Brennan, Tara (5/15) Stereotyping, emergent ethnic self-concepts, and cognitive developmental changes related to transitions from early into middle childhood (Gary Kose, Ph.D.; Benjamin Saunders, Ph.D.; Paul Ramirez, Ph.D.)
This study explored the role of cognitive developmental levels and emergent ethnic self-concepts on levels of prejudice in preschool, early elementary, and late elementary school children. Contrary to this study's hypotheses, cognitive development and positive ethnic self-esteem did not predict lower stereotypic beliefs. In fact, increased age and the acquisition of conservation were associated with higher, rather than lower implicit stereotype levels. Perhaps more surprising, explicit stereotype levels remained unchanged between the age of three and ten years -with only non-significant, slight decreases across age groups. These results contradict prior studies' findings of lower explicit stereotyping, particularly after children reach seven years, the developmental period, which coincides with the emergence of concrete operational thought. Lastly, concerns that the forced-choice structure of the commonly administered early childhood stereotype beliefs scale, the Preschool Racial Attitudes Measure as vulnerable to confounds between own group preferences and out-group prejudice (e.g. Doyle & Aboud, 1995; Hughes & Bigler, 2007), appears unwarranted based on this dissertation's findings. Unlike prior studies, children were administered a separate measure of ethnic self-esteem -- a modified adaptation of the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM, Phinney, 1992). There were no associations between children's attitudes about their own ethnic identities and their explicit stereotype scores on the forced-choice stereotype measure.
