at follow-up.     

Perceiving ingroup members who use stereotypes: implicit conformity and similarity

Previous studies have shown that people subtly conform more to ingroup members who use stereotype‐consistent rather than stereotype‐inconsistent information when describing an outgroup member (Castelli, Vanzetto, Sherman, & Arcuri, 2001 ). In the present article, we will address two important issues. First, we will examine whether this subtle conformity toward stereotypers is related to individuals' prejudice level (Study 1). Second, we will examine one of the processes that underlie the perception of ingroup members who use stereotype‐consistent information, hypothesizing that individuals implicitly feel more similar to such sources than to ingroup members who use stereotype‐inconsistent information (Study 2). Both hypotheses were confirmed and results are discussed in terms of the distinction between implicit and explicit attitudes and their implications in the maintenance of social stereotypes. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Women's reactions to ingroup members who protest discriminatory treatment: The importance of beliefs about inequality and response appropriateness

Our goal was to identify factors that shape women's responses to ingroup members who protest gender discrimination. We predicted and found that women who perceived gender discrimination as pervasive regarded a protest response as being more appropriate than a no protest response and expressed greater liking and less anger towards a female lawyer who protested rather than did not protest an unfair promotion decision. Further, beliefs about the appropriateness of the response to discrimination contributed to evaluations of the protesting lawyer. Perceptions that the complaint was an appropriate response to the promotion decision led to more positive evaluations of an ingroup discrimination protester. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Playing with deviance: Typicality assessments of ingroup members as a strategy of outgroup approach

In two experiments, we analyzed the use of intra‐group differentiation between normative and deviant members as an identity mobilization strategy in intergroup negotiations. Because ingroup members sometimes try to obtain the support of outgroup audiences to attain their goals, we propose that in intergroup negotiations, people attempt to minimize the distinction between the parties involved by changing the appraisal of deviance and including deviant members in the ingroup's prototype. In line with this hypothesis, differences in the assessment of typicality between normative and deviant targets were reduced in instrumental intergroup negotiation contexts. Furthermore, we explored a boundary condition for this effect and found that such outgroup approach is disrupted when threats taint the intergroup negotiation context. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

You probably think this paper's about you: narcissists' perceptions of their personality and reputation

Do narcissists have insight into the negative aspects of their personality and reputation? Using both clinical and subclinical measures of narcissism, the authors examined others' perceptions, self-perceptions, and meta-perceptions of narcissists across a wide range of traits for a new acquaintance and close other (Study 1), longitudinally with a group of new acquaintances (Study 2), and among coworkers (Study 3). Results bring 3 surprising conclusions about narcissists: (a) they understand that others see them less positively than they see themselves (i.e., their meta-perceptions are less biased than are their self-perceptions), (b) they have some insight into the fact that they make positive first impressions that deteriorate over time, and (c) they have insight into their narcissistic personality (e.g., they describe themselves as arrogant). These findings shed light on some of the psychological mechanisms underlying narcissism.     

More and more and more about more

Three experiments explored the development of three linguistic aspects of more in children's speech. Subjects were 56 children between the ages of 2;6 and 6;0. Experiment 1 addressed the nature of the early semantic content of more. Experiment 2 examined the child's differentiation of mass more from count more. Experiment 3 explored the child's use of more as a comparative marker on adjectives. The results suggest, first, that the child initially stores the meaning of more with a prototype, rather than with some more systematic, featural representation. In addition, children's linguistic understanding of the dual use of more as a quantifier of mass amounts and count amounts does not appear to develop until long after they have been using more appropriately in unambiguous contexts. Finally, children learn to use more as a marker on comparatives only after they have acquired -er as a comparative marker, and some time after they have been using more successfully in nonadjectival constructions.     

Recognition of faces of ingroup and outgroup children and adults

People are often more accurate in recognizing faces of ingroup members than in recognizing faces of outgroup members. Although own-group biases in face recognition are well established among adults, less attention has been given to such biases among children. This is surprising considering how often children give testimony in criminal and civil cases. In the current two studies, Euro-Canadian children attending public school and young adults enrolled in university-level classes were asked whether previously presented photographs of Euro-American and African American adults (Study 1) or photographs of Native Canadian, Euro-Canadian, and African American children (Study 2) were new or old. In both studies, own-group biases were found on measures of discrimination accuracy and response bias as well as on estimates of reaction time, confidence, and confidence-accuracy relations. Results of both studies were consistent with predictions derived from multidimensional face space theory of face recognition. Implications of the current studies for the validity of children's eyewitness testimony are also discussed.     

Young children seek out biased information about social groups

Understanding the origins of prejudice necessitates exploring the ways in which children participate in the construction of biased representations of social groups. We investigate whether young children actively seek out information that supports and extends their initial intergroup biases. In Studies 1 and 2, we show that children choose to hear a story that contains positive information about their own group and negative information about another group rather than a story that contains negative information about their own group and positive information about the other group. In a third study, we show that children choose to present biased information to others, thus demonstrating that the effects of information selection can start to propagate through social networks. In Studies 4 and 5, we further investigate the nature of children's selective information seeking and show that children prefer ingroup‐favouring information to other types of biased information and even to balanced, unbiased information. Together, this work shows that children are not merely passively recipients of social information; they play an active role in the creation and transmission of intergroup attitudes.     

Young handicapped children and their families: Patterns of interaction with human service institutions

The experiences of nine young handicapped children and their families with a variety of human service institutions are discussed. A retrospective account is presented from the parents' perspective of those aspects of their and their children's experience that have had a significant impact on their quality of life. Central among these experiences has been the interpersonal interaction with professionals. The parents' reported experiences regarding identification, the search for assistance, assessment, and their children's receipt of services suggest that there are problems in the areas of locating and acquiring an appropriate combination of services to meet family needs and in the quality of interpersonal relationships between parents and professionals. Recommendations are made to alleviate these and other problems.     

Young children use their hands to tell their mothers what to say

Children produce their first gestures before their first words, and their first gesture+word sentences before their first word+word sentences. These gestural accomplishments have been found not only to predate linguistic milestones, but also to predict them. Findings of this sort suggest that gesture itself might be playing a role in the language‐learning process. But what role does it play? Children's gestures could elicit from their mothers the kinds of words and sentences that the children need to hear in order to take their next linguistic step. We examined maternal responses to the gestures and speech that 10 children produced during the one‐word period. We found that all 10 mothers ‘translated’ their children's gestures into words, providing timely models for how one‐ and two‐word ideas can be expressed in English. Gesture thus offers a mechanism by which children can point out their thoughts to mothers, who then calibrate their speech to those thoughts, and potentially facilitate language‐learning.     

Anger and guilt about ingroup advantage explain the willingness for political action

Three studies examined non-Aboriginal Australians' guilt and anger about their ingroup's advantage over structurally disadvantaged Aborigines. Study 1 showed that participants who perceived their ingroup as relatively advantaged perceived this inequality as unfair and felt guilt and anger about it. Anger, and to a lesser degree guilt, predicted the willingness to engage in political action regarding ingroup advantage. Study 2 showed both guilt and anger to be relatively self-focused because both were associated with appraising the ingroup's (rather than the government's) discrimination as responsible for ingroup advantage. Study 3 examined on participants especially willing to engage in political action to bring about systemic compensation to Aborigines. Anger about ingroup advantage was a potent predictor. Although guilt was associated with the abstract goal of systemic compensation, guilt did not explain willingness for political action. Results underline the importance of examining specific group-based emotions in intergroup relations.     

Young children understand multiple pretend identities in their object play

This set of studies examined the ability of 3‐year‐olds to conceptualize multiple pretend identities with objects. Rather than relying on verbal response measures, as has been done in the past, children's creative and inferential pretend actions were used as indicators of their understanding. The common structure to all four studies was that children were confronted with one pretend scenario, moved to a second pretend scenario and then back again to the first. Children proficiently tailored their pretence to an object whose pretend identity changed between scenarios despite being less able to name each identity. Thus, using an inferential action methodology, these studies provide early and particularly convincing evidence that children can track the multiple pretend identities of objects.     

Transforming mental health care for children and their families

In April 2002, the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health was created by executive order to study the mental health care delivery system in our nation and to make recommendations for improvements so that individuals with serious mental disorders can live, work, learn, and fully participate in their homes and communities. In its report, "Achieving the Promise: Transforming Mental Health Care in America," the commission provided strategies to address critical infrastructure, practice, and research issues. This article focuses on the work of the commission's Subcommittee on Children and Families, describing its vision for mental health service delivery for children and providing suggestions for strengthening community-based care for youths with or at risk of behavioral health disorders. Training, research, practice, and policy implications for psychologists are discussed.     

Less pain and more to gain: why high-status group members blame their failure on discrimination.

Members of high-status groups are more likely than members of low-status groups to blame their failure on discrimination and are less likely to blame it on themselves. This tendency was demonstrated in 3 experiments comparing men and women, White and Black students, and members of experimentally created high- and low-status groups. Results also showed that when making an attribution to discrimination, high-status group members were less likely to experience a threat to their social state self-esteem, performance perceived control, and social perceived control and were more likely to protect their performance state self-esteem. These findings help to explain why high-status group members are more willing to blame their failure on discrimination by showing that it is less harmful for them than for low-status group members.     

Young children are more likely to cheat after overhearing that a classmate is smart

Research on moral socialization has largely focused on the role of direct communication and has almost completely ignored a potentially rich source of social influence: evaluative comments that children overhear. We examined for the first time whether overheard comments can shape children's moral behavior. Three‐ and 5‐year‐old children (N = 200) participated in a guessing game in which they were instructed not to cheat by peeking. We randomly assigned children to a condition in which they overheard an experimenter tell another adult that a classmate who was no longer present is smart, or to a control condition in which the overheard conversation consisted of non‐social information. We found that 5‐year‐olds, but not 3‐year‐olds, cheated significantly more often if they overheard the classmate praised for being smart. These findings show that the effects of ability praise can spread far beyond the intended recipient to influence the behavior of children who are mere observers, and they suggest that overheard evaluative comments can be an important force in shaping moral development.