Work

The Nature and Consequences of Essentialist Beliefs About Race in Early Childhood

Year: 2018

Type: article

Abstract: It is widely believed that race divides the world into biologically distinct kinds of people—an essentialist belief inconsistent with reality. Essentialist views of race have been described as early emerging, but this study found that young children (n = 203, Mage = 5.45) hold only the more limited belief that the physical feature of skin color is inherited and stable. Overall, children rejected the causal essentialist view that behavioral and psychological characteristics are constrained by an inherited racial essence. Although average levels of children's causal essentialist beliefs about race were low, variation in these beliefs was related to children's own group membership, exposure to diversity, as well as children's own social attitudes.

Source: Child Development

DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13008

Authors: Tara M Mandalaywala, Gabrielle Ranger-Murdock, David M Amodio, Marjorie Rhodes

Institutions: New York University, University of Amsterdam

Language: English

Topic: Social and Intergroup Psychology

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Institutes of Health, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Award: “The Linguistic Transmission of Maladaptive Beliefs”