Social Categories: Race & Gender

Question 1

Individuals have a variety of social identities

Answer 1

• 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!

Question 2

Social Categorization

Answer 2

The study of how humans form “groups” based on social identities

Want to understand: The development of social categorization and childhood

Question 3

Race-Based Categorization

Answer 3

• 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

Question 4

Race-Based Preferences

Answer 4

Explicit preference: show white infants/children two people and ask: “Who do you like?”

Own-race preference in childhood (not infancy)

Question 5

Explicit vs. Implicit Preferences

Answer 5

• Explicit: ask directly (“Who do you like?”)
• Implicit: ask indirectly via specifically designed tasks

Question 6

Implicit Association Test

Answer 6

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?

Question 7

Explicit vs. Implicit Preferences for Race Results

Answer 7

• 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

Question 8

Summary: White Participants’ Preferences

Answer 8

• 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)

Question 9

Asymmetry in Race Preferences

Answer 9

Black children in the U.S. show lower levels of both explicit and implicit race preferences than White children in the U.S.

Question 10

Children’s Early Race Preferences

Answer 10

• 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

Question 11

The Contact Hypothesis

Answer 11

Main ideas:
- We like people (and things) we have regular contact with (familiar/comfortable)
- Increasing contact with “outgroup” members can attenuate social group conflict

Question 12

The “Mere Exposure” Effect in Infancy

Answer 12

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!

Question 13

Ambiguous Situation Task - Contact in Schools

Answer 13

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

Question 14

Contact in Communities

Answer 14

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

Question 15

Status: Hierarchy of Racial Groups

Answer 15

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

Question 16

Language: Communicating Social Relevance

Answer 16

• 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

Question 17

Manipulating Social Relevance

Answer 17

Study:
Jane Elliot, a teacher in Iowa in the 1960s & 1970s
Divided class into “blue eyes” and “brown eyes” to have children experience discrimination

Question 18

Communicating Category Relevance: Generic Language

Answer 18

• Certain ways of talking make groups - and stereotypes about them - more important
• “Generic” language = statement that applies to all members of a category

Question 19

Zarpie Study

Answer 19

• 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

Question 20

Colorblind parenting

Answer 20

• 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

Question 21

“Guess Who” task

Answer 21

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

Question 22

Social Categories: Race Summary

Answer 22

• 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

Question 23

6 to 9 month old infants can distinguish males and females

Answer 23

• use voice and physical features (facial features)
• prefer female voices (bc usually female is primary caregiver)

Question 24

Early Gender Milestones

Answer 24

• 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

Question 25

Kohlberg’s Theory of Gender Development

Answer 25

1. Gender Identity: 2-3 years old; identify their gender (I’m a girl” vs. “I’m a boy”)
2. 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”)
3. 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

Question 26

Gender Guides Learning

Answer 26

• 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

Question 27

Gender can impact motivation

Answer 27

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

Question 28

Transgender Children

Answer 28

• 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

Question 29

Gender Differences

Answer 29

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

Question 30

where do differences come from?

Answer 30

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

Question 31

Genetics and Hormones

Answer 31

Higher fetal testosterone levels are associated with more male-typical play preferences in preschool

Question 32

Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia

Answer 32

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

Question 33

Socialization Differences

Answer 33

• 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

Question 34

Parental Gender Expectations

Answer 34

• 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!

Question 35

Parental Gender Expectations - Museum Study

Answer 35

Parents talk at a science museum (to 1-8 year olds)
boys get more explanations w both father and mother!

Question 36

Gender Socialization: Societal Messages

Answer 36

clothing for girls vs. clothing for boys

Question 37

Case Study: sex differences in spatial reasoning

Answer 37

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

Question 38

Actual STEM aptitude vs. perceptions

Answer 38

• 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

Question 38

Farmer’s Market Study: Results

Answer 38

women were more accurate on the spatial task, 27% better than men!

female advantage on spatial reasoning task - implicit encoding of stationary object location

Question 38

How can we increase female interest in STEM?

Answer 38

1. Language: girls who are told they are going to “do science” are more interested than those told they are going to “be a scientist”
2. 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