What is it about?
Children notice social disparities from an early age (e.g., that some groups of people have more wealth and power than others), and quickly develop biases favoring people from high-status groups. We found that explaining to children that a group with more power created social structures that caused a group-based economic disparity led children to have less bias against the low-status group and made them more likely to act to rectify the inequality. In contrast, telling children that the social structures were created by an unnamed third party did not have these positive consequences.
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Why is it important?
Our research illuminates a key component of explanations for inequality that support the development of adaptive beliefs and behaviors in childhood: identifying the group responsible for creating the social structures that led to the disparities in the first place. This novel insight can be leveraged to inform future interventions aimed at diminishing or preempting bias across the lifespan.
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This page is a summary of: Structural explanations for inequality reduce children’s biases and promote rectification only if they implicate the high-status group, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, August 2023, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2310573120.
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