Construal level mindsets modulate gender categorizations in preschool children
- Social categorization is a crucial information processing strategy that adults deliberately adjust depending on goals and situational requirements. This study investigated whether flexibility in categorization is similarly present among preschool children. More specifically, we tested whether spontaneous gender categorizations are more pronounced for children with a situationally induced abstract compared to concrete construal level mindset. Sixty-one children first participated in a construal mindset induction task before completing a visual variant of the "who said what" memory task. Systematic memory confusions indicated that all children engaged in gender-based social categorization but that this tendency was accentuated in the abstract compared to concrete mindset condition. These results suggest an ability of children to modulate social categorizations. Implications for the development of intergroup biases are discussed.
| Author: | Georg HalbeisenORCiDGND, Mariela Elena JafféGND |
|---|---|
| URN: | urn:nbn:de:hbz:294-102590 |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103708 |
| Parent Title (English): | Acta psychologica |
| Publisher: | Elsevier |
| Place of publication: | Amsterdam, Niederlande |
| Document Type: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Date of Publication (online): | 2023/09/08 |
| Date of first Publication: | 2022/08/11 |
| Publishing Institution: | Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universitätsbibliothek |
| Tag: | Open Access Fonds Early childhood; Gender bias; Intergroup bias; Psychological distance; Social cognition |
| Volume: | 2022 |
| Issue: | 229, Article 103708 |
| First Page: | 103708-1 |
| Last Page: | 103708-8 |
| Note: | Article Processing Charge funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the Open Access Publication Fund of Ruhr-Universität Bochum. |
| Institutes/Facilities: | LWL-Universitätsklinikum Bochum, Klinik für Psychosomatische Medizin und Psychotherapie |
| Dewey Decimal Classification: | Philosophie und Psychologie / Psychologie |
| open_access (DINI-Set): | open_access |
| Licence (English): |  Creative Commons - CC BY 4.0 - Attribution 4.0 International |
