Cognitive development mediates how parental and peer input shapes prejudice in children

Evidence

Since 1954, theoretical frameworks incorporating Allport’s main routes to prejudice have been sharpened and elaborated based on empirical findings. The cognitive revolution put a new twist on almost all of Allport’s mechanisms for acquiring prejudice. Since the 1960s, greater emphasis has been placed on how children and adolescents are influenced by social input from parents and peers through the filters of cognitive maturation and identity. Theories have been tested, but the relative merits of theories in comparison with one another have not been. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 1986

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Children’s apprenticeship-of-observation transmits teacher bias along with pedagogy