The roles of group biases and mental state understanding in children's intergroup interactions

Abstract

Balancing concerns for fairness with group dynamics, including preferences for one’s ingroup and attitudes about peers viewed as members of the outgroup, emerges early in childhood. While children understand fairness and act on their judgments about it, they also display preferences for others who are similar to themselves. Further, their mental state knowledge, that is, beliefs about others’ beliefs, desires, and intentions, is related to their ability to give priority to fairness considerations. The present dissertation includes a collection of three papers which explore the influence of children’s ingroup biases and mental state understanding skills on their intergroup moral decisions. Empirical Paper 1 documents circumstances in which intergroup factors are associated with increased group biases. Specifically, hearing an outgroup member claim that someone has performed a moral transgression was associated with children displaying heightened ingroup biases. Next, Empirical Paper 2 explores whether mental state understanding might serve as a mediator between children’s ingroup biases and their moral decisions. Children’s mental state understanding skills did in fact mediate the relationship between ingroup bias and children’s ability to attribute intentions and decisions to exclude peers. Finally, Empirical Paper 3 addresses the role of mental state understanding skills in children’s judgments of gender inequalities and their attributions of emotions to individuals who are harmed by or benefitted by gender inequality. Children’s advanced mental state understanding skills were associated with them judging gender inequality more negatively and recognizing that benefitting from gender inequality is not necessarily a positive experience. Together, these three empirical papers provide evidence that children are balancing concerns for groups and their ability to understand others’ mental states when making intergroup moral evaluations. This collection has implications for future research aimed at improving children’s intergroup interactions and reducing intergroup biases.