social norms and self-presentation children’s implicit and explicit intergroup attitudes

7/27/2019 Social Norms and Self-Presentation Childrens Implicit and Explicit Intergroup Attitudes

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Social Norms and Self-Presentation: Childrens Implicit and Explicit

Intergroup Attitudes

Adam Rutland and Lindsey CameronUniversity of Kent

Alan Milne and Peter McGeorgeUniversity of Aberdeen

Two studies examined whether social norms and childrens concern for self-presentation affect their intergroupattitudes. Study 1 examined racial intergroup attitudes and normative beliefs among children aged 6 to 16 years(n5 155). Accountability (i.e., public self-focus) was experimentally manipulated, and intergroup attitudes wereassessed using explicit and implicit measures. Study 2 (n5 134) replicated Study 1, focusing on national in-tergroup attitudes. Both studies showed that children below 10 years old were externally motivated to inhibittheir in-group bias under high public self-focus. Older children were internally motivated to suppress their biasas they showed implicit but not explicit bias. Study 1, in contrast to Study 2, showed that children with lownorm internalization suppressed their out-group prejudice under high public self-focus.

An American journalist (Hockstader, 2001) asked

three Arab eighth graders to name their heroes and,after some nervous glances and fluttering smiles,they named a suicide bomber who killed himself and21 others at a Tel Aviv disco. The nervous glancesand fluttering smiles suggest that these Arab chil-dren were unsure about expressing their genuineattitudes to an American reporter. Nevertheless,maybe because they were being interviewed amongtheir peers and within their local school community,these children eventually stated what we presume to

be their actual beliefs. This example indicates thatalthough children often harbor negative attitudes toothers, they are also sensitive to their audience and

social norms.This article examines how social norms and chil-

drens concern for self-presentation may affect theirexpression of prejudice. There is a long tradition insocial psychology of studying how social norms in-fluence prejudice (Asch, 1956; Pettigrew, 1958; Sherif,1936). Social norms prescribe appropriate attitudes,values, and behavior in a given situation. Severalstudies on adults have shown that changing audi-ence norms of prejudice expression can have a strongeffect on peoples measured intergroup attitudes(e.g., Blanchard, Crandall, Brigham, & Vaughan,

1994; Jetten, Spears, & Manstead, 1997; Monteith,

Deneen, & Tooman, 1996).A contemporary social norm in Western societies

is to avoid expressing discriminatory attitudes orbehavior toward individuals based on their ethnic orracial group membership (Dovidio & Gaertner,1991). This social norm, like many others, is con-veyed through the mass media (see Graves, 1999),national laws (e.g., equal opportunity legislation),and special multicultural education programs (e.g.,Bigler, 1999; McLeod, 1993), which promote toler-ance and appreciation of cultural diversity in ele-mentary schools and in wider society. Researchprovides evidence that children attend to the social

norm that blatant or straightforward racial discrim-ination is inappropriate (Killen, Lee-Kim, McGloth-lin, & Stangor, 2002; Killen, Pisacane, Lee-Kin, &Ardila-Rey, 2001; Killen & Stangor, 2001; Rutland,2004; Theimer, Killen, & Stangor, 2001).

Studies with college students have also shown thatconcern about expressing unacceptable prejudicial

beliefs (i.e., self-presentation) is related to reportedlevels of racial intergroup bias (e.g., Plant & Devine,1998). However, related research with children has

been mixed. For example, Doyle, Beaudet, and Aboud(1988) found that first- through fifth-graders scoreson the Childrens Social Desirability measure (CSD;Crandall, Crandall, & Katkovsky, 1965) did not relatesignificantly to their racial intergroup attitudes.However, a problem has been noted with the CSD(see Levy & Troise, 2001) insofar as it is a globalmeasure of the tendency to present oneself in an un-realistically positive way (e.g., in terms of manners

r 2005 by the Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.All rights reserved. 0009-3920/2005/7602-0010

This research was supported by a grant (R00022318) from theEconomic and Social Research Council. The authors extend theirgratitude for feedback to Dominic Abrams, Rupert Brown, SheriLevy, Roger Giner-Sorolla, and the anonymous reviewers. Muchappreciation is extended to the teachers and children for theirparticipation.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressedto Adam Rutland, Department of Psychology, University ofKent, Canterbury CT2 7NP, UK. Electronic mail may be sent [email protected].

Child Development, March/April 2005, Volume 76, Number 2, Pages 451 466


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and the expression of negative feeling states) ratherthan a specific measure of concerns about expressingprejudicial social attitudes.

Levy and Troise (2001) developed and validated ameasure to examine childrens social concern aboutexpressing negative intergroup attitudes. In two

studies with fifth- and sixth-grade children, highersocial concern was related to more positive attitudestoward overweight and elderly people. This findingis compatible with studies that have shown thatchildren provide more positive attitudes whenevaluating the group of which the experimenter is amember (Jahoda, Thomson, & Bhatt, 1972; Katz,Sohn, & Zalk, 1975; Lawrence, 1991). Together thesestudies suggest that children may engage in self-presentation behavior when high in social concern orin the presence of an in-group member.

The studies presented here examined whether 6-to 16-year-olds control their explicit expressions of

prejudice toward some racial groups (Study 1) andnationalities (Study 2). Previous research suggeststhat prejudice suppression is related to social normsconcerning discrimination (e.g., Blanchard et al.,1994; Crandall, Eshleman, & OBrien, 2002). Thus, apreliminary study was conducted to examine chil-drens social norm about out-group prejudice. Thechildrens internalization of this social norm was alsoexamined, and external pressure (i.e., public self-fo-cus) to comply with the norm was manipulated.Nonetheless, explicit bias suppression may occureven without external pressure; thus, implicit inter-group attitudes were also measured. The studiesconsidered any distinctive developmental trends inchildrens explicit in-group and out-group attitudes(Aboud, 2003, Cameron, Alvarez, Ruble, & Fuligni,2001; Nesdale, 2004).

Previous adult research suggests that the sup-pression of prejudice is motivated by either internalor external reasons (e.g., Fazio, Jackson, Dunton, &Williams, 1995; Plant & Devine, 1998). Externallymotivated suppression represents compliance tonormative pressure from others (Kelman, 1958)whereas internal suppression represents egalitarianor humanitarian motivations to be fair minded

(Monteith, 1993; Plant & Devine, 1998). The devel-opmental literature suggests two alternative hy-potheses regarding the age at which children willshow evidence of external and internal motivation tosuppress their prejudice (Abrams, Rutland, &Cameron, 2003; Killen, Lee-Kim, et al., 2002; Killen &Stangor, 2001; Piaget, 1965; Quintana, 1994; Ruble,Alvarez, Bachman, & Cameron, 2004; Selman, 1971,1980). First, research on social perspective takingsuggests that children below 8 years old are relatively

poor at coordinating and integrating various psy-chological perspectives such as first-, second-, andthird-person perspectives (Quintana, 1994, 1999; Sel-man, 1971, 1980). Therefore, only older children may

be aware of the social norm against explicit prejudiceexpression and will be externally motivated to sup-

press their prejudice under high public self-focus.Alternatively, developmental research suggests

that young children are aware of the social norm thatracial discrimination is inappropriate (Killen, Lee-Kim, et al., 2002; Killen & Stangor, 2001). For example,Killen and Stangor (2001) found that 6- to 12-year-oldsrated racial exclusion as a negative behavior andunacceptable. Young children should, therefore, beexternally motivated to suppress their racial prejudiceunder high public self-focus (Crandall et al., 2002). Incontrast, the development of social identification andawareness of group deviancy in middle childhoodshould mean that children begin to internalize the

social norm and become internally motivated tocontrol their prejudice (Abrams, Rutland, & Cameron,2003; Abrams, Rutland, Cameron, & Marques, 2003;Quintana, 1998; Ruble et al., 2004). Thus, older chil-drens explicit attitudes should be unaffected by amanipulation of public self-focus.

This conception of the transition from externallymotivated conformity to prejudice suppression basedon internalization is similar to Piagets (1965) ideasabout the development of moral reasoning. First,Piaget argued that the childs moral reasoning isheteronomous; namely, moral norms are understoodas one-sided and originating from external authority.Second, from approximately 10 years of age chil-drens reasoning becomes autonomous as they in-ternalize fundamental moral norms and begin toregulate internally their own moral behavior. Thisinternalization process requires the development ofempathy, perspective taking, and logical and coun-terfactual reasoning (Crandall et al., 2002). In linewith cognitive-developmental theory (Aboud, 1988;Bigler & Liben, 1993; Katz et al., 1975), this accountsuggests that childrens levels of prejudice are relatedto the acquisition of specific social cognitive skills.

The effect of manipulating public self-focus on

childrens out-group attitudes should be depen-dent on whether children have internalized the socialnorm that explicit prejudice is unacceptable (Crandallet al., 2002). Children who show low levels of norminternalization should suppress their out-groupprejudice under high public self-focus. In contrast,children with high levels of norm internalization (i.e.,those high in internal motivation) should be unaf-fected by external pressure. This finding should bemost evident with out-group prejudice because

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external pressures to suppress out-group prejudiceare typically higher than for in-group bias (Brewer,1979; Cameron et al., 2001; Nesdale, 2004; Rutland,Brown, Ahmavaara, Arnold, & Samson, 2003) andour measure of norm internalization was a measureof belief about prejudice toward the out-group.

Implicit measures of intergroup attitudes wereused in our studies to demonstrate that older chil-dren are internally motivated to control their preju-dice. Namely, at the controlled (i.e., explicit) levelolder children should not show bias, whereas theyshould show bias at the uncontrolled (i.e., implicit)level. Research into childhood intergroup attitudeshas typically used explicit measures (e.g., Doyleet al., 1988; Williams, Best, Boswell, Mattson, &Graves, 1975). Arguably, the sole use of such meas-ures increases the likelihood that children will en-gage in self-presentation and internally control theirprejudice (Brown, 1995; Nesdale, 2001; Powlishta,

Serbin, Doyle, & White, 1994). Therefore, the presentstudies used a modified version of the Implicit As-sociation Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, &Schwartz, 1998) to measure childrens uncontrolledimplicit attitudes. Research with adults has shownthat the IAT is resistant to masking by self-presen-tation strategies (e.g., Kim, 2003; Monteith, Voils, &Ashburn-Nardo, 2001). Dissociation between explicitand implicit measures is typically observed, espe-cially for socially sensitive issues and particularly forracial attitudes (Fazio et al., 1995; Greenwald et al.,1998). Thus, dissociation between explicit and im-plicit measures, and implicit bias in all age groups,was predicted. It was expected that older children,who should be internally motivated, would showsignificant implicit bias but no explicit prejudice.

The first study examined whether children en-gaged in self-presentation by controlling their racialin-group bias and out-group prejudice. This in-volved measuring their explicit and implicit inter-group attitudes while manipulating public self-focususing a video camera. The first study also examinedthe childrens internalization of the racial prejudicesocial norm (i.e., a personal normative belief meas-ure) using social exclusion vignettes. Three age

groups were included: 6 to 8 years, 10 to 12 years,and 14 to 16 years. The two youngest age groupswere included because intergroup bias typically de-clines between these ages among White children (seeAboud, 1988; Brown, 1995). A sample was also takenfrom adolescents, given the commonly found resur-gence of bias during this period (Rutland, 1999;Teichman, 2001).

A preliminary study (see the Appendix for fulldetails) was conducted on a cohort of children sim-

ilar to those used in the present studies to determinewhether discriminatory judgments based on a per-sons racial category (e.g., Black and Asian) and na-tional category (e.g., American, German, British)were perceived as unacceptable. This study foundthat prejudice based on both racial and national

group membership was perceived as illegitimate.However, the social-norm-prohibiting bias premisedon racial group membership was stronger than thatfor national group membership, especially in rela-tion to Germans. These findings suggest that chil-dren are more likely to control their explicit racial

bias than national bias.

Study 1

Method

Participants and Design

Participants were 155 White British children (57males, 98 females) from a predominately Whitemiddle-class suburban or rural area outside a largemetropolitan city in the southeast region of England.Approximately 3% to 4% of the school populationwas from a visible racial minority, and most of theteachers were White British. Included were forty-five6- to 8-year-old children (M57 years 10 months,SD5 9 months), sixty-two 10- to 12-year-old children(M510 years 8 months, SD57 months), and forty-four 14- to 16-year-old children (M5 15 years 5months, SD5 5 months).

Procedure

Children were given a personal normative beliefmeasure, an explicit intergroup bias measure, and animplicit intergroup bias measure, administered incounterbalanced orders. The second author testedchildren individually in their schools. Assignment tothe high or low public self-focus condition wasrandom within each age group. Gender was evenlydistributed between conditions. Public self-focuswas manipulated using a video camera (Macrae,Bodenhausen, & Milne, 1998).

In the high public self-focus condition, childrenwere videotaped completing the explicit and implicitattitude measures. The children were explicitly toldthey were being videotaped and the recording takenmay be watched later by the researcher and hercolleagues (i.e., other adults, teachers). Childrenwere shown themselves on screen using the videocameras LCD monitor. This procedure was repeated

between each task to ensure the salience of the videocamera. In the low public self-focus condition, the

Childrens Intergroup Attitudes 453


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children were told the battery for the video camerawas not functioning. Then, the lens cap was placedon the video camera and it was switched off andpointed down toward the floor. The public-self focusmanipulation was successful according to a study(see the Appendix for further details) using a sub-

sample of children tested using the public self-con-sciousness scale (Fenigstein, Scheier, & Buss, 1975).

Stimulus Materials and Measures

Personal normative belief measure. The preliminarystudy described earlier established that the socialnorm was the nonexpression of explicit racial bias.Children were presented with social exclusion vi-gnettes to determine whether they had internalizedthis social norm. There were two versions of the vi-gnettes, with the content of the story and the gendersof the characters varied to ensure gender relevance.

In the male vignette, because of racial group mem-bership, White boys excluded two Black boys from asoccer game. Similarly, in the female vignette, Whitegirls excluded two Black girls from eating theirschool lunch (see the Appendix for both vi-gnettes).The selection of the vignettes was based on asmall-scale pilot study with 6- to 16-year-old partic-ipants. This showed that British children of all agesrelated to the activities described and that thevignettes maintained their attention. Each vignetteincluded three black-and-white line drawings pre-sented with cartoon captions read by the secondauthor, except among the 14- to 16-year-olds becauseresearch suggests that the use of cartoons does notmaximize the attention of older children (e.g., Nucci,1981). Instead, adolescents were presented withtyped event descriptions and asked to read these outloud to themselves.

Next, the children were asked two questions. Thefirst question was: How bad do you think the boys/girls in the story were who wouldnt let the otherchildren join in? The 6- to 12-year-olds answered ona 4-point scale of smiley faces. The scale was: OK(smiley face51), bad (little frown5 2), very bad(bigger frown53), and very, very bad (very big

frown5

4). The valence of the faces from left to rightwas counterbalanced. Smetana and colleagues(Smetana, 1981; Smetana & Braeges, 1990; Smetana,Kelly, & Twentyman, 1984) have used this scalepreviously when studying childrens moral devel-opment. The choice of this scale also involved con-sideration of the developmental literature thatsuggests children are likely to perceive instances ofracial exclusion as unacceptable (Killen, Lee-Kim,et al., 2002; Killen & Stangor, 2001). Therefore, a scale

was selected that was sensitive enough to identifypossible variability in childrens beliefs about theacceptability of racial discrimination. The 14- to16-year-olds answered using a simple 4-point num-

bered scale with the words (OK, bad, very bad, andvery very bad) written below. The children were next

asked a second question: What do you think theteacher should do? and were required to select oneof three responses: not punish (scored 1), punish alittle (scored 2), and punish a lot (scored 3). Thechildrens responses to the two questions were sig-nificantly correlated (r5 .50, po.001). However, 23children of our total sample failed to answer thesecond question. It was decided to maximize statis-tical power by using the first question only as anindication of personal normative belief. There was amarginal main effect for age group on personalnormative beliefs, F(2, 154)5 2.76, po.1. This effectrevealed an increase in norm internalization with age

(Ms53.27, 3.56, and 3.61 for 6- to 8-year-olds, 10- to12-year-olds, and 14- to 16-year-olds, respectively).The marginal significant difference was between the6- to 8-year-olds and the 14- to 16-year-olds (Tukeyshonestly significant different [HSD] test, po.1).

The childrens responses to the first question werestrongly skewed, with 3% responding OK, 8% re-sponding bad, 26% responding very bad, and63% responding very very bad. Moreover, thechildrens responses were equally skewed withineach age group. Thus, it was inappropriate to use thechildrens responses as a continuous variable withina regression model. Instead, a median split wasperformed on the childrens responses, classifyingchildren who responded OK, bad, and very

bad into the low norm internalization group(n5 57, 37%) and the children who responded veryvery bad into the high norm internalization group(n5 98, 63%). There were equivalent distributions ofchildren from each age group in the low and highgroups. In the context of this study, children in thehigh group should show more concern than those inthe low group about publicly expressing racial bias

because they had internalized to a greater extent thenorm that racial discrimination is unacceptable.

Explicit intergroup bias measure. The Multiple-Re-sponse Racial Attitude (MRA) measure was usedto derive separate indexes of in-group bias andout-group prejudice (Aboud, 2003). The childrenwere presented with 20 adjectives, 10 positive and10 negative. These adjectives were taken from thePreschool Racial Attitude Measure II (Pram II) SeriesA (Williams et al., 1975). The positive adjectiveswere: clean, wonderful, healthy, good, nice, happy,friendly, kind, helpful, and smart. The negative



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adjectives were: unfriendly, mean, dirty, cruel, stu-pid, selfish, sick, naughty, sad, and bad. To ensurethe children understood the meaning of each word,they were given a corresponding definition. Initially,children were presented with two copies of eachword and two cups labeled White and Black. The

cups were also identified using simple gender-neu-tral cartoon faces. The children were explicitly toldthey could put the adjective in the Black cup, theWhite cup, or both cups. For instance, one itemread, Some children are friendly. They often sharetheir toys with other children. Who is friendly? Is itthe Black child, the White child or more than onechild who is friendly? To ensure understanding ofthe task, initially each child was asked to practiceassigning adjectives by attributing four nonevalua-tive items to each of the categories (Black-Gutman &Hickson, 1996). These items were likes to run,likes to sing, likes TV, and likes music.

The number of adjectives assigned to each cup wascomputed. Four scores were calculated: a positiveand a negative trait score for each racial group, eachwith a possible range of 0 to 10. The higher the scoreson positive traits and the higher the scores on neg-ative traits, the more positive and negative, respec-tively, were the childs ratings. A separate in-group

bias score ranging from 10 (very unfavorable) to110 (very favorable) was created from the number ofin-group positive evaluations minus the number ofin-group negative evaluations. In addition, a sepa-rate out-group bias score was determined from thenumber of out-group negative evaluations minus thenumber of out-group positive evaluations. This scoreranged from 110 (very unfavorable) to 10 (veryfavorable). Therefore, the higher the childrens in-group bias and out-group bias scores, the more wastheir racial in-group favoritism and racial out-groupprejudice, respectively.

Implicit intergroup bias measure. The IAT (Green-wald et al., 1998) was used as a computer-basedimplicit measure. All children were tested on thistask in their schools using the same Mac notebookcomputer supplied by the researchers. The IAT is atask devised to measure uncontrolled or automatic

concept attribute associations. The underlying as-sumption of the test is that strongly associated(compatible) attribute concept pairs should be eas-ier to classify together than weakly associated oropposed (incompatible) attribute concept pairs.Typically, in the IAT participants are presented witha series of words on a computer screen, which areexemplars of a concept (e.g., names associated withthe Black racial category; i.e., Latishia, Ebony) and anattribute, (e.g., pleasant and unpleasant words).

Furthermore, participants have to categorize thesewords as quickly as possible by pressing a left orright key on a keyboard.

Pilot work with 6- to 7-year-old children indicatedthat they had problems understanding a word-basedIAT. Therefore, a completely pictorial-based version

of the IAT was developed. Instead of using stereo-typical Black and White names, unfamiliar Black andWhite faces with neutral facial expressions wereused as concepts. The faces were approximately 34 cm. The sex of faces was matched with each childssex. In addition, as an alternative to pleasant andunpleasant words, simple line drawings of happy orsad cartoon faces were used as attributes. The car-toon faces varied in shape (e.g., squares, triangles,circles) and were 4 4 cm. Pilot work indicated thatsome children had difficulty using keypad respons-es; therefore, children were required to respond bymaking movements with the mouse (toward or

away). In addition, arrows were attached to thecomputer screen to indicate the appropriate direc-tion of response for each stimulus category. Thispictorial version of the IAT was piloted successfullywith 23 children between the ages of 6 and 11 years.

This pictorial version of the IAT, in line with pre-vious research using the IAT (e.g., Greenwald et al.,1998; Monteith et al., 2001), involved a sequence offive blocks, which together allowed for an assess-ment of childrens uncontrolled association betweenconcepts and an attribute. Block 1 trials introducedthe initial concept discrimination and required chil-dren to distinguish between unfamiliar Black andWhite faces by assigning one concept to a response

by using an away mouse movement and the other toa response by using a toward mouse movement. Theattribute dimension was introduced in Block 2. Thechildren were presented with simple line drawingsof cartoon faces and asked to categorize these facesas either happy or sad by using the same responsemodes as with Block 1. The first two blocks of theIAT were important because they allowed the chil-dren to learn the assignments of particular stimuli tocertain response modes (i.e., toward or away) to beused in Blocks 3 and 5. Next, the concepts and at-

tributes were superimposed in Block 3. The stimulifor the concepts and attributes appeared in alternatetrials within this block. This was termed the stereo-type-consistent block because the White faces (in-group) were paired with happy cartoon faces and theBlack faces (out-group) were paired with sad cartoonfaces. Block 4 was similar to Block 1 except that thechildren were presented with the same stimuli as inBlock 1 and they responded using the oppositemouse movements. This was important because it



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allowed the children to learn the response assign-ments for concepts used in Block 5. Block 5 wascalled the stereotype-inconsistent block because thetarget concepts were reversed and combined withthe same attribute dimensions as in Block 3. Thismeant that the target White faces were paired with

sad cartoon faces and the target Black faces werepaired with happy cartoon faces.

Implicit intergroup bias (i.e., an IAT effect) wasshown if the White children recorded quicker re-sponse times (RTs) in the stereotype-consistent blockcompared with the stereotype-inconsistent block. AnIAT score was calculated by subtracting the RTs inthe stereotype-consistent block from the RTs in thestereotype-inconsistent block. This meant that ahigher IAT score indicated more implicit bias. Theorder in which stereotype-consistent and stereotype-inconsistent blocks were presented was counterbal-anced, as were response assignments (i.e., toward

and away mouse movements). There were 16 trialsinvolving the presentation of stimuli (i.e., racial facesor cartoon faces) within Blocks 1, 2, and 4 (i.e., 8happy and 8 sad, or 8 Black and 8 White) and 32trials in the critical stereotype-consistent and stere-otype-inconsistent blocks (Blocks 3 and 5). A shorterversion of the IAT was used with the 6- to 8-year-olds

because there was evidence that the length of thetask was creating boredom and fatigue within thisage group. In this shorter version of the IAT only 12trials involved presentation of stimuli (i.e., racialfaces or cartoon faces) within Blocks 1, 2, and 4 (i.e., 6happy and 6 sad, or 6 Black and 6 White). However,there were still 32 trials in the critical stereotype-consistent and stereotype-inconsistent blocks.

Preparation of IAT Data for Analysis

Inspection of the response latencies in each trialshowed the usual impurities for speeded tasks(Greenwald et al., 1998), with a very small number ofextremely fast and extremely slow responses. Theseoutlying scores typically indicate either responsesundertaken before presentation of the stimulus (i.e.,

anticipations) or momentary inattention. The re-sponses in the tails of the latency distribution, al-though lacking theoretical interest, are troublesomeas they distort means and inflate variances. To dealwith these few problematic responses (cf. Barnett &Lewis, 1984), a standard accommodation procedurewas adopted (e.g., Sroufe, Sonies, West, & Wright,1973), namely, the use of childrens median RTswithin each block. The use of the median RT as arobust estimator is common in psychology because

this measure is relatively uninfluenced by spuriouslyfast or slows RTs (cf. Stuart & Ord, 1987).

Nonetheless, analysis was also conducted usingthe filtering or identification procedures routinelyused for full versions of the IAT (see Greenwald etal., 1998). These include (a) recoding latencies under

300 ms to 300 ms and those over 3,000ms to 3,000 ms;(b) using latencies from all trials (i.e., includinglatencies on which errors occurred) except for thefirst two trials of each block, which generally haveatypically high latencies; and (c) using logarithmtransformations of latencies for statistical signifi-cance tests because of their reduced statistical noise.The results using this filtering procedure were notdifferent from those obtained using the childrensmedian RTs; therefore, only the analyses on the me-dian RTs are reported. Cunningham, Preacher, andBanaji (2001) addressed internal reliability regardingthe IAT and found it had satisfactory interitem reli-

ability (a5 .78) and testretest reliability (a5 .68).Internal reliability was less of an issue within thestudy given the use of the median RT.

Results

To ascertain whether the pattern of findings fitsthe hypotheses, a series of analyses of variance(ANOVAs) were conducted with age group (6 8 vs.1012 vs. 1416), public self-focus (high vs. low),and internalization of norm (high vs. low) as be-tween-participants variables. Separate between-par-

ticipant ANOVAs were conducted on childrensexplicit in-group and out-group bias measures. Next,consideration was given to the implicit bias measure;a mixed ANOVA was completed, with IAT block(stereotypical vs. counterstereotypical) as a within-participants variable and age group (68 vs. 1012vs. 14 16), public self-focus (high vs. low), andnorm (high vs. low) as between-participants varia-

bles. The correlations among variables are presented

Table 1

Correlations Among Variables in Study 1

1 2 3 4 5

1. Age

2. In-group bias .27

3. Out-group prejudice .12 .76

4. IAT score .04 .06 .01

5. Personal normative belief .15 .05 .05 .09

Note. IAT5 Implicit Association Test.po.01.



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in Table 1. Finally, partial correlations were con-

ducted to examine the relationship between implicitand explicit measures.

Explicit In-Group Bias

The childrens in-group bias scores were submit-ted to a 3 (age) 2 (public self-focus) 2 (internali-zation of norm) between-participants ANOVA. Asignificant Age Public Self-Focus interaction wasfound, F(2, 154)54.19, po.05. A main effect for age,

F(2, 154)5 5.62, po.01, was also found that revealedthat overall in-group bias became gradually less ev-

ident with age (see Table 2). Post hoc analysis indi-cated that 6- 8-year-olds showed more in-group biasthan did 14- 16-year-olds (Tukeys HSD tests, po.05).Simple main effects within each age group revealedthat lower in-group bias in the high public self-focuscondition compared with the low public self-focuscondition was only evident among the 6- to 8-year-

olds, t(42)5 2.02, po.05 (Levenes test for equality ofvariance, F5.26, p4.05; see Table 2). Moreover, onlythe 6- to 8-year-olds in the low public self-focuscondition, t(22)53.70, po.001, and the 10- to 12-year-olds in the high public self-focus condition,t(31)53.03, po.01, had in-group bias scores signifi-

cantly higher than 0. The 6- to 8-year-olds in the lowpublic self-focus condition showed in-group bias, butthose in the high public self-focus condition did not.

Simple main effects within the public self-focuscondition revealed an age effect in the low condition,

F(2, 79)5 10.33, po.001, but not in the high condi-tion. Post hoc analysis in the low public self-focuscondition showed that 6- to 8-year-olds demon-strated higher in-group bias than did both 10- to 12-year-olds and 14- to 16-year-olds (Tukeys HSD tests,po.05). Table 2 shows that in-group bias decreasedwith age in the low public self-focus condition,whereas no such age trend was evident in the high

public self-focus condition.

Explicit Out-Group Prejudice

The childrens out-group prejudice scores weresubmitted to a 3 (age) 2 (public self-focus) 2(internalization of norm) between-participantsANOVA. A significant Public Self-FocusNorminteraction was found, F(1, 154)5 5.09, po.05. Sim-ple effects within each norm group revealed thathigher out-group prejudice in the low public self-focus condition compared with the high public self-focus condition was found only among the low normgroup, t(55)5 2.04, po.05 (see Table 3). Childrenwho showed less evidence of norm internalizingwere most influenced by the public self-focus ma-nipulation, significantly decreasing their out-groupprejudice in the high versus low public self-focuscondition.

As expected, the ANOVA found a main effect forage, F(2, 154)5 5.13, po.01, and a main effect forpublic self-focus, F(1, 154)5 3.94, po.05. The maineffect for age revealed a decrease in out-group prej-udice with age: 6- to 8-year-olds (M5 1.25,SD5 4.33), 10- to 12-year-olds (M5 39, SD53.01),

and 14- to 16-year-olds (M5

.05, SD5

.83). Note,however, that the only significant difference wasbetween the 6- to 8-year-olds and 10- to 12-year-olds(Tukeys HSD tests, po.05). There was evidence ofout-group prejudice among the youngest age groupas their scores were marginally above 0 (one-samplet test significant at p5 .06). As expected, the maineffect for public self-focus showed that out-groupprejudice was higher in the low versus high condi-tion (see Table 3).

Table 2

Mean Explicit Racial In-Group Bias (Standard Deviations) for Each Age

Group as a Function of Public Self-Focus

Age group

Public self-focus

TotalHigh Low

6 8 years 0.81 (3.68) 3.22 (4.17) 2.07 (4.08)

n523 n5 21 n544

10 12 years 1.34 (2.51) 0.53 (2.06) 0.92 (2.31)

n532 n5 34 n566

14 16 years 0.05 (0.50) 0.04 (0.83) 0.05 (0.68)

n5 21 n5 23 n544

Total 0.80 (2.61) 1.14 (2.94) n5 154

Note. In-group bias scores could range from 10 (very unfavorableto in-group) to 110 (very favorable to in-group).

Table 3

Mean Explicit Racial Out-Group Prejudice (Standard Deviations) for

Each Norm Group as a Function of Public Self-Focus

Norm group

Public self-focus

TotalHigh Low

High 0.23 (1.77) 0.13 (3.69) 1.86 (2.82)

n5 52 n545 n5 97

Low 1.05 (4.01) 0.91 (3.19) 0.16 (3.62)

n5 32 n534 n5 57

Total 0.48 (3.48) 1.54 (2.68) n5 154

Note. Out-group prejudice scores could range from 110 (veryunfavorable to in-group) to 10 (very favorable to in-group).



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Study 2

To test whether British children suppress their ex-plicit national intergroup bias, a second study wasconducted replicating the basic design of our firstexperiment except with an emphasis on childrens

national rather than racial attitudes. This secondstudy examined childrens attitudes toward theBritish in-group and German out-group. Germanswere chosen because previous research has shownthat British school children perceive them as a salientout-group and are willing to express intergroup biastoward this group (Abrams, Rutland, & Cameron,2003; Barrett, Wilson, & Lyons, 2003; Rutland, 1999).

As in Study 1, childrens personal normative be-liefs regarding out-group prejudice were measured. Itwas expected that children would judge nationaldiscrimination as more tolerable, and therefore lesspunishable, than racial discrimination. Thus, in Study

2 there should be less evidence of explicit nationalbias suppression. Specifically, the childrens explicitnational in-group and out-group attitudes should beunaffected by the public self-focus manipulation.

In accordance with previous research, it was an-ticipated that children would show less national in-tergroup bias with age (e.g., Barrett et al., 2003;Lambert & Klineberg, 1967). However, given thesalient intergroup rivalries between Germany andBritain (see Abrams, Rutland, & Cameron, 2003;Rutland, 1999, 2004), significant intergroup bias wasanticipated into early adolescence (Teichman, 2001).In early adolescence, when self-identity is a central

issue (Erikson, 1968) and the collective self is alsogaining importance (Quintana, 1999; Ruble et al.,2004), individuals should favor negative characteri-zations of out-groups as a means of self-enhance-ment. In middle adolescence this motivation may beless evident given the emergence of a more estab-lished and secure sense of self (Phinney, 1990). Fi-nally, as in Study 1, dissociation between implicitand explicit intergroup attitudes and implicit bias atall ages was predicted.

Method

Participants and Design

Participants were 134 White British children (33males, 90 females) from the same demographic

background as the children in Study 1. Includedwere forty-six 6- to 8-year-olds (M57 years 8months, SD511 months), forty-five 10- to 12-year-olds (M5 11 years 0 months, SD58 months), andforty-three 14- to 16-year-olds (M514 years 11months, SD5 14 months).

Each testing session involved the same procedureand measures as Study 1.

Stimulus Materials and Measures

Personal normative belief measure. This measure

was described in Study 1. However, within the vi-gnettes, British (instead of White) boys or girls ex-cluded two German (instead of Black) boys or girls

because of their group membership. As in Study 1,the childrens personal normative belief scores werestrongly skewed, with 4% responding OK, 7% re-sponding bad, 34% responding very bad, and55% responding very very bad. The childrensresponses were also equally skewed in each agegroup. Therefore, a median split was performed onthe childrens responses classifying children whoresponded OK, bad, and very bad into thelow norm internalization group (n561, 45%) and the

children who responded very very bad into thehigh norm internalization group (n5 73, 55%). Therewere equivalent distributions of children from eachage group in the low and high norm groups.

Explicit intergroup bias measure. This measure wasthe same as used in Study 1, though with a focus onnational attitudes. The children were presented withtwo cups labeled British and German andmarked with the British and German flags.

Implicit intergroup bias measure. This measure wasdescribed in Study 1. To measure implicit national

bias, neutral faces different from Study 1 were used.Unfamiliar White faces were used with either theBritish or German flags superimposed on the face. Apilot study with 6- to 10-year-olds indicated thatmost children were familiar with both the British andGerman flags. Nevertheless, before testing, all chil-dren were shown large (29 20 cm) pictures of theBritish and German flags and were explicitly toldwhich country each flag represented.

Results

Initially, a series of ANOVAs were conducted toexamine whether the childrens ratings in the social

inclusion vignettes differed between Study 1 andStudy 2. Next, separate ANOVAs were conducted onthe childrens explicit in-group and out-group biasmeasures, with age group (6 8 vs. 10 12 vs. 14 16),public self-focus (high vs. low), and internalization ofnorm (high vs. low) as between-participants variables.Regarding the implicit bias measure, a mixed ANOVAwas completed, with IAT block (stereotypical vs.counterstereotypical) as a within-participants variableand age group (68 vs. 1012 vs. 1416), public



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self-focus (high vs. low), and norm (high vs. low) asbetween-participants variables. The correlationsamong variables are presented in Table 4. Finally,partial correlations were conducted to examine therelationship between implicit and explicit measures.

Personal Normative Beliefs

Two 3 (age) 2 (study: racial, national) between-participants ANOVAs were conducted, one using

badness and one using punishment as the dependentvariable. In the former analysis no main effects orinteractions were found. In contrast, the latter anal-ysis, a significant Age Study interaction wasfound, F(2, 266)5 3.59, po.05. Simple main effectswithin each age group showed that only the twooldest age groups rated social exclusion based onnationality as significantly less punishable than that

based on racial group membership: 10- to 12-year-olds, t(99)52.18, po.05 (M5 2.11, SD5 .68;

M5 2.42, SD5 .68 for nationality-and racial-basedexclusion, respectively), and 14- to 16-year-olds,t(84)5 2.03, po.05 (M51.71, SD5 .64; M5 2.02,SD5 .76, for nationality-and racial-based exclusion,respectively). In contrast, the 6- to 8-year-olds per-ceived no significant difference between the level ofpunishment appropriate for social exclusion basedon national and racial group membership (M5 2.47,SD5 .66; M52.27, SD5 .78, for nationality-and ra-

cial-based exclusion, respectively). A main effect forage, F(2, 266)511.90, po.01, also revealed that withage children thought the characters should experi-ence less punishment: 6- to 8-year-olds (M5 2.35,SD5 .73), 10- to 12-year-olds (M52.32, SD5 .69),and 14- to 16-year-olds (M5 1.87, SD5 .72). Post hocanalysis showed the 14- to 16-year-olds thought thestory characters should be punished significantlyless than did the 6- to 8-year-olds and 10- to 12-year-olds (Tukeys HSD tests, po.05).

Explicit In-Group Bias

The childrens in-group bias scores were submit-ted to a 3 (age) 2 (public self-focus) 2 (internali-zation of norm) between-participants ANOVA. Thisanalysis found a significant Age Public Self-Focus

interaction, F(2, 132)5

5.21, po

.01, and a main effectfor age, F(2, 132)5 4.92, po.01. The main effect ofage showed that in-group bias became less apparentwith age (see Table 5). Post hoc analysis indicatedthat 14- to 16-year-olds showed less in-group biasthan did both 6- to 8-year-olds and 10- to 12-year-olds (Tukeys HSD tests, po.05). Simple main effectsanalysis showed lower in-group bias in the highpublic self-focus condition than in the low publicself-focus condition among 6- to 8-year-olds,t(44)52.21, po.05 (Levenes test for equality ofvariance, F5.08, p4.05). Lower in-group bias underhigh public self-focus versus low public self-focus

was also evident among the 14- to 16-year-olds,t(41)52.35, po.05 (Levenes test for equality ofvariance, F5 4.67, po.05). In contrast, among the 10-to 12-year-olds, higher in-group bias was shown inthe high public self-focus condition versus the lowpublic self-focus condition, t(42)5 2.08, po.05(Levenes test for equality of variance, F5 2.50,p4.05; see Table 5). Only the 6- to 8-year-olds in thelow public self-focus condition, t(24)5 4.70, po.001,and the 10- to 12-year-olds in the high, t(21)5 4.22,po.001, and low, t(21)5 2.45, po.05, public self-focus conditions had in-group bias scores signifi-cantly higher than zero. This demonstrates that

although 6- to 8-year-olds showed in-group bias inthe low public self-focus condition, this bias disap-peared under high public self-focus. The 10- to 12-year-olds, on the contrary, showed in-group biasunder low public self-focus, and heightening public

Table 4

Correlations Among Variables in Study 2

1 2 3 4 5

1. Age

2. In-group bias .26

3. Out-group prejudice .11 .62

4. IAT score .20 .02 .03

5. Personal normative belief .04 .09 .08 .12

Note. IAT5 Implicit Association Test.po.05. po.001.

Table 5

Mean Explicit National In-Group Bias (Standard Deviations) for Each

Age Group as a Function of Public Self-Focus

Age group

Public self-focus

TotalHigh Low

6 8 years 0.67 (4.29) 3.16 (3.36) 2.02 (3.98)

n5 21 n525 n5 46

10 12 years 3.00 (3.29) 1.18 (2.26) 2.07 (2.93)

n5 22 n522 n5 44

1416 years 0.32 (0.84) 0.70 (1.81) 0.05 (0.68)

n5 22 n520 n5 42

Total 1.11 (3.38) 1.75 (2.79) n5 132

Note. In-group bias scores could range from 10 (very unfavor-able to in-group) to 110 (very favorable to in-group).



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self-focus only increased in-group bias. The 14- to 16-year-olds showed no evidence of in-group bias ineither public self-focus condition.

Explicit Out-Group Prejudice

The childrens out-group prejudice scores weresubmitted to a 3 (age) 2 (public self-focus) 2(internalization of norm) between-participantsANOVA. As expected, there were no significantmain effects or interactions. Moreover, the out-groupprejudice scores of the 6- to 8-year-olds (M51.13),10- to 12-year-olds (M5 .80), and 14- to 16-year-olds (M5 .35) were not significantly higher thanzero. These findings indicate that at no age werethe children showing out-group prejudice. Further-more, as predicted, the childrens prejudice ratingswere unaffected by the public-self manipulationand were unrelated to their personal normative

beliefs.

Implicit Intergroup Bias

The childrens median RTs on the stereotype-consistent (British1happy/German1sad) and ste-reotype-inconsistent (British1sad/German1happy)

blocks of the IAT were submitted to a 3 (age) 2(public self-focus) 2 (internalization of norm) 2(IAT block) ANOVA, with IAT block as the within-participants variable. This analysis found a maineffect for age, F(2, 120)5 51.67, po.001, and a maineffect for IAT block, F(1, 120)535.18, po.001. Noother main effects or interactions were found. Theage main effect showed that the childrens RTsgradually became quicker with age: 6- to 8-year-olds(M51778.25 ms, SD5524.65), 10- to 12-year-olds(M51340.54 ms, SD5 456.48), and 14- to 16-year-olds (M5 861.81 ms, SD5 157.47). Post hoc analysisindicated that all comparisons between age groupswere significant (Tukeys HSD tests, po.05). Themain effect for IAT block indicated that the chil-drens RTs were significantly quicker on thestereotype-consistent block (M51233.24 ms, SD5543.11) than on the stereotype-inconsistent block

(M5

1444.63 ms, SD5

628.95). Thus, children in allage groups showed evidence of implicit intergroupbias.

Relationship Between Implicit and Explicit Measures

The relationships between explicit and implicitmeasures were examined through correlationspartialing out age. Overall, the IAT score was notassociated with the explicit intergroup bias (r5 .05),

in-group bias (r5 .00), and out-group bias (r5 .10)scores. Nonsignificant correlations were evident be-tween the IAT score and the explicit in-group biasmeasure for 6- to 8-year-olds (r5 .05), 10- to 12-year-olds (r5 .17), and 14- to 16-year-olds (r5 .14).The correlations between the IAT score and the ex-

plicit out-group prejudice score were also nonsig-nificant for 6- to 8-year-olds (r5 .09), 10- to 12-year-olds (r5 .07), and 14- to 16-year-olds (r5 .10).

Discussion

The two oldest age groups perceived racial prej-udice as warranting more punishment than nationalprejudice. In contrast, the youngest age group sawthese two forms of prejudice as equally punishable.This finding seems compatible with research thatsuggests that children below 8 years old are rela-tively less attentive than older children to what is

normative when engaging in social reasoning aboutinclusion and exclusion (Abrams, Rutland, &Cameron 2003; Abrams, Rutland, Cameron, et al.,2003; Killen, Crystal, & Watanabe, 2002; Killen &Stangor, 2001).

As predicted, children irrespective of age did notshow evidence of self-presentation by controllingtheir explicit national out-group prejudice underhigh public self-focus. This finding contrasts withthe result from Study 1, where children with lownorm internalization showed external motivation tocontrol their prejudice by suppressing their racialout-group bias under high public self-focus. Thesefindings combined suggest that childrens bias sup-pression is dependent on the prevailing normswithin the childs social environment.

Similar to Study 1 and counter to our prediction,the 6- to 8-year-olds showed significantly less in-group bias under high public self-focus versus lowpublic self-focus. The young children were aware ofthe social norm that national bias is a relatively in-appropriate behavior. Thus, in line with Study 1, theywere externally motivated to control their in-group

bias. Notably, the youngest children, unlike the oldestchildren, showed significant in-group bias under low

public self-focus and inhibited this bias under highpublic self-focus. The oldest age group failed to showsignificant in-group bias in either public self-focuscondition. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude thatonly the youngest age group showed significantsuppression of explicit in-group bias.

In contrast, among the 10- to 12-year-olds,heightening public self-focus only increased nationalin-group bias. This finding is particularly interesting

because it suggests that increasing public accountability



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can actually increase in-group bias. Previous re-search has shown that when the norm is to toleratediscrimination and the context involves salient in-tergroup rivalry, early adolescents can show highlevels of intergroup bias (Abrams, Rutland, &Cameron, 2003; Black-Gutman & Hickson, 1996;

Rutland, 1999; Teichman, 2001). The 10- to 12-year-olds seemed internally motivated to express in-group bias, as they showed significant national in-group bias even in the low public self-focus condi-tion. Heightening public accountability may onlyhave introduced external pressure in line with theirinternal motivation, resulting in increased nationalin-group bias. Notably, higher public accountabilitydid not increase national out-group prejudice among10- to 12-year-olds. This finding is compatible withthe literature that suggests the expression of in-group bias is both more common and acceptablethan out-group prejudice (Aboud, 2003; Brewer,

1979; Cameron et al., 2001; Mummendey & Otten,1998; Nesdale, 2004).

As expected, the children showed significantlyless intergroup bias with age, though they were stillshowing significant intergroup bias in early adoles-cence. Finally, as in Study 1, children of all agesshowed implicit intergroup bias and they showedno dissociation between the implicit and explicitmeasures.

General Discussion

Taken together, the two studies provide support forthe claim that social norms and childrens concernabout self-presentation influence their intergroup at-titudes. Both studies showed that children below 10years old were externally motivated to control theirin-group bias under high public self-focus. Study 1also demonstrated that children with low norm in-ternalization (i.e., those externally motivated to con-trol prejudice) suppressed their racial prejudice underhigh public self-focus. In contrast, as predicted basedon our preliminary study, children in Study 2 did notsuppress their explicit national prejudice under highpublic self-focus. In fact, the 10- to 12-year-olds in-

creased their national in-group bias under high pub-lic-self focus. These findings indicate that suppressionof out-group prejudice is closely related to socialnorms in the childrens social environment.

The studies found little evidence supporting thedevelopmental prediction that only older childrenwould be externally motivated to suppress their in-tergroup bias under high public accountability. In-stead, the older children showed evidence ofinternally motivated bias suppression because they

showed implicit but not explicit intergroup bias. Thedevelopmental prediction of a transition with agefrom externally to internally motivated bias sup-pression found some support. In both studies, theyoungest children were aware that discriminationwas inappropriate and suppressed their in-group

bias under heightened public accountability. Fur-thermore, one might expect that changes in norminternalization would mediate the effect of publicself-focus on childrens in-group bias. Unfortunately,the nature of our data set made it impossible toperform full mediation analysis because the chil-drens responses on the normative belief measurewere strongly skewed and age was not a continuousfactor (i.e., there were no 9-, 12-, or 13-year-olds ineach study). Future studies need to investigate di-rectly this possible mediation process. This researchshould avoid measuring explicitly childrens nor-mative beliefs because of social desirability concerns

that are likely to result in skewed responses. Instead,future studies could adopt a minimal group para-digm (e.g., Bigler, Jones, & Lobliner, 1997; Nesdale &Flesser, 2001) and attempt to manipulate directlychildrens norms regarding in-group and out-group

bias (e.g., Ojala & Nesdale, 2004).Evidence for a developmental transition from ex-

ternally to internally motivated bias suppression wasevident only for the in-group attitude measures. Theyoung children were not externally motivated tosuppress their out-group prejudice in either study.As expected, there was no evidence of externallymotivated out-group prejudice suppression in Study2, and the suppression of out-group prejudice inStudy 1 was dependent on the degree to whichthe children had internalized the norm againstprejudice.

These contrasting findings on the in-group andout-group attitude measures need explanation. Oneexplanation might be that there exist different socialnorms regarding the acceptability of in-group biasand out-group prejudice. Research suggests that in-group bias is both more common and tolerated thanis out-group prejudice (Aboud, 2003; Brewer, 1979,1999; Hewstone, Rubin, & Willis, 2002; Mummendey

& Otten, 1998; Nesdale, 2004). Young children mayhave internalized less than the older children thenorm against in-group bias; therefore, under highaccountability they were more likely to be externallymotivated to suppress their in-group bias. In con-trast, children irrespective of age may have inter-nalized the strong norm against out-group prejudice.Thus, only children in the low norm internalizationgroup were likely to be externally motivated tosuppress their out-group prejudice. Further research



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is required to validate this explanation and shouldindependently examine childrens social norms re-garding in-group bias and out-group prejudice.

Social identity theorists maintain that self-presen-tational concerns may drive intergroup attitudeswhen individuals wish to win a positive self-identity

within their social group (Abrams, 1994; Barreto &Ellemers, 2000). However, the present studies wereunable to examine this proposition without includingidentification measures. Future studies should ex-amine how in-group identification might moderatethe affect of social norms on childrens self-presen-tation of intergroup attitudes. Another potential ex-tension of this research would be the inclusion of aprivate self-focus manipulation (Wicklund & Duval,1971), such as seeing ones own mirror image. Thepresent studies found evidence that older childrenare internally motivated to suppress their bias be-cause they showed implicit but not explicit inter-

group bias. A private self-focus manipulation shouldresult in children who are internally motivated tosuppress their intergroup bias.

The developmental account of a transition fromexternally to internally motivated bias suppression,partially supported by our studies, acknowledges theimportance of sociocognitive skills. These sociocog-nitive skills include empathy, perspective taking, andlogical and counterfactual reasoning, as these areimportant in the internalization of norms (Crandall etal., 2002). Adult research on the suppression of prej-udice also indicates the important role of self-con-scious emotions such as guilt and shame (e.g.,Monteith, Devine, & Zuwerink, 1993). Future researchinto childrens social norms and self-presentation ofintergroup attitudes should include measures of thesesociocognitive and emotional factors.

The dissociation found between implicit and ex-plicit measures suggests that children were engagingin self-presentation. The findings indicate that froman early age children showed implicit intergroup

bias, though whether these biases were explicitlyexpressed depended on social norms and childrensmotivation to control their bias. These two studiesare, to our knowledge, the first successful attempts at

adapting the IAT to measure implicit attitudesamong young children. Future research shouldattempt to include both explicit and implicit mea-sures, thus providing more subtle and socially sen-sitive measures of intergroup attitudes in children.

There are positive implications for childhoodprejudice reduction from the finding that socialnorms and childrens concern about self-presentationinfluence their intergroup attitudes. Instead of facingthe challenge of changing individually childrens

attitudes, these studies suggest that changing thenormative climate in childrens social environmentcan induce significant attitude change (Crandall etal., 2002; Monteith, 1993). Indeed, when childrenidentify with a desirable group in their environmentthat condemns a prejudice, they are more likely to

succeed in the battle for norm internalization.To conclude, our findings indicate that social

norms and childrens concern for self-presentationaffect their intergroup attitudes. There was evidenceof racial prejudice suppression in Study 1, especiallyamong children with lower levels of norm internali-zation. As expected, Study 2 provided no evidence ofnational prejudice suppression. Furthermore, therewas some evidence for a developmental transitionfrom externally to internally motivated bias suppres-sion. Overall, the findings of the two studies suggestan original developmental account of intergroup at-titudes that acknowledges that children are sensitive

to social norms and concerned with self-presentation.

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Appendix

Preliminary Study of Normative Context

This study involved the adaptation of a technique usedby Macrae et al. (1998) to measure the appropriateness ofjudgments based on different social categories. One hun-dred and eighteen 14- to 16-year-olds were asked to rate theappropriateness within their society of judgments formedsolely on the basis of a persons social group membership.Participants responded on a 9-point scale ranging from 1(appropriate) t o 9 (inappropriate). Thirty-five social groupswere used. These included two racial groups (Black andAsian), five national groups (French, German, Scottish,

American, and Australian), and the in-group categories(White and English). The remaining 26 groups were filleritems (e.g., criminals, teachers, athletes, rich people). Par-ticipants responses to the two racial groups and five na-tional groups were subjected to reliability analyses,yielding Cronbachs alphas of .80 and .89, respectively.Given these satisfactory reliability coefficients, compositescores for both the racial and the national groups werecomputed. The composite score for appropriateness of

judging someone based on their racial group (M5 7.12,SD5 2.10) was significantly higher than the compositescore for the national groups (M5 6.75, SD5 2.10),t(116)5 2.30, po.05. This finding shows that childrenthought it extremely inappropriate to judge someone on the

basis of their racial group membership. Moreover, theydeemed it significantly less inappropriate to judge someoneon the basis of their nationality. The children perceived that

judging the Germans (M5 6.16, SD5 2.90) solely on thebasis of their nationality was significantly less inappropri-ate than judging Americans (M5 6.60, SD5 2.50), French(M5 6.54, SD52.68), Australians (M5 7.21, SD5 2.18),

Scottish (M57.15, SD5 2.27), and English (M57.31,SD52.37). Pairwise comparisons showed that all differ-ences were significant at po.05.

Public Self-Focus Manipulation Check

To check the success of the public self-focus manipula-tion, at the end of testing, a subsample of the 10- to 16-year-olds (n5 33) completed a public self-consciousness 10-itemscale. This scale was modeled on one originally used byFenigstein et al. (1975) to measure public self-conscious-ness. Minor alterations were made to the wording of theitems used by Fenigstein et al., making the items moreaccessible to children. In addition, the wording of the itemswas altered so that children responded according to howthey were feeling at that time (i.e., immediately after test-ing had taken place). This scale has been used with chil-dren aged 10 years and above (e.g., Abrams & Brown,1989). The children responded by putting a mark on a 3.5-cm line to show how they felt. The line went from a lot

(scored 7) to not at all (scored 0). Each childs item scorewas the distance between their response and the not at allend of the line.

The childrens responses were subjected to reliabilityanalysis resulting in a Cronbachs alpha of .72. Given thissatisfactory degree of reliability, the childrens responseswere collapsed to form a single scale by calculating acomposite mean for public self-consciousness (the highereach childs mean score, the higher is the childs publicself-consciousness). As expected, childrens public self-consciousness scores were significantly higher in the highpublic self-focus condition (M5 5.95, SD5 .58) than in thelow self-focus condition (M5 5.13, SD5 1.11),t(31)5 2.67, po.05.

Vignettes Used to Measure Personal Normative Belief

Female version:

It was lunchtime and three girls were at a school diningtable eating their lunch. There were two extra seats at thetable. Next Latisha and Ebony, who were black girls, cameup to the girls and asked if they could sit down besidethem in the extra seats. The girls said no to Latisha andEbony, and explained that they do not like mixing withBlack people. This upset Latisha and Ebony.

Male version:

One day, in the school ground, three boys wanted toplay a 5-a-side soccer game. However, they could not be-cause they needed two extra boys. Next Malik and Lamar,who were Black boys, came up to the boys and asked ifthey could join in. The boys said no to Malik and Lamar,and explained that they do not like playing with Blackpeople. This upset Malik and Lamar.


social norms and self-presentation children’s implicit and explicit intergroup attitudes

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