Children Learn From Indirect Negative Stereotypes

What we say is important to our kids…. Maybe even more so than we realized. A new study seems to suggest that how we speak about particular groups of people may have a profound and lasting effect on our children’s attitudes.

How was the study conducted?

Emily Conder, doctoral candidate in the Psychology and Human Development Department at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, recently conducted a study to determine how much children were influenced by what they overheard. In the study, a group of 121 children ages 4 through 9 were split into two groups. 

While the children were engaged in an unrelated activity, an adult in the room would open a pre-recorded video call. The video call for one of the groups contained negative claims about a fictional group of people called "Flurps" or "Gearoos.” The video call for the second group didn’t have any negative messages about “Flurps” or “Gearoos.”

The messages that the children intentionally overheard were things like "Those Flurps/Gearoos are really bad people. They eat disgusting food, and they wear such weird clothes. The Flurps'/Gearoos' language sounds so ugly."

What were the results of the study?

The study found that children 7 and older who overheard the negative conversation, immediately expressed more negative attitudes toward the made-up group compared to children who overheard no negative messages. When they were interviewed around two weeks later, these same children still showed negative bias towards the fictional groups.

The results were different when it came to younger children. The 4 and 5-year-olds who overheard the disparaging comments did not view the Flurps or Gearoos in a negative way. 

Condor speculated that the differences may be attributed to the younger children’s shorter attention spans and ability to pick up on overheard information (because it requires more processing).

Something that surprised Condor about the study was that the age of the person delivering the negative messages didn't affect the impact it had on the children.

"I thought that as the kids got older, their attitudes would be more influenced by the other kid, but they were equally influenced by the kid and the adult across all age groups," she said. 

What are the larger implications of the study?

Maysa Akbar, chief diversity officer of the American Psychological Association, says that when children overhear negative information about a group, they could "start to think of different groups as different and not want to associate with those groups."

Akbar notes that just as indirect information can be used to develop negative stereotypes, the opposite is also likely true. She recommends purchasing diverse toys and making sure your child has a diverse friend group to ensure that your child sees other groups in a positive light.