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Abstract(s)
You’re too young to understand! Have you ever been told that when you were a kid? More importantly, have you ever felt discriminated simply for being a child? We often think about and strive to address discrimination targeting other minorities, but have we ever wondered if children could be discriminated? In Chapter 0, we review historical and social psychological data supporting the thesis that children are discriminated (as a social category). The historical record suggests that discriminated minorities may have been likened to children as a means of legitimizing their oppression. Looking at the social psychology literature we wonder if the power differential between children and adults puts the former at risk of being discriminated by the latter. Moreover, knowing people internalize prejudice through system justification, we wonder if children who internalize childism grow up to perpetuate it. To that end we launched an investigation into childism (i.e., prejudice and discrimination directed at children) aiming to understand: people’s perceptions of children (Goal 1); what childist behaviors take place today (Goal 2); and explore potential consequences of childism for children (Goal 3). Chapter 1 presents data from a qualitative study where we asked participants if they recalled experiencing
childism (or seeing other children experiencing it). Participants reported different childist experiences which we thematically analyzed in order to better understand childism, and plan future studies. Chapter 2 features a set of studies, where we explored adults’ affect towards and stereotypes of children (Study 2.1), as well as their associations with definitional child-related concepts (Study 2.2). We found adult’s views of children to be overwhelmingly positive, but also prevalent and stereotypical. Moreover, there were some neutral and negative associations with child-related concepts. Specifically, the views of the definitional trait “immature” were somewhat negative on average. In Chapter 3, we saw how people blame children more frequently than adults for age-ambiguous mishaps (Study 3.1). However, this bias did not manifest itself as an illusory correlation (Studies 3.2a and 3.2b). Chapter 4 aimed to test if people perceive discriminatory statements targeting children as more acceptable than when directed at other minorities. Results from Study 4.1a, and its replication Study 4.1b, showed this is indeed the case. Finally, in Chapter 5, we tested if adults would consult an adult-partner more frequently than a child-partner, even in situations where the child-partner could hold critical information (Study 5.1). Results showed no evidence of childist biases. Still, this was our first study with this
paradigm, and we believe the procedure needs to be refined. Throughout the thesis we point to parallels between our findings and those of the social psychological literature. In Chapter 6, the global discussion, we take stock of investigation as a whole. We discuss potential societal and theoretical implications of our findings, while calling and making suggestions for future social psychological research on childism.
Description
Keywords
Childism Ageism Prejudice Discrimination Children Idadismo Preconceito Discriminação Crianças