In the United States, children are more likely than adults to condone discrimination

Abstract

Discriminatory acts (i.e., harmful acts motivated by the victim's group membership) have outsized consequences for the victim and for society relative to similar harms committed for other reasons. Here, we investigated the development of children's evaluations of discrimination. Specifically, we asked whether children in the U.S., like adults, perceive discriminatory acts as distinctly harmful—that is, more harmful than identical acts that are not motivated by the victim's membership in a particular group. Across 4 studies, we examined children's (N = 588; ages 4–9 years) and adults’ (N = 623) perceptions of discriminatory acts versus identical acts motivated by other, personal reasons (Studies 1 and 2). In contrast to adults, children—particularly younger ones—rated the discriminatory acts as least harmful. In addition, whereas adults rated discrimination motivated by the victim's membership in an unfamiliar social category (similar to gender or race) as more harmful than discrimination motivated by membership in an unfamiliar task-based group (a sports team), children did not (Study 3). Finally, both adults and older (but not younger) children rated discrimination against a member of a lower-status (vs. equal-status) group as more harmful (Study 4). These findings advance theory on the development of sociomoral cognition and provide new insight into how children perceive instances of discrimination and bias in their everyday lives.