West Roxbury, Massachusetts, US
Posts: 25
What's Up with Racial Preference among Children
Children's behavior is learned at a very young age. Because of this, it is very easy for children to learn to be biased and racist at a young age. Bloom's article teaches us that babies are very aware and can easily pick up biased ideas and characteristics from family members. Babies don't have a sense of what is right and what is wrong, they just copy what others do.
You can see this idea in Andersen Cooper's video. The younger group of kids were quick to respond to the questions with bias. These kids have no idea that what they are saying is wrong they just know it is all they have been taught. It is possible that children taught these things at a young age will never outgrow them and will grow up to join extremist groups who cause terror on the world like the groups we talked about in class the other day. It is also possible that children outgrow these ideas. Some of the older kids took the time to say that it does not matter what color someone is and that all people can be just as smart.
James Burnett talks about these possibilities. He talks about how things can change. He talks about how it is easier to teach someone who grows up with the right morals how to be a good person than someone who grows up biased. Everyone has grown up and been taught something biased, but there is always a solution to the problem. People can work on realizing when they are biased and wrong and fixing their ideas, while working on learning how to teach young children good morals. If the environment outside every babies eyes is unbiased, then the problem does not exist.
West Roxbury, Massachusetts, US
Posts: 25
Originally posted by
watermelon2 on October 12, 2021 20:24
Just like how a lack of celebrities of color influences children’s beliefs of race and preferred skin color, similarly, a lack of people of color in positions of power also influences their beliefs. The fact that the people in power and holding high and positive-associated positions are predominantly white sends out a message to children of color that they aren’t meant to be in those positions. It causes them to devalue their potential and associate success and fame with being white. As a person of color myself, when I was younger, I often felt like there were certain jobs I was destined to go into and others where I simply wouldn’t belong. I had trouble seeing myself in certain fields because I would look into them and see that they weren’t led and run by people that looked like me. This contributes to an idea that Banaji’s study touched on, which is that a lack of diversity is an explanation for racial preferences. The fact that we are still living in such a racially segregated country allows for these barriers and divisions to be made, therefore leading to racial preferences. Banaji explains that “even a child whose parents make no conscious effort to teach [him] not to be prejudiced can shed that prejudice if he finds himself in a diverse enough place.” If children grow up in a diverse environment with little racial bias influencing their beliefs, they would most likely have less racial preferences. But if children grow up in a place where there is racial diversity and they feel loved for who they are, their racially biased views will change.
I like how you address the fact that there are not enough people of color in power. I think this is something not a lot of people tend to notice. I think people believe everyone was given a fair shot and the outcome is a coincidence, and people fail to realize that people of color are disadvantaged in every situation. Because of this disadvantage young children are influenced and discouraged. I think this is something that needs to be fixed in our world very soon, or we could continuously grow more biased over time.
Boston, Massachusetts, US
Posts: 25
What's Up with Racial Preference among children?
As shown through the study that was conducted among children, they all agreed that they preferred lighter skin to darker skin. This shows how although children might not be as educated at such a young age, they are educated by the things they hear and see around them. You may think that the color of your skin at such a young age isn't really thought about, but all the children in this study were quick to choose the lighter skin over darker. Even the children with darker skin were quick to choose that they wanted lighter skin, which I found very interesting. In Bloom's article it states how children seemed to "like" other kids that looked the same as them, and felt more of a connection with them. Now the kids at an older age were more educated than the younger children. Some of them choose to say that they were all equal, instead of simply pointing to an option. This shows that they have grown and understood racial bias, even with that small age gap of a preschooler to kindergartner. The environment that these kids grow up in impact their biases, and shows how kids who grow up in a lighter skin household need to do a better job at teaching their kids equality.
In the high school experiment, they thought that people of the same race or who looked the most alike primarily based on skin color, would show the most similar dna. This experiment proved them wrong and actually showed how even people of different races can have the same dna traits/sequences. Some of the highschoolers who guessed someone who would be the most different from them, actually ended up having their data show that they were in fact the most similar. This experiment shows how skin color and looks don't completely determine how similar two individuals are.
Boston, Massachusetts, US
Posts: 25
Originally posted by
strawberry123 on October 13, 2021 22:49
Is racism something that you're born into? Is it a behavior that is taught by one's surroundings? How can we prevent future generations from prejudice and bias ideologies? These are all questions that remain partially unanswered by many psychologists and anthropologists. If we focus on adolescents, many studies have found biased preferences and opinions when it comes to questions about race. In Paul Bloom's New York Times article, "The Moral Life of Babies", there is strong growing evidence that socialization is critically important. Bloom emphasizes the idea that babies do not have preexisting beliefs on a subject deeply complex as the classification of a so-called superior race. In his "Nice Babies" section of the article, he elaborates that similar behavior is ranked as "nice" behavior by children. This ties into the doll study in which foreshadows this issue that children have between being able to disconnect similar attributes from "good" ones.
Mahzarin Banaji, a renowned Harvard University psychologist, brain researcher, and racism and physical prejudice expert, also researched children's biased and shocking opinions in a study that prompted young children to draw the faces of certain races -- black, white, and Asian. Here, he was able to include that children process information depending on how adults react. In a way, children reflect adults' internal and external racism through their facial expressions: frowning means angry, and smiling means happy. From this, the varying drawings of white people were described in a positive way whereas Asian and black faces were rather negative. This shows that children do indeed adapt and follow what their surroundings are doing.
From these many similar studies, the one conclusion that we can draw is that children do not create these biased opinions on their own. Their interpretation of what is "good" from what is "bad" comes from society, itself. Adults play a vital factor in how children will act since it is clear that even their minor facial expressions create a complete concept of what is morally right. A diverse community is what is needed for the future. If we want equality and if we want children to not make their own racial hierarchy, we must have everyone treated the same.
I agree with how you stated that adults are the factors behind children's thoughts on biased opinions. We as a generation need to do better and raise our kids by teaching them that everyone is equal and that everyone should be treated the same.
Boston, Massachusetts, US
Posts: 25
Originally posted by
user01135 on October 13, 2021 22:27
Children's behavior is learned at a very young age. Because of this, it is very easy for children to learn to be biased and racist at a young age. Bloom's article teaches us that babies are very aware and can easily pick up biased ideas and characteristics from family members. Babies don't have a sense of what is right and what is wrong, they just copy what others do.
You can see this idea in Andersen Cooper's video. The younger group of kids were quick to respond to the questions with bias. These kids have no idea that what they are saying is wrong they just know it is all they have been taught. It is possible that children taught these things at a young age will never outgrow them and will grow up to join extremist groups who cause terror on the world like the groups we talked about in class the other day. It is also possible that children outgrow these ideas. Some of the older kids took the time to say that it does not matter what color someone is and that all people can be just as smart.
James Burnett talks about these possibilities. He talks about how things can change. He talks about how it is easier to teach someone who grows up with the right morals how to be a good person than someone who grows up biased. Everyone has grown up and been taught something biased, but there is always a solution to the problem. People can work on realizing when they are biased and wrong and fixing their ideas, while working on learning how to teach young children good morals. If the environment outside every babies eyes is unbiased, then the problem does not exist.
I agree and to add on especially when children learn something at a young age it tends to stick with them, causing it to become difficult to change their views. Especially with babies I like how you stated that they don't know right from wrong and they will simply just follow or copy others. This is where we need to start teaching chldren at a young age that everyone is equal.