The impact of executive function on the measurement of implicit prejudice and stereotypes in children

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Juliane Degner
• Subject Area: Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
• Term: from 2014 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 257513981

The goal of the proposed research project is the developmental validation of implicit attitude measurement methods for the assessment of automatic activation of prejudice and stereotypes in children. To date, little is known about the origin of such intergroup attitudes. Theories and models in social cognitive research may include speculations about early socialization processes, but these assumptions are typically unspecified and not systematically studied in developmental research designs. Although first studies have been conducted with children, their value is rather limited given a lack of basic validation research for the application of implicit methods of stereotypes and prejudice for developmental research. The proposed research project especially focuses on the Implicit Association Test, the IAT, since it is undisputedly the most popular method of implicit attitude measurement in social psychology. For example, the first studies on prejudice and stereotypes in children and adolescents have almost exclusively relied on the IAT. These studies documented that children as young as six years old displayed IAT effects of comparable amplitudes and effect sizes as adults. It was concluded that the formation of intergroup attitudes follows a specific sudden learning process, are very stable, and unaffected by retracted long-term learning or repeated experiences. Such theorizing is, however, problematic when exclusively relying on one method, which in itself has to be critically examined. For example, numerous findings have been published indicating that the attitude measurement with the IAT might be confounded with various executive functions. Individuals with chronic or temporary low executive functions typically display stronger IAT effects although they do not hold stronger attitudes. It is well known in developmental research that executive functions undergo age-related developmental changes and improve throughout childhood and adolescence into young adulthood. Based on this knowledge, it is necessary to verify whether or to what extent IAT scores can be interpreted as measures of attitudes in children. Therefore, the proposed project focuses on exploring age-related differences in executive functions as potential confounding factors in the implicit attitude measurement in children with the IAT. In addition, we will investigate a second group of measures based on the affective misattribution paradigm. This project will make it possible to assess the validity and generalizability of previously published IAT findings and their contribution to the theories on the formation and development of intergroup attitudes. A further objective of the project is to provide developmentally validated measurement methods for the investigation of the formation of prejudices and stereotypes in childhood in longitudinal research designs.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants