Introduction
Implicit attitudes in children develop according to their surroundings. These surroundings range from cultural processes, which the child undergoes, to the intergroup and child preferences as he or she grows up. Age is not an important determinant since when implicit association test (IAT) is administered; the same results are evident in both the adults and children.
However, the level of biasness differs from child to child, and it may not appear as much in the adults. A great divergence is observed at the age of 10 onwards. This is where a child begins to develop other important traits, which will assist in attitude development.
Consequently, at this age, a child is in a position to start analyzing issues critically and pay much attention to things he or she must have assumed at a very tender age.
The Children’s implicit and explicit ethnic group attitudes’ development can also be influenced by the parents. Since children copy what their parents do, they will become very resistant to anything that their guardians do not believe in. This is why many children will show a lot of favoritism in the in-group compared to the out-group.
Connections between Readings
Self-esteem and intergroup attitudes play a major role in the development of the children’s implicit and explicit attitudes. Many children will show more favoritism towards the in-group than the out-group. This is the same when it comes to implicit and explicit assessments.
Therefore, it is important to note that, it is very hard to find a child who has a very low attitude in his/her in-group. However, if data are accumulated, it may appear that the white children normally have cumulative low attitude in their in-group.
Many British children, both the whites and the blacks, value the black culture and show positive implicit and explicit attitudes on the blacks. It is also evident that, the adults have low in-group preference, compared to the children.
Both readings also portray that implicit attitudes are attained at an early stages and remain practically stable throughout the development stage, up to around age 10 when there are some split between the conscious and the less conscious ethnic attitudes (Siegler, DeLoache & Eisenberg, 2005).
New Novel Extension
Study has proved that the white children normally show greater out-group positivity than the in-group. This area should be researched more to identify why this is the case. It is not clear why the black children normally present a contrary picture, that of showing favoritism to the in-group than the out-group.
Various tests have confirmed this fact and a new novel should be developed to try to explain why this case happens even in children who are brought up in the same surrounding.
Connections between Findings, Arguments and Theory
It is evident that, there are claims based on collection of data, which are not true, about the children’s implicit and explicit attitudes. According to the findings, it is very difficult to pick data from a specific study and generalize the entire traits shown by children as their true and accurate stereotyping degree.
Different scholars also argue that, since the theories are developed on sample basis, if the entire population was to be involved in the research, the results may be far reaching and completely different from the ones made. In fact it is not easy to analyze the entire population.
Reference
Siegler, R., DeLoache, J., & Eisenberg, N. (2005). How Children Develop. New York, NY: Worth Publishers.