Prejudice in Children due to Faulty Information Processing - Literature review Example

Prejudice in children due to faulty information processing A study on the Cognitive Developmental Theory of the of School) Abstract Prejudice, a word often used to describe a persons manner of dealing towards another, have been attributed with a several interpretations and analysis by social scientist. Most of them agree that it involves negative prejudgement about a particular group usually manifested in a manner of contempt thereby creating a hindrance for interaction. The disagreement lies in the answer as to why and how prejudice begins at a very young age. But as to whether prejudice is present is beyond the cause of debate, as it has been clearly pointed out by the authors of the four reference books this research consulted, that there is indeed. This will be elaborated and pointed out in the succeeding pages. According to Piaget, the stages of cognitive development, plays an important role in the learning ability of a child. Learning process involves the introduction of a stimulus for orientation and it teaches the child the manner of response in accordance with what is learned. Furthermore, cognition involves a schema that follows a chronological order that allows no interruption, otherwise will create an adverse effect. This involves the encoding of the perceived stimuli followed by the storing of the data encoding in the memory. Finally the retrieval of such memory when the need arise thus completing the entire process. This cycle follows a patter in processing information along with the other psychological and biological skills. The impact of this process is also determined by the social and environmental factors present, together with the constant reinforcement aid of education and authorities. Should there be a flaw, disruption or inadequacies to that process, learning becomes deficient. Thus the child begins to form biases or preferences. According to Frances E. Aboud (1988), prejudice is not genetically inclined to happen, as it happens along with the development of the cognitive skills. In her book entitled Children and Prejudice, she asserted that at a very juvenile age, beginning 3 to 4 years, "children already notices racial distinctions, absorbs racially related images and assumptions, begin to learn and express racist ideologies (Aboud. 1988). Biases are formed due to the primary obvious aspect particularly noticed by the child at first glance, like the colour of the skin. The child absorbs everything that is perceived by the senses like sponges, and because they are incapable of discerning the right from wrong, therefore requires guidance from authority figures such as the parents. Thus the acquisition of preference among children is parallel with that of the parent's. The research further concluded that the meagre cognitive skills as well as the predisposition to ethnic preferences becomes gradually diminish as the child learns the distinction between virtues and mere peripheral. But this conjecture was opposed by Author Rupert Brown (1995), emphasizing that prejudice do not disappear with adulthood. In his book Prejudice: it's a social psychology, he said; "thirdly, and Aboud (1988) has noted, there had been some marked changes in measured prejudice level in adults over the past 40 years and yet recent studies of children's ethnic prejudice have shown that children below the age of 10 still continues to manifest various kinds of bias and discrimination" (p. 154). Nevertheless, he agreed to Aboud's finding about the three-stage model in which cognition is governed solely by perception and affective process occurring until the age of five. To strengthen her claim about the correlation of cognitive development to the development of prejudice in children, Aboud, together with Amato came up with a book in 2001 entitled Developmental and socialization influence of prejudice on inter-group bias, in which it claims the existence of prejudice even at the time when the child begins to form social organization. As earlier stated this is primarily due to the influences that the parents provided. Because the child needs to belong thus requiring him/her to form a social organization, the child will adhere to what the group thinks for fear of rejection. But as the child approaches the summit of middle school; the in-group preference and out-group negativity is highlighted since it is at this phase where in the child "play a more active role in the biases they develop" (p. 65). This is concurred by Nesdale Drew in his quest of establishing a link between language and the development of prejudice in children. His study concluded that; "whereas the children's ethnic preference may be well established by the age of 6 years ethnic prejudice does not emerge in the middle childhood, and whether the child develops ethnic prejudice does not appear to be directly dependent on their perceptual - cognitive abilities or the proximity of the prejudiced others. Nevertheless, children may express racist statement towards ethnic group by 5 years of age, but parents and peers are the preimary source of these expression. However, such expression is typically not held as the child's own. That is, younger children may have the verbal fluency, but not the intergroup attitudes and stereotypes of older children in whom ethnic prejudice is fully realized" (Vol. 20, No. 1-2, p. 90-110). It is therefore obvious that Nesdale; Amato; Brown and aboud, all agree that the cognitive development indeed plays an important role in the emergence of prejudice in children. However, according to the books particularly those recently published (i.e., 1995 & 2001), prejudice does not exist until such stage when children begin the clear comprehension of the word race. It is only when they realize that a particular ethnic group is not like the group they belong to, that they create certain opinion against what is different. Children acquire their biases only when cognition is fully developed in that, language and social skills are enhanced. They become more aware of the differences of another through the acquisition of the skill to process information, one that requires her/him to conduct own observation as well as the analysis and conclusion. Wherefore, in the event that this process in interrupted allowing an incongruent encoding of information, will lead to faulty analysis and erroneous conclusion thereafter. Hence, despite the error in their conclusion thus forming biases toward an aggregate that is incongruent with their standards, they develop certain dislike. But due to the emergence of other skills such as their morals and education, this necessitates reduction by means of concealment. This is why more and more incident such as that in South Africa still occurs in this day and age; "Despite the decades of efforts to eradicate it, the virus of racism continues to infect human relations and human institutions in all part of our globe" (Sec Gen of United Nation Kofi Anan, during the 45th commemoration of the Sharperville massacre), because as our children grow up, they learn to show only those which are generally acceptable to many but hide those which are not (Garber, ESRC. 2005). References Aboud, F.E. (1988). Children and Prejudice. London: Balackwell Publishers. Aboud, F. & Amato, M. (2001). Developmental and socialization Influence on inter-group bias. In S.L. Gaetner (Ed.), Blackwell Handbook of social psychology: Intergroup process. Brown, R. (1995). Prejudice: It's a social psychology. UK: Balckwell Publishers. Nesdale, D. (2001). Language and the development of Children's ethnic prejudice. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, Sage, Vol. 20, No 1-2, pp. 90-110. Garber, J. (2005). British Children Learn to Hide their Racial Prejudice. ESRC Economics and Social Research Council. Retrieved April 5, 2006 from the World Wide Web: http://esrc.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/aboutESRC/Corp_inf/oursoc _to/newsart.html Read More