Marjorie Rhodes, Ph.D. - US grants

From early in development, children use categories to learn about the world around them. For example, upon learning something about an individual (e.g., that a spider bites), children can generalize this information to the category as a whole (e.g., all spiders), and use this information to guide behavior (e.g., to avoid spiders). A critical--and often useful--assumption that underlies this form of reasoning is the belief that members of a category are highly similar to each other. Yet, this assumption can also lead children astray. For example, if children assume that all dogs are friendly because their own cocker spaniel is friendly, they may engage in dangerous behavior if they encounter a vicious dog. Effective induction thus must balance the belief that category members are similar to each other with the recognition that categories also include important variability. These studies examine how the balance between these beliefs contributes to developmental changes in learning across childhood. These studies test the hypotheses that (a) younger children (preschool-age) tend to overlook within-category variability, leading them to over-generalize new information, (b) children recognize more within-category variability as they get older, leading to more efficient inductive learning, and (c) guiding younger children to recognize the importance of within-category variability helps them to learn more efficiently.

This research aims to uncover the cognitive developmental processes that lead children to generalize information more or less effectively. In doing so, this research has three immediate implications for education. First, these studies aim to identify a strategy--instruction on within-category variation--that can lead children to generalize information more accurately and efficiently, which could be implemented in a range of educational contexts. Second, these studies illustrate the developmental factors that contribute to children's understanding of a key component of the scientific method--that it is important to obtain converging evidence from diverse sources before drawing a broad conclusion--and thus have implications for how to teach about the scientific method effectively. Third, because reasoning about variability is central to a conceptual understanding of evolution, this work will examine an important developmental factor that should be addressed in the design of science curricula. These studies speak to the key theoretical question of how the mechanisms by which humans acquire new knowledge change across development, and thus have broad theoretical significance for cognitive and developmental psychology. This research also supports extensive training opportunities for students and educational opportunities for families and educators.

This project will develop new strategies to facilitate efficient scientific reasoning in young children. From early in development, children use categories to learn about the world around them. For example, upon learning something about an individual animal, children can generalize this information to the category as a whole and use it to guide behavior. In this way, if a child learns that a particular spider will bite, the child might infer that all spiders bite, and use that information to avoid spiders in the future. A critical challenge of this type of reasoning is determining whether a limited sample of evidence--for example, a specific spider observed on a particular day--provides information likely to be true of other category members as well. Young children often evaluate samples of evidence much less efficiently than older children or adults, which can impede their biological, social, and scientific reasoning. This project will enhance basic understanding of how and why inductive learning changes across childhood. Through a series of experiments, it will reveal the cognitive and developmental mechanisms that underlie the age-related changes in children's reasoning strategies that have been documented in previous studies. This project will then use this knowledge to devise and test new strategies for facilitating efficient reasoning in children. By developing new educational strategies, partnering with a major informal educational institution, and providing training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, this project maximizes opportunities for this research to influence educational practices and benefit educators, children, and future researchers.

The present studies test the hypothesis that younger children seek out samples of evidence that they think best exemplify what members of a category should be like, whereas older children and adults seek out samples that cover the broad variation that exists within categories. For example, young children might think that birds should be relatively small and fly, so when they are seeking information about birds in general, they might choose to consider primarily birds with these traits, such as robins and bluebirds. In contrast, older children might seek out more diverse samples, containing birds such as robins and penguins. To test this hypothesis experimentally, children will be presented with samples of animals and asked to choose which are most informative for learning about the category as a whole. To chart the trajectory of developmental change in children's strategies, the first set of studies will examine whether 5- to 10-year-olds select samples that maximize values on key properties (e.g., choosing to examine the two fastest cheetahs in the world to learn about cheetahs) or diversity (e.g., choosing to examine some fast and some slow cheetahs). The second set of experiments will test two possible accounts of the developmental and cognitive mechanisms underlying observed age-related changes. The third set of studies will develop and test new strategies for facilitating efficient biological and scientific reasoning in educational contexts. Thus, in addition to addressing key theoretical questions in cognitive and developmental psychology, this project will also have immediate implications for education.

This project will provide new insights into how racial biases emerge and develop in early childhood. Racism remains a pervasive force with widespread and well-documented harmful consequences. An important step towards redressing these problems is understanding the psychological processes that maintain and reinforce them. Young children begin to develop harmful and problematic beliefs about race in early childhood (often by 3 years of age), and a majority of children and adolescents of color report experiencing racially-based discrimination. Yet, some children develop stronger racial biases than others, suggesting that the persistence of racial bias is not inevitable. This project will reveal how racial biases emerge and develop in children living across the United States and will examine how parent-child conversations might lead children to form harmful beliefs about race (or serve to prevent them). In doing so, this project will address fundamental questions about how racial biases take root in early childhood and will identify ways that parents can prevent this development. By partnering with several community organizations to implement this project and using an innovative, webcam-based lab for remote developmental research, this project will maximize the opportunities for this research to lead to rapid changes in parenting practices with the potential to reduce the emergence of racial bias in early childhood.

The first part of this project will explore the foundational beliefs that predict the emergence and development of racial bias in children across the United States via a longitudinal study with 300 children and parents who will participate in this research from home using an online lab. This project will examine how children?s emerging beliefs about interracial friendships and racial inequalities predict the future development of racial biases. Specifically, every six months over a three year period, children will complete a series of assessments that gauge their racial biases (e.g., how much they like and want to play with Black and White children), their beliefs about interracial friendships (who their parents would want them to play with, who their friends would want to play with), and whether they believe that racial inequalities are due to essentialist (e.g., inherent/intrinsic differences between racial groups) or structural (e.g., differential access to resources and opportunities) factors. This study will test the hypotheses that children who hold more exclusive beliefs about interracial friendships and more essentialist beliefs about racial inequalities will develop higher levels of racial biases. The second part of this project will explore an important developmental mechanism by which children develop problematic beliefs about interracial friendships and racial inequalities: parent-child conversations. Using our online lab, 105 children and parents will complete a series of role-playing activities designed to spur conversations about racial inequalities; conversations will be coded for subtle linguistic cues that imply that racial and socioeconomic groups reflect inherently different types of people, as well as for essentialist and structural explanations for racial disparities. These features of parent-child conversations will then be used to predict children?s racial biases and foundational beliefs as in Part A. Thus, this project will advance our understanding of how racial biases emerge and develop in early childhood. By identifying the core features of parent-child conversations that can foster or impede these beliefs, this project will also inform future interventions aimed at reducing the development of racial bias. By disseminating the results of this research via our online lab, we will enable easy access to our findings for researchers, parents, educators, and policy makers.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.