Childhood social interactions combat stereotypes

(Press-News.org) Prior research has found that exposure to social diversity in early life, such as through day care, influences how people communicate.

Those early social experiences can also moderate tendencies toward stereotyping down the road, according to a new study published in the NPJ Science of Learning.

"The more time an individual spent in day care as a child, the more likely they are to overcome their own stereotypical beliefs during social interactions later in life," says senior author Arjen Stolk, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and principal investigator of the Mutual Understanding Lab at Dartmouth. "This results in a heightened sensitivity to the nuances of those they are engaging with."

The study set out to examine if individuals would adjust their behavior based on their beliefs about who they were interacting with. Researchers employed a nonverbal digital board game involving approximately 100 participants from a broader longitudinal study in the Netherlands. The game required participants to help their partner locate hidden clues on the board. Participants were informed that their partner, playing from another room, would alternate between a child and an adult, and photos were shown at each switch. Most believed they were interacting with either a 5-year-old child or a 25-year-old adult, though in reality, they were engaging with an adult throughout the entire game.

Participants spent slightly longer on target locations when they believed they were interacting with a child, drawing on a simple stereotype that children are less capable than adults. Notably, there were no differences in the partner's behavior whether they were perceived as the child or the adult.

In analyzing demographics of the participants, the team found that those who attended day care more frequently before the age of three were quicker to overcome their stereotypes at age 17, adjusting their behavior to treat both child and adult partners equally. Conversely, participants who lacked this early social exposure were more likely to hold onto their stereotypical views for longer. This trend held true regardless of the participants' socioeconomic background or whether they had siblings.

"Participants who went to day care were more socially flexible in their interactions with others," says lead author Saskia Koch, a postdoctoral researcher at the Donders Center for Cognitive Neuroimaging at Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands.

The authors conclude that the capacity for flexible adjustment in social interactions can be predicted by the enriching environment provided by day care.

For a video about the study, visit: https://vimeo.com/1001973022.

Stolk (arjen.stolk@dartmouth.edu) and Koch (saskia.koch@ru.nl) are available for comment.

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