By: Amanda Cosgriff
Imagine it is 1996, there are preschool-aged children running around the playground:
“That’s not your real mom! Your real mom’s white and you’re brown!”
“Yes it is!!! It is my real mom!!”
Next imagine a young Caucasian boy, preschool-aged, running around the same playground, pulling the corner of his eyes towards his ears:
“Chink! Chink! Chink!”
My parents have always kept me culturally well-rounded by taking me to museums, introducing me to ethnic foods, and talking to me about different cultures and races. There has been a debate on IF parents should raise their children to be culturally aware, and also HOW parents should do this. Should parents bring up race, or is it better to avoid ‘the race’ talk and provide your child with a diverse environment?
Sarina Natkin discusses in her blog how she, like many parents, believe in preaching “everybody’s equal”, regardless of the different characteristics people possess. Natkin (2013), like most parents, hoped that surrounding her child with diversity would prevent her daughter from categorizing individuals by race or ethnicity. This idea of seeing everyone as equal and not differentiating based on race or ethnicity is known as colorblindness. However, despite Natkin’s efforts, her child still categorized people based on colors (e.g., skin, hair, eyes) on her own. She naturally sorted out the differences, made sense of her world, and simplified her world by fitting everything into her schema. Natkin discusses even by avoiding talking about race with your child will not prevent them from identifying differences. Your child will automatically be aware of the differences that exist between people.
The Diverse Environmental Theory (Bronson & Merryman, 2007) discusses the idea that being a part of a diverse environment and being regularly exposed to different races and cultures is better than pointing out and talking about race differences. The goal behind this theory is that the child will identify differences in the environment and not in the individual. However, research has identified that the more diverse a school is, the more likely you will see students self-segregate and the likelihood of seeing interracial friendships decreases. Regardless of talking to your children about race, parents should not fear talking about it, because at the end of the day, their children are going to be ‘see’ people are different. Children do not necessarily have to be taught to see these differences because they are not colorblind. So does that mean we are born biased?
Throughout our development we are aware of the differences in our surroundings. Our brain naturally responds and recognizes differences within milliseconds. This is known as automatic bias, where we subconsciously categorize people based off a variety of an outsider’s characteristics (Fiske, 2014). These automatic responses, unfortunately can lead to prejudice or automatic grouping. Our brain quickly categorizes people into groups and recognizes differences in faces, even at an early age. In fact, Vogel, Monesson, & Scott (2012) indicate 5-month olds have the ability to distinguish between faces of similar and different races. Further, they found 9-month olds differentiate faces of their own race. Additionally, research has found that the longer individuals are not exposed to people from an outgroup, the more difficult it is to differentiate the characteristics of the outgroup (Telzer, et al., 2013).
Amodio (2010) refers to the subcortex region of our brain as the area that detects “us” and “them” (Fiske, 2014). Those grouped as “them” are considered to be members of the out-group and are recognized as a threat to the group’s cohesiveness (Fiske, 2014). We categorize individuals into out-group and in-group members by comparing them to our in-group members to see if there are any shared characteristics. However, in-group member comparison can threaten one’s self-esteem (Blanton, Crocker, & Miller, 2000). Comparing yourself to members of the out-group may make you feel more secure as opposed to comparing yourself to in-group members. This is because out-group members are viewed as lacking commonalities with the in-group. However, the closeness shared between in-group members can lead to a lowered self-esteem because you may use their strengths as a standard for self-evaluation (Blanton, Crocker, & Miller, 2000).
If we ‘automatically’ bias people we see, how do we fix it? There is still no ‘ultimate right answer’ to how we should talk to our children about cultural differences. I believe a mixture of both the diverse environmental theory combined with exposing your child to other cultures through visiting museums, travel and culinary experiences may help decrease your child’s bias towards another group. However, we cannot prevent the different stimuli that our children are exposed to, nor can we always change their beliefs. As humans, we can sort out who could be considered in-group members through identifying shared characteristics or beliefs. Those who are identified as lacking commonalities are considered outsiders. However, as Blaton, Crocker, and Miller (2000) discuss, we are not always self-confident within our in-group. Based off the readings and information presented, it appears we are biologically programmed to identify human differences and ‘automatically’` sort individuals as either in-group or out-group members. The important thing is that we gather all the facts about the individuals we ‘automatically’ sort before deciding whether or not they are someone who we can relate to.
- Blaton, H., Crocker, J., Miller, D. T. (2000). The effects of in-group versus out-group social comparison on self-esteem in the context of a negative stereotype. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 36, 519-530.
- D. Amodio. (2010, August 31). The egalitarian brain. [Web log comment-. Retrieved from: http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_egalitarian_brain/.
- Clark, K. B., and Clark, M. P. (1939). Racial identification and preference of negro children. In Socialization of the Child, 169-178.
- Fiske, S. (2014). Stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination: Social biases. In Social Beings, Core Motives in Social Psychology, 419-470.
- M. T., Williams. (2011, December 27). Colorblind ideology is a form of racism: A colorblind approach allows us to deny uncomfortable cultural differences. [Web log comment]. Retrieved from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/culturally-speaking/201112/colorblind-ideology-is-form-racism.
- S. B., Natkin. (2013, April 29). Growing character: Raising culturally aware children. [Web log comment]. Retrieved from: https://www.parentmap.com/article/growing-character-raising-culturally-aware-children.
- Telzer, E. H., Falnnery, J., Shapiro, M., Humphreys, K. L., Goff, B., Bagard-Durman, L., Gee, D. D., & Tottenham, N. (2013). Early experience shapes amygdala sensitivity to race: An international adoption design. The Journal of Neuroscience, 33(33), 1384-13488.
- Vogel, M., Monesson, A., Scott, L. S. (2012). Building biases in infancy: The influence of race on face and voice emotion matching. Developmental Science, 15(3), 359-372.