Children’s lay theories about ingroups and outgroups: Reconceptualizing research on prejudice

The consensusfrom the developmental literature examining children 's intergroup at-titudes has been that children as young as 3 years ofage exhibit racial prejudice. We suggest, however, that as much of the developmental research has confounded ingroup positivity and outgroup negativity, it becomes difficult to determine whether young children are displaying ingroup bias or outgroup derogation. Furthermore, it appears that young children are not demonstrating hostility toward outgroups; stud-ies that have separately assessed evaluations toward the ingroup and outgroup dem-onstrate that rather than evaluating the outgroup negatively, young children are dem-onstrating a positivity bias toward their ingroup. We propose, therefore, that young children are primarily utilizing a perceptually based lay theory that does not necessi-tate outgroup derogation. We argue, however, that children's lay theories are subject to social structural conditions and specific social transitions, and hence, can lead to the development ofprejudice. One of the most depressing aspects of prejudice is the early age at which it rears its ugly head. (Giles & Hewstone, 1988, p. vii) Giles and Hewstone's (1988) conclusion stemmed from decades of research showing that White children consistently assigned positive attributes to their ingroup, the White majority group, and negative attrib-utes to outgroups (i.e., minority groups such as Black Americans). On the basis of these results, it has been argued that children as young as 3 years old are preju