The development of structural reasoning abut social inequality
department or school: Arts, Faculty of
department or school: Psychology, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Hall, Cameron E.
issued: 2023-08-23T20:50:40Z
issued: 2023
related degree: Master of Arts - MA
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: Structural inequalities create and perpetuate discrepant outcomes between social groups. However, both adults and children more often attribute discrepancies between social groups to internal factors of individuals, rather than to structural causes—a tendency which has been linked to increased prejudice toward disadvantaged group members across development. Therefore, promoting structural reasoning in childhood may serve as a means to mitigate the development of social biases. Across three studies we investigated children’s (3-to-8-years-old) ability to selectively make structural attributions for social inequality. Study 1 examined how equitable or inequitable outcomes between groups influenced children’s perception of structural factors and their ability to endorse structural attributions. Study 2 aimed to address alternative explanations for previous findings. In Study 3 we explored children’s ability to accurately map structural and internalist attributions to appropriate scenarios. Together, these three studies shed light on the developmental trajectory of structural reasoning. At 3-to-4-years-old, children demonstrated the capacity to recognize structural constraints and appropriately attribute outcomes to their respective internal and structural causes. By age five, children can also overcome internalist defaults to evaluate structural attributions for social inequality as superior. These findings suggest that children as young as three years old are capable of selectively applying structural reasoning and provide insight into how this type of reasoning may influence the development of intergroup biases.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/85589
note: THE DEVELOPMENT OF STRUCTURAL REASONING ABOUT SOCIAL INEQUALITY by Cameron E. Hall B.A. (Hons.), The University of Texas at Austin, 2019 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT OF THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Psychology) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) August 2023 © Cameron E. Hall, 2023 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled: The Development of Structural Reasoning about Social Inequality Submitted by Cameron E. Hall in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology Examining Committee: Dr. Andrew Scott Baron, Professor, Psychology, UBC Supervisor Dr. Lauren Emberson, Professor, Psychology, UBC Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Darko Odic, Professor, Psychology, UBC Supervisory Committee Member iii Abstract Structural inequalities create and perpetuate discrepant outcomes between social groups. However, both adults and children more often attribute discrepancies between social groups to internal factors of individuals, rather than to structural causes—a tendency which has been linked to increased prejudice toward disadvantaged group members across development. Therefore, promoting structural reasoning in childhood may serve as a means to mitigate the development of social biases. Across three studies we investigated children’s (3-to-8-years-old) ability to selectively make structural attributions for social inequality. Study 1 examined how equitable or inequitable outcomes between groups influenced children’s perception of structural factors and their ability to endorse structural attributions. Study 2 aimed to address alternative explanations for previous findings. In Study 3 we explored children’s ability to accurately map structural and internalist attributions to appropriate scenarios. Together, these three studies s…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2023-11
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0435546
language: eng
degree discipline: Psychology
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Baron, Andrew Scott
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/85589