Solidarity with those who are different

Here, I summarize four articles related to understanding those different from the self. The first article, which is available in full text, has the longest summary: Scott, Ash, Immel, Liebeck, Devine & Shutts (2022) published “Engaging White Parents to Address Their White Children's Racial Biases in the Black-White Context” in Child Development. Here’s the edited article:

In Studies 1–3, parents reported that their own and other children would not express racial biases. When predicting children's social preferences for Black and White children (Study 2), parents underestimated their own and other children's racial biases. Reading an article about the nature, prevalence, and consequences of White children's racial biases (Study 3) increased parents' awareness of, concern about, and motivation to address children's biases. 

In a survey probing children's experiences with racial discrimination, one-third of Black U.S. 7-year-old children indicated experiencing someone not wanting to be friends with them because of their race. By 4 to 5 years of age, most non-Black children in the United States favor White people (and/or disfavor Black people) on social preference measures, and such biases are particularly robust among White children. [Yet], the potential for parental engagement in addressing children's biases, at least within White families, is undercut by the fact that White parents typically avoid discussing race with their children. One reason White parents may fail to take concrete actions toward bias reduction with their White children is because they are unaware that there is a problem to be addressed. Indeed, prior research indicates that White U.S. parents typically report being unaware of their White children's racial biases. 

Differences in participants' ratings for their own child and another child were larger when considering older children compared to younger children. When participants were considering another child, they expected more bias as children got older, but when considering their own children, there was no change in bias likelihood due to child age.

One important finding from the present study is that White parents think about their own White children's racial biases similarly to how they think about other White children's biases—that is, parents underestimated both their own child's and other children's racial biases and parents' predictions for their own and other children were correlated. At the same time, in alignment with the better-than-average effect, parents did report that their own children would be less likely to exhibit biases than other children. This effect was particularly strong when parents thought about the average generic child rather than the average child in their child's class (perhaps because when imagining the average classmate, parents imagine a child who is more similar to their own child than when imagining a generic other child).

In addition to replicating findings in Study 1, Study 2 revealed two new findings: First, parents underestimate children's racial biases relative to reality (as assessed by the social preference task) both when considering their own child and the average White child. Second, parents' predictions for their own child's biases were wholly inaccurate: there was no correlation between parents' predictions for their children's biases and their children's actual biases. 

Across studies, we found that White parents thought about biases in their own and other White children similarly: They were largely unaware of the likelihood that their own and other White children would express racial biases and they thought similarly about their own and other children's biases. However, White parents' awareness of their own and other children's biases was increased by providing them with information about the nature, prevalence, and consequences of White children's racial biases. Finally, the impact of increasing White parents' awareness of White children's biases led to outcomes—namely, concern about and motivation to address racial biases—that are likely important in taking steps to address racial biases, particularly for parents' own children. 

Although it may seem obvious that learning about White children's racial biases increases White parents' awareness of, concern about, and motivation to address White children's biases, what is not obvious is that learning about White children's biases generally would translate into how parents think about their own children. 

I find this study to be important, despite limitations they address thoroughly, in that it illustrates a method for increasing parents’ awareness of their own and their children’s biases. The second study takes a similar approach with a different methodology. Wang et al. (2022) published “Parents’ Color-Blind Racial Ideology and Implicit Racial Attitudes Predict Children’s Race-Based Sympathy” in Journal of Family Psychology.  Here’s an edited abstract:

We examined the relation of White parents’ color-blind racial attitudes (a global composite score and its subscales) and their implicit racial attitudes to their young children’s race-based sympathy toward Black and White victims. Non-Hispanic White children (n=190, 54% boys, Mage = 7.13 years, SD = 0.92) reported their sympathy in response to short films depicting bullying toward White or Black children. Their primary caregivers’ (mostly mothers’) color-blind racial ideology (CBRI) was assessed through a questionnaire (reflecting global color blindness, as well as denial of institutional racism, White privilege, and blatant racial issues), and their implicit racial attitudes were assessed with a computerized test. Children’s sympathy toward Black victims and their equitable sympathy (difference score toward Black vs. White victims) was predicted by parents’ color blindness, implicit racial attitudes, and their interaction. Results indicated several interaction effects, such that parents’ denial of blatant racial attitudes and global CBRI were negatively related to children’s sympathy toward Black victims and equitable sympathy toward Black versus White victims, only when the parents held implicit racial attitudes that favored White people. In addition, parents’ denial of White privilege was negatively related to children’s sympathy toward Black victims. The findings are discussed in terms of potential ways to shape children’s race-based sympathy and compassion, particularly with an eye toward ways White parents might socialize sympathy toward historically marginalized youth. 

I think this study is important because, like the first one, it highlights the impact of parental beliefs and values on their children’s. The third study looks at the disadvantaged. Sengupta, Reimer, Sibley & Barlow (2023) published “Does Intergroup Contact Foster Solidarity with the Disadvantaged? A longitudinal analysis across 7 years” in American Psychologist. I have edited the article:

Understanding what motivates the advantaged is not only an important question for social scientists but is also practically important for understanding coalition building in diverse societies. Contact theory is a well-established paradigm for improving intergroup relations—positive contact between groups promotes social harmony by increasing intergroup warmth. [Here], we explain how the challenge of testing causal effects in contact research can be addressed by applying the latest developments in longitudinal modeling to large-scale survey data. 

Our analyses focus on outgroup contact among the ethnic majority group in New Zealand—New Zealanders of European descent (hereafter, Europeans). The focal outgroup with whom they can feel varying degrees of political solidarity is Māori. Māori are the indigenous peoples of New Zealand, the second-largest ethnic group, and are disadvantaged relative to Europeans on a range of socioeconomic indicators.

Results showed that advantaged-group members who had more outgroup contact across all years also expressed higher political solidarity with subordinate groups across all years (and vice versa). However, the between person correlation does not provide evidence for a causal effect but rather indicates the potential effect of unobserved variables that cause both contact and solidarity to covary in the population across all waves. The tests of within-person change, which would have been consistent with a causal effect, showed that those with higher-than-expected contact in a particular year did not express higher-than-expected solidarity 1 year later. Thus, we found no evidence that contact with subordinate groups increases support for policies or protests favoring those groups. This indicates that prior correlational research may have been capturing the time-invariant association between contact and solidarity (as found in the current work), rather than a psychological process in which contact increases solidarity. 

Our study followed participants over 5–7 years, long enough for the hypothesized causal processes to unfold. We had exceptionally high power due to our sample size and a large number of repeated measurements. Consistent with the decades of multimethod research on prejudice reduction, there was some evidence that contact increased White New Zealander’s warmth toward ethnic minorities over time (Barlow et al., 2019).

Overall, our results underscore the finding that people who are politically supportive of outgroups are also often those who spend time with and befriend outgroup members, whereas the unsupportive on average spend less time with outgroups. There is a need for more longitudinal contact research across different contexts that can separate between- and within-person effects to provide stronger evidence of causality.

The present study reinforces longstanding doubts about whether contact can promote social change toward equality by fostering allyship with the disadvantaged. This does not, however, negate the well-researched benefits of contact for reducing prejudice. In contexts where conflict is rife and harmony is the most pressing goal, contact theory offers a clear and empirically supported strategy for improving intergroup relations. However, in the relatively peaceful (yet unequal) societies that characterize much of the industrialized world, fostering ever stronger bonds between groups may offer limited value for achieving social change.

I like this study because it gets at a complicated question – just because more contact with disadvantaged groups is beneficial for reducing prejudice, more may be needed to change political (and other complex) behavior. The final study addresses bullying. Pan, Garandeau, Li, Ji, Salmivalli & Zhang, W. (2022) published “The Dynamic Associations Between Social Dominance Goals and Bullying from Middle to Late childhood: The moderating role of classroom bystander behaviors” in Journal of Educational Psychology. Here’s an edited version of the abstract and impact statement:

Social dominance goals have been conceptualized as orientations toward powerful and prominent positions in the peer group. Although previous studies have identified social dominance goals as one of the main motivations behind bullying, few studies have disentangled the time-invariant (average level) from the time-varying (year-to-year) effects of social dominance goals. The present study simultaneously examined the time-invariant and time-varying associations between social dominance goals and bullying, along with the moderating effects of classroom bystander behaviors (reinforcing the bully and defending the victim). A Chinese sample of third graders in four schools was surveyed three times. Social dominance goals and bullying were self-reported. Classroom reinforcing and defending were assessed by averaging peer-reported reinforcing and defending scores for each classroom at each time point. 

This study suggests that children with persistent or temporary social dominance goals are less likely to bully others in classrooms where defending behavior is more common. Thus, teachers should pay attention to children with social dominance goals, as well as children's momentary desire to be dominant. Moreover, to inhibit the bullying behavior of dominance-oriented children, peer support groups could be formed in which the group members are encouraged to challenge the bullies, help victimized peers, and report bullying to authority. 

I think all four studies are helpful in identifying possible ways to increase ally behavior.