Classifying people into categories not only helps humans simplify a complex social world but also contributes to stereotyping and discrimination. This research examines how social categorization develops by testing how language imbues with meaning otherwise arbitrary differences between people. Experimental studies (N = 129) with 2-year-olds…

School tracking creates vast differential learning and schooling opportunities that lead to different academic trajectories. Black adolescents are disproportionally placed in nonhonors tracks possibly compromising their racial and academic identity. Interviews with 20 socioeconomically diverse 12 to 13 year old Black seventh graders revealed that…

Kindergarteners treat certain social categories as natural kinds. This study addressed how children pick out social categories. Ninety-one 19-and 26-month-olds were familiarized to exemplars of categories of people (e.g., Blacks-Whites, men-women) and animals (e.g., cows-horses). Participants then saw a picture matching the familiarization…

Three experiments (total N = 140) tested the hypothesis that 5-year-old children's membership in randomly assigned "minimal" groups would be sufficient to induce intergroup bias. Children were randomly assigned to groups and engaged in tasks involving judgments of unfamiliar in-group or out-group children. Despite an absence of information…

An important question for the acculturation of adolescents from immigrant families is whether they retain ethnic labels that refer to their national origin (e.g., Mexican, Chinese) or adopt labels that are dominant in American society (e.g., Latino, Asian American, American). Approximately 380 adolescents from Asian and Latin American immigrant…

Examined social labels first used for parents, differentiation of parents and others on the basis of labeling behavior, and overgeneralization of social labels in 71 infants ranging in age from 9 to 24 months. (JMB)

Examines children's relabeling of roles when confronted with counter-stereotypical occupational portrayals. A total of 128 children between the ages of five and six years were shown four films depicting all possible combinations of female and male physicians and nurses. They were then questioned with regard to the sex and occupational roles of the…

Investigates the manner in which preschool children use two sources of sex-appropriateness information (labeling and modeling) to direct their subsequent behavior and preferences for associated items. It is suggested that young children give lesser weights to the sex of a single model than to labels that may summarize general rules of conduct.…

A total of 204 male and female subjects rated an infant's emotional responses to four arousing stimuli. Half of the subjects were told they were observing a "boy" and the other half a "girl". Significant differences in responding were found by sex attributed to the child, sex of rater, and the rater's experience with young children. (Author/JMB)

Three studies examined the capacity of 4-year olds, kindergartners, second- and fifth graders, and adults to use trait labels (nice, mean, shy, not shy) as tools for making inferences about mental states. Findings suggested that even for 4-year olds, trait labels can serve as a basis for making non-obvious inferences. (Author/KB)

This study was designed to examine the effects of adults' labeling and use of social groups on preschool children's intergroup attitudes. Children (N=87, aged 3-5) attending day care were given measures of classification skill and self-esteem and assigned to membership in a novel ("red" or "blue") social group. In experimental classrooms, teachers…

Two studies assessed the ability of two groups of preschool children (ages two to four and three to five years, respectively) to label and categorize age groups on the basis of photographs and dolls representing the life span. Results indicated age and sex differences. (Author/CI)

The relation between type of label and perception of faces was assessed in second- and sixth-grade children. Labels associated with color increased color perception, whereas labels based on expressiveness increased differentiation of expression variations, but not color perception. (ST)

Four studies examined whether Israeli 5-year-olds (N=88) and adults (N=48) drew inferences about psychological properties based on a character's social category, personality trait, or physical appearance trait. Study 1 revealed that while children drew inferences mostly by social category, adults did it by personality trait. Study 2 showed that…