Children’s Ethno-National Flag Categories in Three Divided Societies

Flags are conceptual representations that can prime nationalism and allegiance to one’s group. Investigating children’s understanding of conflict-related ethno-national flags in divided societies sheds light on the development of national categories. We explored the development of children’s awareness of, and preferences for, ethno-national flags in Northern Ireland, Kosovo, and the Republic of North Macedonia. Children displayed early categorization of, and ingroup preferences for, ethno-national flags. By middle-childhood, children’s conflict-related social categories shaped systematic predictions about other’s group-based preferences for flags. Children of minority-status groups demonstrated more accurate flag categorization and were more likely to accurately infer others’ flag preferences. While most Balkan children preferred divided versus integrated ethno-national symbols, children in the Albanian majority group in Kosovo demonstrated preferences for the new supra-ethnic national flag. We discuss the implications of children’s ethno-national flag categories on developing conceptualizations of nationality and the potential for shared national symbols to promote peace

Bilingual children’s social preferences hinge on accent

Past research finds that monolingual and bilingual children prefer native speakers to individuals who speak in unfamiliar foreign languages or accents. Do children in bilingual contexts socially distinguish among familiar languages and accents and, if so, how do their social preferences based on language and accent compare? The current experiments tested whether 5- to 7-year-olds in two bilingual contexts in the United States demonstrate social preferences among the languages and accents that are present in their social environments. We compared children's preferences based on language (i.e., English vs. their other native language) and their preferences based on accent (i.e., English with a native accent vs. English with a non-native [yet familiar] accent). In Experiment 1, children attending a French immersion school demonstrated no preference between English and French speakers but preferred American-accented English to French-accented English. In Experiment 2, bilingual Korean American children demonstrated no preference between English and Korean speakers but preferred American-accented English to Korean-accented English. Across studies, bilingual children's preferences based on accent (i.e., American-accented English over French- or Korean-accented English) were not related to their own language dominance. These results suggest that children from diverse linguistic backgrounds demonstrate social preferences for native-accented speakers. Implications for understanding the potential relation between social reasoning and language acquisition are discussed

Empathy to action: Child and adolescent out-group attitudes and prosocial behaviors in a setting of intergroup conflict

The paper explored how to promote constructive intergroup relations among children and young people in a context of protracted conflict. Across two studies, the Empathy‐Attitudes‐Action model was examined in middle childhood and adolescence. More specifically, we tested the relations among dispositional empathy, outgroup attitudes, and prosocial behaviors for youth born after the peace agreement in Northern Ireland. In one correlational (Study 1: N = 132; 6‐ to 11‐years‐old: M = 8.42 years, SD = 1.23) and one longitudinal design (Study 2: N = 466; 14‐ to 15‐years‐old), bootstrapped mediation analyses revealed that empathy was associated with more positive attitudes toward the conflict‐related outgroup, which in turn, was related to higher outgroup prosocial behaviors, both self‐report and concrete actions. Given that outgroup prosocial acts in a setting of intergroup conflict may serve as the antecedents for peacebuilding among children and adolescents, this study has intervention implications.Queen's University BelfastDepartment of Employment and Learning Northern IrelandRichard Benjamin TrustBritish Academy (BA)/LeverhulmeJG: publication year needs edi

"American = English Speaker" Before "American = White": The Development of Children's Reasoning About Nationality.

Adults implicitly judge people from certain social backgrounds as more "American" than others. This study tests the development of children's reasoning about nationality and social categories. Children across cultures (White and Korean American children in the United States, Korean children in South Korea) judged the nationality of individuals varying in race and language. Across cultures, 5- to 6-year-old children (N = 100) categorized English speakers as "American" and Korean speakers as "Korean" regardless of race, suggesting that young children prioritize language over race when thinking about nationality. Nine- and 10-year-olds (N = 181) attended to language and race and their nationality judgments varied across cultures. These results suggest that associations between nationality and social category membership emerge early in life and are shaped by cultural context

Children’s bias beyond group boundaries: perceived differences, outgroup attitudes, and prosocial behavior

This study examined how children's perceptions of social group dissimilarities impact attitudes and behavior towards real-world outgroups. Focusing on Arab-Christian children living in Israel, we explored categorization into social groups based on multiple dimensions of social identity. The children (N = 231, 52% female, average age 9.8 years) were randomly presented with either Arab-Muslim or Jewish outgroup targets and performed tasks measuring perceptions, attitudes and prosocial behavior towards the outgroup. Results showed that the children perceived the Jewish outgroup as more dissimilar to their ingroup than the Arab-Muslim outgroup. They evaluated the Arab-Muslim outgroup more positively and favored them in resource allocation. The extent to which bias was influenced by the number of identity dimensions varied based on the outgroup target’s identity and the task performed. We discuss possible categorization strategies employed by children and their implications for promoting positive intergroup attitudes and behaviors during middle childhood