UMD Theses and Dissertations

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Subject: search.filters.subject.prejudice

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Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Contextual factors in children's and adolescents' predictions and evaluations of interracial peer encounters
    (2021) Burkholder, Amanda Rose; Killen, Melanie; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Direct experiences with peers of different races create possibilities for cross-race friendships and reduce racial prejudice and bias. Yet, interracial friendships remain rare in childhood, and decline by early adolescence. Therefore, an essential avenue for research in developmental science is to understand the conditions under which positive interracial encounters are maintained in childhood and adolescence, as these experiences may combat prejudicial attitudes and mitigate discriminatory behavior later in life. Children’s and adolescents’ willingness to engage in interracial peer encounters is not unidimensional, and research targeting how children and adolescents reason about interracial peer encounters provides a window into expectations about these relationships. The present dissertation includes a collection of three empirical papers that each explore contextual factors that influence children’s evaluations, predictions, and preferences in interracial peer encounters. Empirical Paper 1 disentangled children’s evaluations of interracial and interwealth exclusion using a design that focused either on race, controlling for wealth, or wealth, controlling for race. Empirical Paper 2 investigated how children’s and adolescents’ own racial group memberships influenced their predictions and preferences for interracial inclusion within a multi-group context that included information about wealth. Empirical Paper 3 examined the effect of parental and peer messages on children’s and adolescents’ predictions of interracial inclusion. Together, these papers provide evidence that during the interracial peer encounter, the presence of a multi-group context and socializing agents are vital to consider in order to understand, predict, and intervene on children’s and adolescents’ decisions and preferences for interracial peer contact. Discovering the emergence of and age-related changes to attitudes about interracial peer encounters in childhood, and the contextual factors that influence them, will provide valuable information for reducing stereotypes and biases as well as promoting positive peer relationships in childhood.
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    Cultural differences in prejudice between individual- and group-oriented cultures
    (2014) Shin, Hyeyoung; Stangor, Charles G; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The present dissertation investigated cultural differences in the degree and dynamics of prejudice between individual- and group-oriented cultures. In Study 1, in the US where personal responsibility and individual's capitalistic/meritocratic achievements are emphasized, participants reported greater distance to groups based on personal qualities (e.g., heavy drinkers) than in South Korea, and competition for employment was positively associated with prejudice toward various groups (but not in South Korea). In South Korea where the holistic/essential quality, the self-ingroup overlap, and relationships within ingroups are emphasized, participants reported greater distance to groups perceived as essentially different from the majority (e.g., different race) than in the US. In Study 2, the emphasis on individual achievements consistently predicted social hierarchy beliefs in the US (but not in South Korea), whereas the emphasis on roles/positions within ingroups consistently predicted both social and biological hierarchy beliefs in South Korea (but not in the US). In Study 3, the emphasis on individual uniqueness was negatively associated with social distance to non-normative groups (e.g., homosexuals) only in the US, whereas the value of conformity with norms/conventions predicted social distance to low SES (e.g., poor/uneducated/homeless), non-normative, and value-based (e.g., people whose opinions are different from mine in religious issues) target groups both in the US and South Korea. Conformity with norms/conventions also predicted social distance to racial/ethnic outgroups (e.g., non-Koreans to South Korean participants) only in South Korea. In addition, essentialism was associated with social distance to low SES groups in the US, whereas essentialism was associated with social distance to low SES, non-normative, and racial/ethnic groups in South Korea. Overall, the present research provided empirical evidence that cultural norms/values are associated with differences in the degree and dynamics of prejudice between individual- and group-oriented cultures.
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    Affect and Cognition as Antecedents of Intergroup Attitudes: The Role of Applicability and Judged Usability
    (2009) Leary, Scott; Stangor, Charles; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    When making intergroup evaluations we experience cognitive and affective responses. Given that the content of the cognitions or affective reactions are applicable and judged usable, each has the potential to influence one's attitudes towards that group. In a Pilot Study participants reported significantly more disgust than fear when thinking about gay men, and significantly more fear than disgust when thinking about African-Americans. Studies 1 and 2 provided initial support that these specific emotional responses to social groups are moderated by the extent to which that information is judged as usable. Data from Study 3 did not fully support my hypotheses, as personal relevance did not moderate the extent to which affect was related to social distance. Implications and limitations are discussed.
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    Children's Decision-Making about Social Relationships: The Impact of Similarity, Racial Attitudes, and Intergroup Contact
    (2004-04-29) McGlothlin, Heidi; Killen, Melanie; Human Development
    Cross-race friendships are a significant factor in the reduction of prejudice. The frequency of cross-race friendships is low throughout childhood and further declines with age. Three factors proposed to influence children’s decision-making about cross-race friendships were investigated: racial attitudes, perceptions of similarity, and intergroup contact. Participants were 138 European American first- and fourth-graders who attended ethnically homogeneous schools. Three assessments were administered. The Ambiguous Situations Task assessed implicit bias in children’s interpretations of ambiguous interracial encounters. The Similarity Task assessed children’s perceptions of similarity between peer dyads that varied by race and by whether or not they shared activity interests. The Intergroup Contact Assessment was administered to measure the amount of contact participants experienced with members of racial and ethnic groups other than their own. Results of the Ambiguous Situations Task were that children interpreted the ambiguous situations involving a Black transgressor as more negative than the situations involving a White transgressor. Moreover, the characters were evaluated as less likely to be friends in the situations involving a Black transgressor than in those involving a White transgressor. The findings from the Similarity Task were that children focused on shared interests to a greater extent than shared race in judgments of similarity and friendship potential. Evidence of the outgroup homogeneity effect was found, however. European American participants judged same-race Black dyads as more similar than same-race White dyads. Overall, participants reported low amounts of intergroup contact. Higher intergroup contact scores were related to perceptions of greater between-race similarity and to perceptions of less same-race similarity. In sum, the factors investigated had varying degrees of influence on decision-making about cross-race friendship. The findings point to the need for a multi-method assessment of racial attitudes in children, as well as to further investigation of the impact of intergroup contact.