Children’s Generalizations about Social Groups

Why and how do children come to form beliefs about social groups? How does the language we use to introduce and describe social groups to children influence the inferences they make about group members?

This study explores how language type (generic vs specific language) influences children’s inferences about novel social group members’ traits. By introducing them to a novel social group, rather than an existing one such as gender or race, we are able to explore how children develop certain beliefs about group members while avoiding prompting any existing biases children may hold. Children are also asked to explain their inferences.  

This study is currently recruiting children ages 4-8. Please contact learnlab@bu.edu with any questions!