Implicit Ethnic Group Attitude and Stereotype Development: Causes and Consequences

Ethnicity is an important social category, one that becomes the basis for intergroup attitudes and stereotypes early in life (Bigler & Liben, 2006). In two studies, this dissertation examined implicit (sub-conscious) ethnic attitudes and academic stereotypes among White-American and Latino-American children, ages 7-12 (N = 262, Mage = 10.05 years, SD = 1.46). Using evaluative priming (Fazio, Sanbonmatsu, Powell, & Kardes, 1986), children viewed various priming stimuli (e.g., pictures of White and Latino children) and responded to various target words (e.g., positive and negative words). Systematic variations in participants' reaction times across different prime-target combinations were used to infer implicit: ethnic identification, ethnic attitudes, ethnic academic stereotypes, self-esteem, and academic self-concepts. Study 1 focused on group differences in implicit identification and attitudes, and tested the prediction that group identification should be associated with positive group attitudes (Nesdale, 2004). Results indicated that although White children demonstrate implicit ethnic bias (i.e., a preference for their in-group relative to out-groups), this bias is primarily driven by positive in-group attitudes (not negative out-group attitudes); Latino children, on the other hand, demonstrate neutral in- and out-group attitudes and, therefore, no implicit ethnic bias. The association between identification and attitudes was supported for White stimuli: participants who identified with Whites tended to have positive attitudes towards White, but there was no such association between identification with and attitudes towards Latinos. Study 2 examined associations between in-group attitudes and self-attitudes (Greenwald et al., 2002). Results indicated that group-self associations depended on children's ethnicity and attitude domain. In the general domain, White children's positive in-group attitudes were associated with positive self-esteem, but only among those who strongly identified with being White; among Latinos, positive in-group attitudes were associated with positive self-esteem regardless of in-group identification. In the academic domain, White children's in-group academic stereotypes were independent from their academic self-concepts, whereas Latino children's positive in-group academic stereotypes were associated with negative academic self-concepts. Overall, this dissertation suggests that implicit ethnic attitude and stereotype development may vary depending on whether youth have ethnic-majority or ethnic-minority backgrounds. Societal and contextual reasons for these ethnic differences are discussed