Children's Use of Race in Drawing Inferences Based on Their Understanding of Race Constancy

Children’s understanding of race constancy and their subsequent use of race as a means of drawing inductive inferences were investigated. Race constancy was determined by children’s tendency to say that people could change category membership by changing their outside appearance. A second phase of the study measured how many race-based inferences children made relative to other social categories such as age or sex. The results indicated that children who had a better understanding of race constancy were also more likely to use race as a means of drawing inductive inferences. These findings support a developmental progression of race constancy and give insight to the development of potential bias and stereotypes.

Name thesis:degree_name

Specialist in Education

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Department of Psychology

Year

2007

Author dc:creator

• Dawson, Casey A

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dr. Kelly Madole (Director), Dr. Katrina Phelps, Dr. Elizabeth Lemerise

• Categorization
• Race constancy
• psychological essentialism
• Cognitive Psychology
• Personality and Social Contexts
• Psychology
• Social Psychology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/10

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.wku.edu:theses-1010