Research — Social Cognitive Development Lab at Yale

Research — Social Cognitive Development Lab at Yale: "What makes us affiliate with social groups? Clearly one answer lies in the rich experiences groups provide, such as those found within groups based on family and friendship. But will we affiliate with groups even when none of these rich experiences are present? An old tradition in adult social psychology suggests that the answer is a resounding yes! Adults placed into randomly created, previously unfamiliar social groups immediately prefer these “minimal” social groups. If children show these same preferences, it might help to explain why they seem so quick to acquire intergroup attitudes and stereotypes.   Work from our lab suggests that children do indeed show these “minimal” group preferences by at least age 3. After being placed into groups based on T-shirt color or other such simple cues, children come to prefer their ingroup, remember more positive behaviors associated with the ingroup, and interpret ambiguous situations in ways that favor the ingroup. Ongoing research explores how these preferences change as more concrete information about the groups is acquired, and how the group representations that form in this way differ from “real” social group memberships, such as those based on race, gender, nationality, and so on."