A team of psychologists has determined that children's understanding of inequality is affected by the way the causes of inequality are explained to them. The study exposed more than 200 children to two fictional socioeconomic groups. The findings show that children are less prejudiced against economically disadvantaged groups when a specific group is held responsible for creating structural inequalities. Effective communication with children about inequality therefore requires highlighting both systemic causes and the groups responsible for them.
Psychological research shows that understanding the roots of inequality can reduce bias against individuals' economic background.
A new study from a team of psychology researchers finds that children's perceptions of inequality may be affected by the way the causes of inequality are explained to them. This study delves into the factors that influence how teenagers view larger social issues and points to new ways to reduce bias against lower-status economic groups.
Rachel Leshin, a doctoral student at NYU and lead author of the study, said: "Adults may consider the structural forces at work when understanding social inequalities—for example, people may cite policies related to traditional admissions when thinking about how inequalities arise in the first place. But children do not necessarily view status differences in this way—when children are prompted to consider structural forces, they often interpret these structures differently than adults."
"However, our work shows that if the structures that drive inequality are explained to children in specific ways, they can think about these issues in ways similar to adults," she added. "We found that this approach also reduced children's bias toward lower-income groups relative to higher-income groups."
Children's awareness of inequality
Research has long shown that children become aware of inequality from an early age and quickly develop status-related biases as a result. For example, they typically view those from high-status groups (e.g., those with more material resources or those who belong to groups they perceive as wealthier) more positively, and they willingly accept group differences.
In the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Lessing and Marjorie Rhodes, a professor in the Department of Psychology at New York University, studied how children reason about economic inequality to understand how interpretations of inequality affect children's reactions to inequality, such as how they feel about low-status groups or whether they want to correct inequality. In doing so, this work seeks to understand how these explanations can be used to reduce bias against lower status groups.
Research methods and results
To this end, Lessing and Rhodes recruited more than 200 children aged 5 to 10 to participate in an online study. In the study, children learned about two fictitious groups - the "Toogits" (a high-status group) and the "Flurps" (a low-status group). The authors note that fictional groups are often used to test children's attitudes to reduce biases associated with "real-world" social categories. These groups are described as those with varying wealth and resources, such as:
See this Flurp? This Flurp lives in this house. Did you know? Grown-up Flurps do jobs that only give them a little money. Because Flurps doesn't have that much money, this Flurps only got a pair of socks for his birthday, and he/she simply can't afford to have a birthday party.
In addition, the children were shown pictures representing the places where the two groups lived, with Toogit living in a nice, polished house and Flurp living in a less aesthetically pleasing house.
To understand how children's responses to inequalities are affected by explained causes, the researchers provided children with one of three explanations for inequality using two fictional groups: One explanation attributed structural causes and claimed that the high-status group was the creator of the structure (i.e.: "..,"...because rules for [high-status group] made long ago"); another attributes structural causes but does not identify its creator (i.e. "...because of rules made long ago"); and one, the control condition, provides no explanation at all (i.e. "...that's how it was done a long time ago").
The researchers sought to understand whether and to what extent these explanations influence children's responses to inequality, including their degree of prejudice against lower-status economic groups.
The results showed that only the structural explanation that identified the high-status group as a catalyst for the different situations of the two groups had a significant effect. Compared with children in the other two conditions, children in this condition were less prejudiced against these fictional groups, viewed the status hierarchy as less fair, and chose to give more resources to the lower status group.
In contrast, children who heard the structural explanations did not respond any differently than children in the control condition who heard no explanations, and the former did not cite the high-status group as the cause of these differences (instead they mentioned a third party, "the person with the power to make the rules").
"When talking to children about inequality, whether it's related to wealth or educational attainment, it's important to identify not only the structural causes of inequality, such as legacy school enrollment issues, but also the groups who are influential in the implementation of these structures," Lechen explains. "We believe these findings can be used to better understand how we can meaningfully engage children on issues of inequality."