Encouraging children to mentalise about a perceived outgroup increases prosocial behaviour towards outgroup members

We investigated whether encouraging young children to discuss the mental states of an immigrant group would elicit more prosocial behaviour towards them and impact on their perception of a group member’s emotional experience. Five- and 6-year-old children were either prompted to talk about the thoughts and feelings of this social group or to talk about their actions. Across two studies, we found that this manipulation increased the extent to which children shared with a novel member of the immigrant group who was the victim of a minor transgression. The manipulation did not lead to greater sharing towards a victim from the children’s own culture and did not influence their perception of a victim’s negative emotions. These results may ultimately have implications for interventions aimed at fostering positive intergroup relations within the context of immigration

A new social-cognitive developmental perspective on prejudice: The interplay between morality and group identity.

We argue that prejudice should be investigated in the context of social-cognitive development and the interplay between morality and group identity. Our new perspective examines how children consider group identity (and group norms) along with their developing moral beliefs about fairness and justice. This is achieved by developing an integrated framework drawing on developmental and social psychological theories of prejudice. This synthesis results in a perspective which provides a more contextualized analysis of prejudice development than previously offered by developmental theories. We describe research which supports our view that social norms, intergroup contact and perceived out-group threat affect the relative weight children place on moral and group-based criteria during the development of prejudice

Introduction: Extending the conversation: Transdisciplinary approaches to social identity and intergroup attitudes in children and adolescents

Ali, then 14, and his younger brother fled Afghanistan after their parents were arrested and killed by the Taliban. They found refuge with a friend in Iran, but the anti-Afghan prejudice they encountered made them embark on their journey to the UK at the hands of people-smugglers. (The Guardian, London, 15th June 2007)