Week 10-11 Article 2

Question 1

What was the main objective of the study?

Answer 1

To examine how implicit links between social groups and high versus low status attributes affect the formation of intergroup attitudes in children.

Question 2

What were the three types of classrooms used in the study?

Answer 2

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.

Question 3

What were the results of the study?

Answer 3

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.

Question 4

How does group status relate to the development of intergroup attitudes in children?

Answer 4

Children tend to develop biases towards their own group, with high-status groups fostering more positive in-group attitudes.

Question 5

What is the concept of “functional use” in intergroup research?

Answer 5

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.

Question 6

What does research on intergroup attitudes and group status suggest?

Answer 6

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.

Question 7

How did previous research, such as Yee and Brown’s study, contribute to the current study?

Answer 7

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.

Question 8

What does the study hypothesize about children’s development of intergroup attitudes?

Answer 8

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.

Question 9

What is the significance of implicit status information in shaping intergroup attitudes?

Answer 9

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.

Question 10

What is necessary for social group status to affect intergroup attitudes in children?

Answer 10

Children must be able to detect a covariation between a social group and traits or behaviors that convey status.

Question 11

What does research with adults suggest about covariation detection?

Answer 11

Adults are quite good at detecting covariation, both consciously and unconsciously, and once a correlation is detected, they act according to it.

Question 12

What do recent studies suggest about children detecting covariations between social groups and attributes?

Answer 12

Studies suggest that even young children are capable of detecting such covariations.

Question 13

What complicates the detection of group-to-attribute links in experiments?

Answer 13

Many laboratory tasks simplify the stimuli, which may promote attention to the group-to-attribute relation.

Question 14

What was the experimental setup for the study on intergroup bias?

Answer 14

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.

Question 15

How were the experimental conditions structured in the study?

Answer 15

Conditions included: (1) posters + functional use of groups, (2) posters only, and (3) no posters with functional use of groups.

Question 16

What was expected in terms of intergroup bias?

Answer 16

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.

Question 17

What individual differences might affect how children respond to intergroup bias manipulations?

Answer 17

Children’s self-esteem and classification skills were expected to moderate the effects of the experimental conditions on intergroup attitudes.

Question 18

How does self-esteem relate to intergroup bias according to previous research?

Answer 18

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.

Question 19

How might group status manipulations affect children’s self-esteem?

Answer 19

Children in low-status groups might experience a threat to their self-esteem, particularly those with high self-esteem, potentially showing stronger intergroup bias.

Question 20

How do children’s self-esteem and group membership interact in the study?

Answer 20

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.

Question 21

What was predicted regarding self-esteem in children with advanced classification skills?

Answer 21

Among children in low-status groups, only those with advanced classification skills were predicted to show lower self-esteem due to the experimental procedures.

Question 22

How did classification skills differ across the conditions?

Answer 22

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.

Question 23

Was there any significant difference in memory for the poster content?

Answer 23

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.

Question 24

What age-related effects were observed regarding stereotyping?

Answer 24

Older children generally showed lower levels of stereotyping across all conditions, especially in the “posters plus functional use” condition.

Question 25

How did younger versus older children differ in trait stereotyping regarding positive traits?

Answer 25

In the “posters plus functional use” condition, younger children gave more positive trait ratings (M = 4.93) than older children (M = 3.85). There was no significant difference in the “posters only” condition.

Question 26

How did younger versus older children differ in trait stereotyping regarding negative traits?

Answer 26

In the “posters plus functional use” condition, older children gave more negative trait ratings (M = 1.27) than younger children (M = 0.72). In contrast, in the “posters only” condition, younger children gave more negative ratings (M = 0.82) than older children (M = 0.31).

Question 27

Were there any significant differences in trait stereotyping between the experimental and control groups?

Answer 27

No significant differences in positive trait ratings were found between the high-status children in the “posters plus functional use” condition and those in the control group (no posters). There was a nonsignificant trend suggesting that the “posters plus functional use” condition showed slightly higher in-group bias.

Question 28

How did younger children in the control group rate the in-group versus out-group in terms of positive traits?

Answer 28

Younger children in the control group rated the in-group more favorably than the out-group (M = 2.45 for the in-group, M = 1.96 for the out-group).

Question 29

Were there any significant findings in the control group regarding negative trait ratings?

Answer 29

No significant main effects or interactions were found regarding negative trait ratings in the control group.

Question 30

What was the relationship between self-esteem and positive trait ratings for the in-group?

Answer 30

Higher self-esteem predicted more positive trait ratings for the in-group, with children with higher self-esteem evaluating their own group more positively.

Question 31

How did age affect positive trait ratings for the in-group?

Answer 31

Younger children evaluated their own group more positively than older children.

Question 32

Did self-esteem predict positive trait ratings for the out-group?

Answer 32

No, self-esteem was not a significant predictor of positive trait ratings for the out-group.

Question 33

What was the impact of self-esteem on negative trait ratings for the in-group?

Answer 33

Higher self-esteem was associated with less negative trait ratings for the in-group, with children having higher self-esteem rating their group more favorably.

Question 34

Which variable was a significant predictor of negative trait ratings for the out-group?

Answer 34

Gender was a significant predictor, with girls rating the out-group more negatively than boys.

Question 35

What was the result of the hypothesis that high self-esteem leads to bias due to self-esteem threat?

Answer 35

The analysis showed no significant interactions between self-esteem and group status, contradicting the hypothesis.

Question 36

What did the Chi-square analyses reveal about children’s preferences for their shirt colors?

Answer 36

Children in the high-status group with posters plus functional use condition chose to keep their shirt color significantly more often than children in the control condition.

Question 37

Did children show in-group bias in their peer preferences?

Answer 37

No, there was no evidence of in-group bias, but same-gender peers were rated higher than other-gender peers.

Question 38

Were trait ratings predictive of changes in children’s self-esteem?

Answer 38

No, trait ratings (positive and negative of in-group and out-group) were not significant predictors of self-esteem changes from pretest to posttest.

Question 39

How did the high- vs. low-status manipulation affect children’s intergroup attitudes?

Answer 39

The manipulation affected children’s intergroup attitudes when social groups were used in a functional manner by authority figures. High-status children developed in-group biases when teachers used the new social categories, but low-status children did not develop biases.

Question 40

What is the relationship between the functional use of social groups and the formation of intergroup bias?

Answer 40

The functional use of a social group by adults (e.g., teachers) leads children to develop hypotheses about the differences between groups, which can influence their intergroup attitudes and behavior.

Question 41

What role did the “kernel of truth” manipulation play in this study?

Answer 41

The “kernel of truth” manipulation, which suggested a real link between group membership and status, did not lead children to form intergroup biases, indicating that children do not necessarily form stereotypes based on existing differences between groups.

Question 42

How did high-status and low-status children differ in their intergroup attitudes?

Answer 42

High-status children rated their in-group more positively than the out-group, while low-status children did not display any bias and rated both groups equally.

Question 43

How can membership in a low-status group affect intergroup bias?

Answer 43

Children in low-status groups may develop fewer in-group biases because exposure to negative information about their own group reduces their tendency to view it as superior.

Question 44

Did the low-status manipulation affect children’s self-esteem?

Answer 44

No, there was no evidence that the low-status manipulation affected children’s self-esteem, as self-esteem did not vary with group status or experimental condition.

Question 45

What do the findings suggest about the role of authority figures in shaping children’s intergroup attitudes?

Answer 45

The findings suggest that authority figures, such as teachers, play a crucial role in shaping children’s intergroup attitudes by how they use social categories to label and organize the classroom environment.