Race and Childrens Perceptions

[Cedars]

Interesting article on behaviors of parents, kids, and society trying to increase social diversity and acceptance.

Snippets from article (note: there is no context in these snippets and they cannot be commented on without reading the surrounding text):

"We all want our children to be unintimidated by differences and have the social skills necessary for a diverse world. The question is, do we make it worse, or do we make it better, by calling attention to race?

Bigler's experiment (blue and red shirts) seems to show how children will use whatever you give them to create divisions—seeming to confirm that race becomes an issue only if we make it an issue.

When the kids turned 3, Katz showed them photographs of other children and asked them to choose whom they'd like to have as friends. Of the white children, 86 percent picked children of their own race. When the kids were 5 and 6, Katz gave these children a small deck of cards, with drawings of people on them. Katz told the children to sort the cards into two piles any way they wanted. Only 16 percent of the kids used gender to split the piles. But 68 percent of the kids used race to split the cards, without any prompting. In reporting her findings, Katz concluded: "I think it is fair to say that at no point in the study did the children exhibit the Rousseau type of color-blindness that many adults expect."

Moody included statistical controls for activities, sports, academic tracking, and other school-structural conditions that tend to desegregate (or segregate) students within the school. The rule still holds true: more diversity translates into more division among students. Those increased opportunities to interact are also, effectively, increased opportunities to reject each other. And that is what's happening.

Immediately, the children began to chatter about the stunning development. At the ripe old ages of 6 and 7, the children had no doubt that there was a Real Santa. Of that they were absolutely sure. But suddenly there was this huge question mark. Could Santa be black? And if so, what did that mean?

Full article (title is misleading):

Even Babies Discriminate: A NurtureShock Excerpt

[Boerseun]

I think the whole thing points to identifying with your own group being a positive selector. Else, baby gorillas might go home with chimpanzees.

It's only shocking because it is not politically correct.

You see yourself having a skin of a particular colour. When you're six years old, of course you're going to identify with those people who share most of your attributes. You're going to feel way more at home there. Group selection, plain and simple.

I fail to see why the scientists are so surprised and shocked at this.

We as a species should acknowledge our differences, come to terms with it and deal with it, and maybe then we can successfully manage it. Pretending that it does not exist is plain and simply dishonest. Ask any six-year old.

[Cedars]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

I think the whole thing points to identifying with your own group being a positive selector.

When you're six years old, of course you're going to identify with those people who share most of your attributes. Group selection, plain and simple.

Its categorization at 6. As the article progressed, this evolves into group selection as seen with the teens. It tends to increase, not decrease.

Originally Posted by Boerseun

We as a species should acknowledge our differences, come to terms with it and deal with it, and maybe then we can successfully manage it. Pretending that it does not exist is plain and simply dishonest. Ask any six-year old.

What needs to be 'managed'? This is where the separation of the science from everything else (such as philosophy) gets blurry for me.

It seems to me we have natural selection on an individual level, which translates into a group behavior that is present in across all races (though this snippet from the book focused on black and white).

The article did touch upon some of the social road-blocks, such as the example of families dropping out of the study due to their own comfort level, and the authors own realization 'race' was not discussed with his own child, when his child began associating skin color with origin.

From the article:
"However, as much as the scientists all supported active desegregation, the brief is surprisingly circumspect in its advocacy: the benefits of desegregation are qualified with words like "may lead" and "can improve." "Mere school integration is not a panacea," the brief warns.

Bigler: "It's an enormous step backward to increase social segregation," she says. However, she also admitted that "in the end, I was disappointed with the amount of evidence social psychology could muster [to support it]. Going to integrated schools gives you just as many chances to learn stereotypes as to unlearn them.""

Boerseun, with your experiences in s.africa, and the evolution of the social structure unfolding in the last two decades, you've seen a lot of change. Do you feel hindered in talking openly about what you see as reality, in a place such as this forum (or elsewhere)? Because that seems to be a big point in the article. The lack of social comfort in discussion of differences.

[Moontanman]

Was it determined if the realization of the differences by the children was negative? Or was the realization simply the same realization of different hair color? I think that children might see the differences, I'd be disappointed if they didn't, but do they think they are superior due to these differences? I think not, I think they get those attitudes from adults....

[Boerseun]

I don't think there's any "superiority" issues, apart from the normal "These people look like me, I am one of them, they are the absolute best people in the world, my daddy is stronger than your daddy" kind of affirmation that a kid generates in his own mind.

[HydrogenBond]

Racism is not a rational correlation, since no matter what racist position one takes, one can always find exceptions to that rule of thumb. If it was rational, any exceptions would be enough to refute the relationship.

The rules of thumb of racism, can still be empirical correlations, since exceptions are factored out into averages and will not kill the correlation. If racism also employs hate/fear or some feeling of risk, it is using a special form of empirical, where the exceptions can outweigh the valid examples, since risk/fear is spread out over the class like a ghost that can land anywhere at any time.

Since racism is empirical, does that mean that empirical can be used for other forms of pseudo-racism type effects? For example, there is a strong correlation between cigarette smoking and cancer. At the rational level, we can find at least one example, for whom this correlation does not apply. But at the empirical level, these exceptions are not important, since the correlation applies to the class of all smokers. Trying to rationalize that fact that there are exceptions is met with a firm bias, allowing discrimination. I am not promoting smoking, but can you see the similarity. Racist studies to create science correlations are not allowed because of this correlation effect.

With actual racism, the best way to make these irrational correlations, more rational to the mind, is by pointing to the exceptions. We try to teach children not to use class generalizations, even if there is data provided for the correlation. It is better to treat each person, as an individual, to see this is not a rational relationship for the entire class. It can cause one to lose track of reality, if we apply A to B, and see something in B, that is not there in reality, but suggested by the correlation.

Racism was not originally based on hate of another group, but on an inflated sense of one's own group. Based on this correlation, one can get an enhanced sense of self, that may not apply to you, but applies to the class. One can be the rational exception, but as long as one sticks to the correlation, one can become irrational in a way that might boost them. For example, if my race class-X are the best a weaving baskets, but I stink at it, if I accept the correlation as true, everyone expects more of me, and I need to expect more of myself. I might become better at basket weaving, using irrationality to overcome the original limits of my own cause and effect.

The negative side of racism, helps to lower the floor on another class, so my class will appear to rise, without having to rise. This too can give one a better sense of self, which although irrational, can help overcome the limitations of cause and effect. If my class X is better at basket weaving, and the negative racism says class Y is really bad, my initial attempts to make baskets looks better compared to this floor. This might get me over the hump until I can get up to steam as part of class X.

Where it gets out of hand is connected to the enforcement of the correlation. Both the ceiling and lower floor effects only work if we can socially remove the exceptions to the correlations. If class X is good at basket weaving, they may not want anyone who makes them look bad. You must practice harder. If class Y has a few members who are really good at making baskets, we may need to terrorize them or attack them in the market place, so they take up another occupation. This keeps the ceiling high and the floor low, which helps the members of class X but can hurt members of Y. Racism without the floor effect is less destructive, but it can still infringe upon liberties, if one does not wish to weave baskets like the rest of the class.

[Cedars]

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

Where it gets out of hand is connected to the enforcement of the correlation. Both the ceiling and lower floor effects only work if we can socially remove the exceptions to the correlations. If class X is good at basket weaving, they may not want anyone who makes them look bad. You must practice harder. If class Y has a few members who are really good at making baskets, we may need to terrorize them or attack them in the market place, so they take up another occupation. This keeps the ceiling high and the floor low, which helps the members of class X but can hurt members of Y. Racism without the floor effect is less destructive, but it can still infringe upon liberties, if one does not wish to weave baskets like the rest of the class.

Did you read the article? I ask because it was not about racism. Example from article (bolding mine):

"It takes remarkably little for children to develop in-group preferences. ...Rebecca Bigler, ran an experiment in three preschool classrooms, where 4- and 5-year-olds were lined up and given T shirts. Half the kids were randomly given blue T shirts, half red. The children wore the shirts for three weeks. During that time, the teachers never mentioned their colors and never grouped the kids by shirt color.

The kids didn't segregate in their behavior. They played with each other freely at recess. But when asked which color team was better to belong to, or which team might win a race, they chose their own color. They believed they were smarter than the other color. "The Reds never showed hatred for Blues," Bigler observed. "It was more like, 'Blues are fine, but not as good as us.' " When Reds were asked how many Reds were nice, they'd answer, "All of us." Asked how many Blues were nice, they'd answer, "Some." Some of the Blues were mean, and some were dumb—but not the Reds."

The above does not strike me as 'colorism'. It strikes me as Categorization, self-esteem (I am good, and I wear blue), positive re-inforcement (I only see the good things in blue shirts), and denial (I dont see negatives in blues, but I see them in reds).

Note, the blues did not say all reds were mean, or dumb, nor did the reds. So are we more accurate in descriptions when its a category we do not associate with? I mean, in any group of people some are mean, but the kids did not report this in their own shirt color, but saw it in the other color.

[Theory5]

Yea, I agree with Boerseun.
Look at it this way, children are creates of familiarity. They love their favorite blankey, or stuffed toy. Say they leave their favorite teddy (and i mean the one they take everywhere) on their bed, and go somewhere with their parent, and they come back home and its not there! Uh oh. The world has ended.
Kids like familiarity, no matter how you put it. Put a kid in a room with two other kids. But, one of the kids is their friend, somebody they know, and the other is a random person. Who do you think they will go to? Same thing in a candy store. If they know they like M&M's why would they want cotton candy?
Same thing with going to school for the first or second time. They dont know anybody, they dont know where they are, they just know their parents have abandoned them (with the reassuring "I will be back at the end on the day"). So they find the most familiar kids in the room, people who look like themselves.
ITs the same thing with groups and cliches in high school, except those kids know a little more about the world, and they know there are other similarities other than race.
These kids arnt racist they are simply trying to stay with the most familiar thing they know.

[lemit]

If you showed small children pictures of a child of their own race, a child of another race, a cartoon character, and a puppy, which do you think they'd want to befriend? Which would come in second?

Discrimination in the original sense of the word is an essential part of development. Deciding what is safe and what is dangerous is pretty important too. If you infer anything from results in the middle of the whole process, you can get published and probably get a graduate degree, but you aren't contributing significantly to the understanding of a developed human being.

I'm not going to take the Oscar Hammerstein quote out of my Signature.

--lemit

p.s. If you showed me those pictures, substituting adults of my age for children, you'd get the same results.

[lemit]

If you showed small children pictures of a child of their own race, a child of another race, a cartoon character, and a puppy, which do you think they'd want to befriend? Which would come in second?

Discrimination in the original sense of the word is an essential part of development. Deciding what is safe and what is dangerous is pretty important too. If you infer anything from results in the middle of the whole process, you can get published and probably get a graduate degree, but you aren't contributing significantly to the understanding of a developed human being.

I'm not going to take the Oscar Hammerstein quote out of my Signature.

--lemit