About this session

Thursday, 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM

Navigating Social Groups and Relationships: Children’s Developing Sense of Belonging and Social Connection

Navigating social relationships is crucial to human life. This symposium characterizes children’s developing concepts of social relationships in middle childhood. Papers 1 and 2 probe the origins and consequences of children’s reasoning about known cues to social ties: racial/ethnic group, and gender. Papers 3 and 4 show that children use formerly-unrecognized features to infer close social ties: shared sleep arrangements, and knowledge of others’ mental states.

Paper 1 tests whether children’s ingroup preferences in a ‘minimal’ group task are related to their racial/ethnic group preferences. A preregistered, multi-site, diverse-sample study finds that minimal group bias does not predict racial ingroup preference in 4–6-year-olds, raising questions about the ontogeny of prejudice. Paper 2 investigates an undesirable consequence of reasoning about social belonging: 7–8-year-old girls feel low belonging in activities associated with brilliance, and belonging mediates their reduced interest in these activities. Papers 3 and 4 show that children’s understanding of social ties go beyond cues like race and gender. That is, Paper 3 finds that 5–7-year-olds and adults expect people who share sleep arrangements to be kin and have caregiving relationships; Paper 4 finds that 6–9-year-olds expect that close friends know the content of each other’s minds.

Overall, by bringing together work on race and gender with new cues to social closeness, this symposium will showcase the rich and multifaceted nature of children’s reasoning about social relationships, and how they together support children’s ability to form and understand social networks.

Paper #1
Title	Minimal Group and Racial/Ethnic Attitudes Among US Minority and Majority Race/Ethnic Children
Presenting author	Ms. Sarah Michelle Ramsey, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin – Madison, United States

Paper #2
Title	How Social Relationships Guide Girls’ Interests in Brilliance-Associated Activities
Presenting author	Rongzhi Liu, Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, United States

Paper #3
Title	The Origins of Social Evaluations of Sleep Arrangements
Presenting author	Mr. Rodney Tompkins, Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, United States

Paper #4
Title	Developing Intuitions that Close Friends Know the Content of Each Other’s Minds
Presenting author	Brandon Woo, Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, United States

View all paper details

Session chairs
Mr. Rodney Tompkins, Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, United States; Brandon Woo, , United States

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