The Roles of Social Intimacy, Bias, and Group Norms in Children’s Intergroup Interactions

Abstract

Children actively construct knowledge about their social world starting early in development. This knowledge includes an understanding about group norms, group dynamics, and group identity. Group identity includes an awareness of gender, race, and ethnicity. While group identity serves an important affiliative function, there are contexts in which biases emerge about other groups, often contributing to social exclusion and peer rejection. The present dissertation includes three papers which explore the impact of social intimacy, bias, and group norms on children’s attitudes and behaviors in intergroup interactions. Empirical Paper 1 explores whether social intimacy impacts children’s predictions and evaluations around interracial interactions. Children thought that high intimacy social contexts were more racially segregated than low intimacy contexts and more strongly rejected interracial exclusion in high intimacy social contexts, possibly due to high intimacy social contexts providing opportunities for quality contact and friendship formation. Empirical Paper 2 documents the role of includer direct bias and indirect bias justifications in children’s same-race inclusion evaluations and their moral reasoning. Children rejected forms of direct bias, but had more nuanced evaluations of indirect bias, and children’s moral reasoning was associated with rejecting complex forms of intergroup exclusion. Lastly, Empirical Paper 3 highlights the role of inclusive outgroup norms in children’s attitudes and behaviors towards gender outgroup members. Higher inclusive norm beliefs were associated with more intergender contact, more positive attitudes towards gender outgroup members, and inclusive norm beliefs appeared to be especially helpful for high-status children. Cumulatively, these three empirical paper provide novel evidence that children consider social intimacy, bias, and group norms, when making decisions about social inclusion and exclusion in intergroup interactions. The broader impact of this line of research lies with the potential to develop intervention programs designed to ameliorate early forms of prejudice and bias in childhood, which best prepares children for positive social relationships and healthy social development.