Unit 3 Social and Moral Development

why do groups matter

• allow for feelings of belonging

• we want social community

• and we need to know who to learn from and who to follow

Apicella and Silk 2019—hunter gathers

• hunter-gathers cooperate widely; not just with kin

• groups were small but fluid: ppl move between camps, cooperation persists

• cultural norms maintain cooperation despite shifting membership

• suggests that humans evolved for flexible, norm-based group living, not just family ties

• our tendacy to form and favor groups builds on these deep evolutionary roots

dunhams definition of a group

collections of people united by commonality

the minimal group paradigm— dunhams “mere membership”

• using existing groups have too much context when trying to determine how children think about groups and group membership

• the claim: in group bias is derived from spontaneous consequence of self-categorization into social groups

• ingroup bias appears even in the absence of conflict or when the groups are meaningless

Henri Tajfel 1970s

• created minimal groups- groups stripped of real meaning to find the base line of group bias

• even with arbitrary or random assignments (eg dot estimation, art preferences) , people still favored their own group

• showed that in group bias can arise without history, competition or real stakes

Social Identity theory

tajfel and turner noted that self-eseteem tied to group membership → motivation to see the group positively

Dunham and Colleagues minimal group experiment

1) assigned the children to red or blue group via a coin

2. asked kid a variety question

   1. Explicit Attitude: rated their liking of different targets

   2. resource distribution: they could distribute five different tokens between two people

   3. behavioral attribution: would ask them positive and negative questions to see which group they would associated it with

   4. implicit association task

Rizzo et al 2018

• do children distinguish between inequality that is a result of individual v structural causes

• children tend to understand individual causes

• structural factor: gender

• dependent measures: expected leader allocation—how children expected group leader to allocate resources

  • own allocation:assed how children wanted to allocate the extra 8 prixes

    • reasoning as well

  • judgement of rectifying allocation: assessed participants judgements of a different child allocation of prizes that with rectified, maintained, or perpetuated inequality

Nortoon and Ariely 2011

-plotted us adults ideal, actual, and estimated wealth distribution

• adults are aware of income inequality but are unaware of the vastness

• people desire much more equal wealth distribution then either reality or their own estimates

• inequality persist bc people are unaware of how unequal things are

Rizzo et al 2018 individual inequality causes

unequal allocations of resources based on differences in recipients

challanges of studying children’s inequality

• children are biased to want equality

• world is unequal so

Rizzo et al 2018 structural causes

unequal allocation of resources based on a group factor; uses gender—-inequality as a function of discrimination against social group

rizzo et all individual condition vs structural

• individual condition: vignettes where group leader in camp allocated prizes based on recipients performances; inequality is created based on individual causes

• structural condition was a vignette where group leader allocated the prizes based on recipients gender

Rizzo et al 2018 results

• younger children recognize that resource distribution on the basis of merit will continue into the future, but do not recognize that resource distribution on the basis of structural causes will continue into the future

• older children understand that both biases will continue in future no matter if the cause is individual or structural

• both younger and older children are more likely to perpetuate inequality when it is justified via individual causes and are more likely to rectify structural inequalities in their own distribution of prizes

• for younger children, regardless of individual vs structural children prefer equal distribution even when compared to rectification

• for older children, they believe that perpetuating structural inequality is not okay but are more okay with perpetuating inequality for merit based inequality

Childrens belief on inequality

• children believe that merit is a completely legitimate reason for inequality

Shao and heyman 2025

across middle childhood children believe that merit base systems encourage harder work compared to egalitarian systems

Leshin and Rhodes 2023

• children show reduced bias and more fairness in resource allocation when structural inequalities are explained as being created by the high status group

• structural explanations are ineffective if they cite a neutral third party or provide no explanation for why inequalities exist

• interventions must explicitly address the role of high status groups to influence children’s perceptions and behavior

bias in force choiced

• when children are forced to choose between two different options bias is more extreme

IAT

• measures how quickly people associate different concepts (i.e. good vs bad) with different groups (men vs women)

• its done on the computer words or pictures appear on the screen and people sort them into categories as fast as they can

• this idea is that people respond faster when things are more closely linked in their minds share the same key

• by comparing reaction times, the test reveals automatic or unconscious associations that people might not even be aware they have

Dunham and Colleagues minimal group experiment results

explicit attitude: children liked kids in their in group vs their outgroup

resource distribution: children showed a weak tendency to distribute more resources to their ingroup than their outgroup

behavioral attributions: there was little evidence of behavioral attribution based on group status

IAT: random assignment to a color group had a strong effect on iplicit preference for the group

Yang and Dunhams—limits of minikmal grouos

• is there a way to turn of minimal group effect?

• two conditions: minimal (random ) and maximal (assigned to group)

• Measures: who do you like better, who is more like u, who would you like to share with

• results found that ingroup was found in both minimal and maximal conditions

in group love

choosing your group because you really like your group

outgroup hate

choosing ur group because you really dislike the other group

aka outgroup derogation

buttelmann & bohm 2014

• gave children the opportunity to divide positive and negative resources to no one, in group, or to out group members

• for positive resources for both 6 & 8 year olds, most children choose to give to their in group over the out group or no one—evidence of in group love

• for negative resources, 6 year olds are equally as likely to give to the out group as to give to no one; 8 year olds are more likely to give negative resource to outgroup—evidence of out group hate

• in group love emerges earlier than outgroup hate

Misch et al 2021

— assigned different colors to children and asked in which group they like better as ingroup check

• had kids log onto online games

• two conditions: control—connection w the in group and it failed

  • in the experimental condition the child is expecting to work with the out group and connection fails

  • wanted to see if anticipatory cooperation can decrease ingroup bias

• results: expermental conditions showed decrease in group options

Naturalistic fallacy

just because children say something does not mean its correct or right

limitations of social group race research

• predominately focuses on white children

• predominate focus on racial prejudice against Black individuals

• predominant focus on monoracial participant and stimuli

• ignores intersectionality

stereotyping

cognitive process of assigning characterisis tonindividuals based o their group membership

• belief based (can be pos or neg)

• ex: thinking “asians are good at math”

predjuidce

affective (emotional) attitude—typical negative—toward a groupand its members

• emotion-based

• feeling discomfort or dislike toward immigrants

discrimination

behavioral manifestation of prejudice—acting unfairly toward members of a group

• behavior based

• ex: refusing to hire someone because of their race

ingroup bias

tendency to favor one’s own group (ingroup) over others (outgroup)

• can occur even without hostility; based on group identity

• ex: preferring to work with people from your university over others

Raabe & Beelman 2011 developement of in group bias over childhood

• meta analysis of 113 research reports worldwide (121 cross-sectional, 7 longitudinal studies)

• saw that most studies were abt white children thinking about black children and explicit prejudice

• from ages 2-4, there is no evidence of prejudice

• rises between 4 and 5

• peaks in middle childhood

• declines in adolescence but could social acceptability bias

Shutts et al 2011, race preferences in South Africa

• in south africa largest and most familiar group is black but white ppl have higher status as compared to US where white ppl have all 3 higher

• wanted to see if pro white biases go away when whit is majority or is status causing it

• results: for white, black and colored participants, they show a white bias ; children also perfer their own gender

• black children never prefer their own race

• the frequency of one race does not impact race preference

• childrens preferences seem tied to social status

• national unity messaging does not erase racial bias

• social status isn’t the only influence

Rizzo et al 2022

• children saw photos of gender matched peers (asian,black, latina, asian) and were asked who they want to play with

• black child was chosen the least and below chance

• latinos were chosen below chance

• asian child were chosen at chance

• white children were chosen more often than chance (pro white preference)

found no evidence of age, familiarity w black ppl, parent political identity, median family income, or region of residence changed the choice to not pick black ppl

OVERALL: Children showed consistent pro-White and anti-Black playmate

preferences, and these biases were not explained by measured

demographic or environmental factors

Perry et al 2022

• researchers tested whether guided parent-child conversations about racism reduce racial bias in White U.S children (ages 8-12) and their parents

• both children and parents showed declines in pro-white implicit bias after watching videos with blatant or subtle racism and disscussing it

  • color-conscious messaging predicted greater reductions in children’s bias

  • color blind ideology and external attributions predict smaller reductions in children’s bias

  • only worked in cases of subtle racism

  • had mixed or inconsistent effects on parents bias

  • color-conscious parent-child conversations may help reduce implicit pro-white bias in white children

color conscious messaging

were statements that directly acknowledged prejudice in the scenario or named the behavior as racially biased. They also included connecting the event to broader societal racism or explaining why the biased behavior was unacceptable

Colorblind ideology

were statements that downplayed or dismissed the role of race—for

example, suggesting the White child’s actions weren’t about race or shifting the conversation to non-racial explanations. They also included claims that skin color “doesn’t matter,” minimizing its significance

external attribution

were comments that blamed the White child's prejudiced behavior on outside influences rather than the child themselves. For example, participants attributed the behavior to things like parents’ comments or media exposure.

Leslie et al 2015 Brilliance and gender

• adults study

• looked at 30 different academic disciplines

• FAB ( field specific abilities belief) fields that have success dependent upon innate brilliance or genius tend to have fewer women

  • innate gifts needed to succeed

• measured fab vs percent of us phds that are women

• results: in stem and humanities, the more ppl that endorse fabs show a lower amount of women

Bian et all

• study 1: worked w 5, 6 and 7 year olds

  • would ask kids who they thought was really-really smart : two men and two men

    • control would ask who is really really nice

• study 2: same as study one but was about children

  • results: at age 5 both genders have in group bias, as girls get older their in group bias decreases for being smart: the opposite is true

• Study 3: 6 and 7 year olds introduced novel games, said that one game was only for children who are really smart

  • other condition was only for kids who try really really hard

  • asked kids whether or not they want to play the game

  • results: 6 and 7 y olds boys are more interested in the smart game, both genders equally interested in the try hard game

    • 5 year olds show no difference in gender preferring the smart game, 6 year olds show boys choosing the smart game and girls not

cues to high social studies

physical size, physical strength, material wealth, decision-making power, and social influence

subjective social status (SSS0

• a persons belief about his or her location in a staus of order

• an individual’s perception of his or her place in the socieconomic status

lower SSS

lower overall health

reduced life expectancy

more depression

Amir et al 2019 SSS in children of diverese societies

• uses the macarthur ladder task

• 4-18 yo across US, India, Argentina, Ecuador

• across all sites, as you get older you are more likely you are to put yourself lower

• sss decreases with age

macarthur ladder task

• asks ppl to imagine the ladder as their country

• top of the ladder are the ppl with highest amount of schooling, best hobs, and the most respect

• bottom is the opposite

• asks participant to put their family on the ladder

• conflates a lot of different status types together

• lower numbers= higher status

peretz-lange et all haves to haves not

• 377 4 to 10 yo in the US

• MacArthur ladder task and relative social status

  • had families indicate their income on a scale and gave zipcode so they can compare

  • also asked kid to ask why they put themselves on ladder and coded for status cues and if they relied on what they have vs what they don’ t have

  • results: as children get older they place themselves lower on the ladder; as children get older they get more accurate and younger children perceive themselves as higher than reality;

  • the number of things children do not have correlates with sss; if they don’t have more things they perceive themselevs with low sss (did not correlate with what they have)

Mandalaywala et al 2020 race and gender as ques to social status

• study 1: gender

  • diverse group of 3-6/7

  • used a rope, kids at the top had a lot of stuff and get to pick games and snacks; bottom was the opposite (mizes diff types of status)

    • asked where they would put a boy and a girl (racially matched)

    • results: male kids put boys above girls and this gets stronger as they get older; initially girls do not distinguish between boys and girls and as they get older they start to put girls lower

• study 2: race

  • same set up as 1 but had them different races w gender standardization

  • children did not use race to predict status and age did not make a difference

  • children were however more likely to place the black kid in the worse house

Heck et al

• looked at the different tasks used to measure status house vs ladder

• These items are could be measuring very different thoughts about status, so we need to unbundle these different sorts of concepts

• One set of items is a forced choice measure and the other is not

Children in the United States

• Take in account gender when placing kids on the status ladder but do not take gender into account when assigning kids to nice or less nice houses

• Do not take race into account when placing kids on the status ladder* but

do take race into account when assigning kids to nice or less nice houses

goals of status work

To understand asymmetries in ingroup bias (i.e., girls not preferring

girls). Can status help resolve that conundrum?

Rhodes et al 2019—linguistic cues to increase girls in stem

• kids often hear science as something special people

• children may internalize the images associated w science

• describing science as an activity may boost engagement

  • be a scientist condition: scientist use their five sense to learn about the world

  • do science condition:today we do science, when ppl do science they use their five senses

  • did four rounds, first two easy and second two were more difficult and misleading

    • children were given the opportunity to complete up to 10 additional trials and they wanted to measure persisting

    • girls are more likely to persist when in the do science condition; boys were more likely to persist in the be a scientist

    • action focused language increases girls persistence

hilliard & liben 2010 gender salience

• high vs low salient classrooms

  • high= they were told to separate and emphasize gender differences

• dependent measure

  • children were shown pictures of occupations and activities and asked if girl boys or either should do it

results: high salient classrooms showed decline in reporting both genders can do it

Enright et al 2020

• wanted to see if children differentiate between the four dimensions of status

• study 1

  • gave them vignettes for each of the different power cues and asked who was in charge based on the results of each story

    • children use all of the cues

• study 2

  • same as study 1 but using macauthers ladder, no longer forced choice

    • children use all of the cues

• study 3 and 4

  • how do 4,5, ad 6 think about resource distribution

  • would ask who would they give an eraser to

  • study 3 w 4 and 5 yo was inclusive

  • study 4 found that both 5 and 6 gave to lower status person

• study 5

  • study 1 and 2 w 3 yo

  • they used all cues

four dimensions of status

wealth, physical dominance, decision making power, and prestige

Schwartzstein & hwang 2025

• do us children express social preferences based on political group markers

• did political affiliation interview; asked kids what their political party who they voted for and then what they thought their parent was

• 6 and 7 yo most do not report a party tht they are in

• age 8-12 about 2/3 pick a group to be affiliated with

• a lot of kids dont sort themselves into groups

• also asked kids who they like more comparing campaign signs

• kids who pick a party tend to like the person who are associeted with their political party

• all kids tend to not have a prefence in broad political party

  • but , children show preferences for those whose political affiliations match their parents’ even if they themselves aren’t political

Schwartzstein & hwang 2025 political identity take aways

In middle childhood, children are developing a political identity

• I’m skeptical about how deep this is, but these data provide a foundation

• For children who identify politically, they show ingroup bias

• But that’s perhaps not that surprising given the minimal group work

• What’s perhaps more interesting is that, for children who do not

yet really understand politics, they express an ingroup bias that

aligns with their parents. So perhaps children are subtly picking up

on things?

Leshin et al

• asked kids about costly third party punishment in science musem about outgroup (vistors) vs ingroup (from the area)

• parents political party effects who children choose to punish

  • kids of conservative parents are more likely to punish outgroup children

  • kids of liberal parents punish ingroup more

overall political identiy take aways

1. Again, children seem to be developing a political identity in

middle childhood, but I think there’s still a lot to know regarding

what precisely it is that they know about political groups.

2. Despite not having a robust political identity, they express

ingroup preferences that align with their parents AND their

parents’ political ideology appears to shape their cooperative

preferences

religion

For the purposes of this lecture, I’ll define religion as a system of

spiritual beliefs, practices, or both, typically organized around the

worship of an all-powerful deity + involving behaviors such as

prayer, meditation, and participation in collective rituals

two positions of religion in cognitive science

• religion as an adaptationn something abt a religion increases fitness

• religion as a byproduct of different evoloved functions

bloom and banerjee

• byproduct position

• human mind has evolved systems like

  • hyperactive agency( seeing agents where non exists)

  • theory of mind (infering intention)

  • teleological thinking (assuming purpopse in nature )

• these are evolutionary and religion comes out of theses as a side effect

• we are prepared to form religioys beliefs but religion itself was not selected for because it solved anything

• cultural learning, testimony and upbringing then stablize and transmit religious ideas

adaptation position

• religion evolved because it provided survival benefits such as

  • promoting cooperation

  • strengthening group cohesion

  • supporting moral norms

  • increasing group success in conflict

  • religion is biologically culturally selected solution to social coordination

  • ex: costly rituals—promotes group cohesion and norms and success

richert and corriveau— developement of religious cognition

• religious cognition developed through cultural transmission a

• studying how children come to understand religious agents, existence and religious identity reveals how cognition and culture shape other throughout development

religious agents

Gods, prophets, and angels

Do children endorse the existence of these agents?

• How do children think about the minds and bodies of these agents?

• Do children appeal to supernatural agents when explaining events in the

world?

world?

Davoodi et al 2020—unobserbvable beliefs

• Children often believe in things they can’t see (like germs or God), and this study looked at how they explain those beliefs.

• children were asked about the exisgtence of heaven, god and angels and askedd them why

• Researchers compared children from a religious minority group (Christians in China) with religious majority groups (Muslims in Iran, Christians in the U.S.).

• All children generally believed both scientific and religious unobservable entities exist.

• For scientific unobservables (germs, oxygen), children across all groups mostly gave explanatory or fact-based justifications, not “someone told me.”

• For religious unobservables, minority-group children relied more on testimony (e.g., “my parents told me”), while majority-group children used more elaborative explanations.

• This suggests that community status matters: when children’s beliefs are less supported by the broader society, they depend more on trusted sources to justify them.

encounter explaination

source explaination

elaboration explaination

uninformative explaination

davooid et al results

for religious beliefs

younger children in US and Iran rely more on elaboration explaination while in china they rely more on source

When kids hear different or conflicting ideas, they pay more attention to who said what and use that to explain why they believe something.

• whe kids are minorities they rely more on trusted adults

nature of existence

What does it mean to exist?

• What are the origins of life?

• Considers concepts such as the afterlife, pre-existence, and souls

tenebaum and hohenstein 2016

The study looked at how 124 British children and their parents explained the origins of humans, animals, and plants

• Participants engaged in a storybook task where they were prompted to discuss humans, animals, and plants

• 7-year-olds tended to favor creationism, while 10-year-olds endorsed creationism and evolution equally

• Children’s views were strongly linked to their parents’ views across all three kinds of living things

• Overall, the study highlights how parent–child conversations play a key role in shaping children’s understanding of scientific ideas

tenebaum and hohenstein 2016 results

Children whose parents strongly

endorsed evolution showed

balanced support for evolution and

creationism, while children whose

parents did not strongly endorse

evolution showed more creationist

beliefs.

• This supports the idea that parents’

beliefs are linked to children’s

beliefs.

• Age mattered: 7-year-olds favored

creationism, while 10-year-olds

endorsed evolution and creationism

equally.

religious identity

6- to 8-year-olds show ingroup bias for their religious group

• At the same time, there is newer evidence that children don’t really fully understand what it means to be a part of a religious group until age 7/8, even in places where religion is very central (such as Northern Ireland) (Dautel’s unpublished work)

ingroup is based on actions they dont really understand what it means to sort themeselevs into a group

Religious essentialism

is the belief that a person’s religion reflects deep, inherent qualities that define who they are

conflict and religious essentialism

Essentialism is stronger where religious categories are tied to socio-political conflict (Israel, Northern

Ireland) than in contexts with lower salience of conflict

parental influence and essentialism

Children whose parents use essentialist language or endorse avoidance of outgroup contact show stronger essentialist thinking

exposure to diversity and religious essentialism

Greater contact with religiously diverse peers in schools predicts lower essentialism and greater flexibility

peter singer— expanding the circle bok

• comes from utilitarianism perspective—what is moral has the greatest positive impact

• two aspects—our moral circle has expanded over human history (rights have been expanded such as human rights )

  • argues that rationality is the explanation for this expansion

peter singer historical argueent

our moral circle has expanded over time

peter singer psych arguement

our moral circle expands over development

• Relies on arguments about Piaget and Kohlberg

crimson et al 2016 moral expansiveness scale

would ask adults to place varius entities within different circles of moral concern, validated the different circles of moral concern based on how people grouped their responses

Inner circle of moral concern:

Entities within your inner circle are those closest to you and deserve the

highest level of moral concern and standing. You have a moral obligation to ensure their welfare and

would even make personal sacrifices to ensure they are treated morall

Outer circle of moral concern

Entities within your outer circle are deserving of moral concern and

standing. You are still concern about their moral treatment; however, you are less likely to make personal

sacrifices to ensure they are treated morally

Fringes of moral concern:

Entities on the fringes of moral concern may have some moral rights and

standing, but you do not feel a personal sense of responsibility for their moral treatment

Outside the moral boundary:

Entities outside the moral boundary have no moral standing and are not

deserving of moral consideration; to be concerned about their moral treatment seems extreme or

nonsensical.

kirkland et al. 2023

how does moral concern vary across different cultures based on different societal factors

broader moral concern is shown by higher MES

there is some varriability across cultures

waytz et al 2019

• ideological differences effect on expanse of mes score

• very liberal individuals cafe more equally about humans vs non humans

• for very conservative people they care much more about humans vs non human actors

what do we know about adults circles of moral concern

The Moral Expansiveness Scale (MES) is an effective way of measuring adults’ moral expansiveness

• Moral expansiveness varies across cultures and across ideological lines

• These findings have connections to rich philosophical discussions

marshall et al 2024

• evidence shows that children tend to exhibit more constructivism

relational closeness

family members vs stranger

physical closeness

close stranger vs far away stranger

phylogentic closeness

human vs non human animal

moral expansion developmental trajectory

as children develop they begin to care more about distant groups

moral expansion developmental trajectory

as u get older you care less about out groups

neldner et al 2022—i may not like u but i still care

• showed children mat w concern circles

• 3 circles and gave them pictures to sort how they care about things

• children show a hierarchy of moral concern along the lines of what you’d expect, and that seems relatively stable across age (care a lot about a lot of things but prioritize family and such)

• moral concern for non human entities tend to loose care while for the needy it increases with age

children moral concern and care

• Children distinguish between moral concern in terms of protection from mere liking

• There are some age-related changes with respect to specific targets but less overarching age-related changes

• Having established this measure as effective, future questions remain, including understanding what factors lead to greater moral expansiveness or narrowness

four circles of moral expansiveness in order

IOFO

inner, outer, fringes, outside the moral boundary

wilks et al 2021

• do children between the ages 5-9 treat the lives of human as morally more important that the lives of animals and how does it compared to adults

• hypothetical dilemmas where they had to pick a boat to save, with different quantities of each animals in the boars to determine how participants save off one human vs animals

• Results:

  • Children were far less likely than adults to prioritize humans over animals.

  • Many children chose to save multiple animals (esp. dogs) over a single human. In some cases, children valued a dog’s life as much as — or more than — a human’s.

Challenges assumption that humans inherently see other humans as

more morally valuable than animals; points toward developmental and

cultural origins of speciesism.

speciesism

“human > animal” bias