Kids think stereotypes reflect how world should be

ANN ARBOR'Once children believe that a group is characterized by a certain trait, they think individual people within that group should also be judged by that trait, according to a University of Michigan study. U-M researchers introduced participants to unfamiliar groups?"Hibbles" and "Glerks"?who differed from each other in harmless behaviors, such as the kind of food they eat, language they speak, music they listen to and games they play. They then showed participants conforming or nonconforming individuals (e.g., a Hibble who played with toys that Glerks typically played with), and asked them to evaluate those individuals. The study, which appears in the current issue of Cognitive Science, involved four age groups: 4-6 years, 7-9 years, 10-13 years and adults. Children between ages 4-13 believed that individuals should behave like others in their own group, and that it was bad for them to not do so. This tendency declined with age, the research showed. "These data suggest a thought process through which children enforce group stereotypes," said Steven Roberts, U-M psychology doctoral candidate and the study's lead author.