Children's lay theories about ingroups and outgroups: Reconceptualizing research on prejudice

The consensus from the developmental literature examining children's interg roup attitudes has been that children as young as 3 years of age exhibit ra cial prejudice. We suggest, however, that as much of the developmental rese arch has confounded ingroup positivity and outgroup negativity, it becomes difficult to determine whether young children are displaying ingroup bias o r outgroup derogation. Furthermore, it appears that young children are not demonstrating hostility toward outgroups; studies that have separately asse ssed evaluations toward the ingroup and outgroup demonstrate that rather th an evaluating the outgroup negatively, young children are demonstrating a p ositivity bias toward their ingroup. We propose, therefore, that young chil dren are primarily utilizing a perceptually based lay theory that does not necessitate outgroup derogation. We argue, however, that children's lay the ories are subject to social structural conditions and specific social trans itions, and hence, can lead to the development of prejudice.