Social Categories: Race & Gender Flashcards
Individuals have a variety of social identities
- Family relationships
- Gender identity
- Many, many “group” identities - and they can overlap!
- What counts as a “group” varies across cultures, and across history
Ex: Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Religion, School, Sports Team, Hobbies/Clubs, And more!
Social Categorization
The study of how humans form “groups” based on social identities
Want to understand: The development of social categorization and childhood
Race-Based Categorization
- Begins early
Study:
Method: show 3-month-olds pairs of faces
Measure: preferential looking (which face do infants look at longer?)
Results:
infants (white, black, and Asian) look more at their own-race faces
Race-Based Preferences
Explicit preference: show white infants/children two people and ask: “Who do you like?”
Own-race preference in childhood (not infancy)
Explicit vs. Implicit Preferences
- Explicit: ask directly (“Who do you like?”)
- Implicit: ask indirectly via specifically designed tasks
Implicit Association Test
Things that are associated (that “go together”) are easier to process together:
Is it easier to categorize “group A” with “good” or is it easier to categorize “group A” with bad?
Explicit vs. Implicit Preferences for Race Results
- Explicit preferences for our own race decline with age
- Adults show no explicit bias
- Children associate their own race with “good” by 6 years of age
- Implicit bias is stable across age
Summary: White Participants’ Preferences
- Explicit: by around kindergarten, white children are willing to say they prefer white friends
- Implicit: also around kindergarten, white children show a learned association between White/good and Black/bad
- Although White older children and adults are unlikely to explicitly say that they like White people more, they show the same implicit bias (White/good and Black/bad)
Asymmetry in Race Preferences
Black children in the U.S. show lower levels of both explicit and implicit race preferences than White children in the U.S.
Children’s Early Race Preferences
- More complicated than just liking people who are “like me”!
- Three big ideas about what impacts category-based bias:
1. Contact: quantity and quality of outgroup exposure
2. Status: hierarchy of social groups within society
3. Language: how groups are talked about
The Contact Hypothesis
Main ideas:
- We like people (and things) we have regular contact with (familiar/comfortable)
- Increasing contact with “outgroup” members can attenuate social group conflict
The “Mere Exposure” Effect in Infancy
Test: preferential looking in 3-month-old infants
- 3 groups of infant participants:
White Israelis in Israel
Black Ethiopians in Ethiopia
Black Ethiopians in Israel
Results:
- White Israeli infants looked longer at White faces
- Black Ethiopian infants in Ethiopia looked longer at Black faces
- Black Ethiopian infants in Israel did not show a preference!
Ambiguous Situation Task - Contact in Schools
Study:
- The race of characters switched across trials
- Interpretation - Was she doing something good or bad?
Results:
White children’s responses - 1st and 4th graders
- Homogeneous schools (90% white): Black = more negative interpretations
- Heterogeneous schools: (<70% white): no effect of race
Contact in Communities
Study:
- Comparison of two communities: Hawaii & Massachusets, Children aged 4-11 years
- Stereotyping Task: Measures whether children hold racial stereotypes
- Essentialism Task: Measures how important
children think race is to an individual’s being
Results:
- Children in Massachusetts (MA), but not Hawaii (HI), increased racial stereotyping with age
- Children in HI essentialized race less than children in MA with age
Status: Hierarchy of Racial Groups
Black children less likely to show implicit or explicit race preferences
Study: Testing Latino/a children in the U.S.
- Compare preferences with two different comparison groups
Latino/a vs. Black
Latino/a vs. White
There is a preference for white
Study: Chinese children in China
Preferences with two different comparison groups
Chinese vs. Black
Chinese vs. White
There is a preference for white
Results:
As individuals age, they are more likely to pick up status hierarchies
Language: Communicating Social Relevance
- Some groups are more socially relevant than others
- Social distinctions that adults find important are communicated/transmitted to children
Hypothesis:
- Make a group seem important, people will care about it
- Arbitrary or “minimal” groups
Manipulating Social Relevance
Study:
Jane Elliot, a teacher in Iowa in the 1960s & 1970s
Divided class into “blue eyes” and “brown eyes” to have children experience discrimination
Communicating Category Relevance: Generic Language
- Certain ways of talking make groups - and stereotypes about them - more important
- “Generic” language = statement that applies to all members of a category
Zarpie Study
- Generic: Look at this Zarpie! Zarpie hates ice cream!
- Specific: Look at this Zarpie! This Zarpie hates ice cream!
- No Label: Look at this one! This one hates ice cream!
Results:
- Children and adults are more likely to say a property applies to all social group members after hearing generic language
- Not just labels: the specific label (“this Zarpie”) did not have the same effect
- Stereotypes can be passed across generations by parents’ likelihood of using generic language
Colorblind parenting
- White parents are reluctant to talk about race
- About 10% discuss in depth
- About 80% say it is “important”
- Focus on “egalitarianism”
Problem: this leads to a reduction of awareness of bias and greater stereotyping
“Guess Who” task
Study:
- 8 to 11 year olds (predominantly White)
- 2 conditions:
Race relevant
Race neutral (sticker)
Results:
Older children are reluctant to mention race
Harms performance on the task
Avoiding talking about race doesn’t address the underlying problem
Reduces awareness of bias
Even if children don’t talk about it, stereotyping and implicit bias remain
Engage children with race in age-appropriate ways
Social Categories: Race Summary
- Social preferences based on race arise in early school years
- Explicit biases decrease with age, implicit biases do not
- How racial bias manifests depends on MANY features:
Contact/familiarity - positive interactions help
Role of race in societal hierarchy - children pick up on status
How we talk - need to address race, but be careful about generics
6 to 9 month old infants can distinguish males and females
- use voice and physical features (facial features)
- prefer female voices (bc usually female is primary caregiver)
Early Gender Milestones
- 18 to 24-month-olds develop expectations about gender related objects and activities, begin to stereotype gender
- 3 year olds use gender terms (boy, girl) and pronouns
- Preschoolers show increased gender-typed play
- 5 to 7 year olds increasing gender segregation
- Adolescence:
increased rigidity in gender roles OR increased flexibility in gender roles
Kohlberg’s Theory of Gender Development
- Gender Identity: 2-3 years old; identify their gender (I’m a girl” vs. “I’m a boy”)
- Gender Stability: 3 to 4 years old; gender is stable over time, still somewhat think it’s determined by outside factors (“I’ve always been, and always will be a boy”)
- Gender Constancy - 5 to 7 years old; gender as something essential to a person (“What people wear and do not does not change their gender”) - start to seek out same gender role-models
Gender Guides Learning
- 4 to 5 year olds use gender to decide what to play with and what to do (ex: I’m a girl and I like to play Kazoop - girl will choose kazoop over boy toy)
- children chose objects and activities endorsed by same-gender child
Gender can impact motivation
Study:
- Child plays a game and then learns that another boy/girl/child did better than they did
- Child plays the game again
- Gender of child who “did better” influences their performance
Results:
- Gender unidentified: do better
- Opposite gender: do worse
Transgender Children
- tested 3 to 12 year old trans children
- very similar patterns as cisgender children
- strongly identify as, and prefer, current-gender (not gender assigned at birth)
means that early socialization is not everything - both, it’s always both
Gender Differences
Boys:
- more rough and tumble play
- more physical aggression
- better at some spatial abilities (mental rotation)
- better at “systemizing”
Girls:
- less rough and tumble play
- less physical aggression
- better at other spatial abilities (location memory)
- better at “empathizing”
sex differences in cognition are typically small
where do differences come from?
Genetics and hormones:
- sex hormones (estrogens, androgens) trigger different patterns of development
Social influences:
- sex differences are learned from immersion within a culture, where there are different expectations and different sex roles
Genetics and Hormones
Higher fetal testosterone levels are associated with more male-typical play preferences in preschool
Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia
Genetic females (XX) with higher levels of androgen-like hormones
- show more rough and tumble play, and interest in “boy” activities
- higher spatial cognition test scores
- these girls are not socialized differently
Socialization Differences
- people interact with boys and girls differently, starting in infancy
- first question people ask tends to be, “is it a boy, or a girl?”
- gender reveal parties
Study:
- same infant, dressed as a girl or dressed as a boy
Results:
- adults play with girl vs. boy children in very different ways
girl = comment on beauty
boy = comment on occupations, play more rough, give boys more space
Parental Gender Expectations
- expectations about their 11 month old infant’s motor abilities
- different patterns based on child gender
parents of sons OVER-estimate their ability (expect risk-taking)
parents of daughters UNDER-estimate their ability (expect risk avoidance) - no gender differences in actual motor ability!
Parental Gender Expectations - Museum Study
Parents talk at a science museum (to 1-8 year olds)
boys get more explanations w both father and mother!
Gender Socialization: Societal Messages
clothing for girls vs. clothing for boys
Case Study: sex differences in spatial reasoning
Spatial Reasoning:
- male advantage for spatial tasks:
mental rotation
spatial relations
- scientists assumed males have better overall spatial abilities
Evolutionary Perspective:
- in hunter-gatherer societies, there is a division of labor for food acquisition, these tasks require different spatial abilities
Study:
- tested adults at a farmer’s market asked them to go to different stalls and taste the food, then stand in middle of market and point to location of each item tasted
Actual STEM aptitude vs. perceptions
- by elementary school, children associate math with boys - this is before there are actually any differences in academic performance in math
Children’s Perceptions - Draw a scientist
- tests children’s associations between science and gender
- most children draw male scientists
Farmer’s Market Study: Results
women were more accurate on the spatial task, 27% better than men!
female advantage on spatial reasoning task - implicit encoding of stationary object location
How can we increase female interest in STEM?
- Language: girls who are told they are going to “do science” are more interested than those told they are going to “be a scientist”
- Pretend Play: girls who role-play being a specific famous scientist (like Marie Curie) are more interested
Things to keep in mind:
- other positive effects: increase girls’ self-efficacy
- some negatives: these interventions don’t work the same way for boys; interventions may need to be targeted to a specific gender
