Children who heard someone say negative words about a particular group of people developed negative prejudices against them, according to a study published on Wednesday in the journal Child Development.
A group of 121 children aged 4 to 9 years was divided into smaller groups, where they heard a child or an adult say negative statements about a fictional group of people called “Flurps” or “Gearoos” or where they heard nothing negative.
The children were engaged in an unrelated activity when an adult in the room opened a pre-recorded video call, which is how the children indirectly heard negative messages about one of the two fictional groups or no negative messages at all.
The negative message that some of the children heard indirectly said, “These Flurps / Gearoos are really bad people. They eat disgusting food and wear such strange clothes.
Immediately after the indirect conversation they heard, children aged 7 and over expressed more negative attitudes towards the formed group compared to children who did not hear any negative messages.
They were interviewed again, on average, two weeks later and still showed a negative bias towards these groups, said study author Emily Conder, a doctoral student in the Department of Psychology and Human Development at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
Children are always trying to categorize people, said Conder, and at that age, it is normal for children to categorize others based on skin color, clothing and other factors to understand the world around them.
Not all children were negatively influenced
The 4 and 5-year-old study participants did not view the Flurps or Gearoos negatively after hearing negative words spoken about these groups.
Conder said she did not know why the younger children were not significantly affected, but she hypothesized that this could be related to their shorter attention spans and their ability to capture information heard (because it requires more processing).
The age of the person delivering the negative messages did not affect the impact it had on the children, what Conder said surprised her.
“I thought that as the children grew up, their attitudes would be more influenced by the other child, but they were equally influenced by the child and the adult in all age groups,” said Conder.
Children are easily influenced by what they hear as they grow and develop, said Maysa Akbar, director of diversity at the American Psychological Association, who was not involved in the study.
Akbar said that when children hear negative information about a group, they can “start thinking of different groups as different and do not want to associate with those groups”.
Parents’ role in child development
It is important to be aware of the information you are saying about your children, even if indirectly, said Akbar.
On the other hand, parents can use the findings of this study to positively influence their children to be good allies, according to Akbar.
This could include buying a variety of toys for your children, she said, or making sure your child has a diverse group of friends.
“The sooner we can normalize the situations for our children, the more they will get involved and accept diversity,” said Akbar.
Conder was conducting a related study, which would focus on measuring children’s influence by indirectly hearing positive information about a group. She had to stop the study due to last year’s pandemic.
When she can resume the study, Conder said she hopes to see similar results in which children were influenced by what they heard indirectly, because that means that children can learn how to “form more positive attitudes towards new people”.