"Shape bias" goes social: Children categorize people by weight rather than race.

Children tend to categorize novel objects according to their shape rather than their color, texture, or other salient properties-known as "shape bias." We investigated whether this bias also extends to the social domain, where it should lead children to categorize people according to their weight (their body shape) rather than their race (their skin color). In Study 1, participants (n = 50 US 4- and 5-year-olds) were asked to extend a novel label from a target object/person to either an object/person who shared the target's shape/weight, color/race, or neither. Children selected the shape-/weight-matched individual over the color-/race-matched individual (dobjects  = 1.58, dpeople  = 0.99) and their shape biases were correlated across the two domains. In Study 2, participants (n = 20 US 4- and 5-year-olds) were asked to extend a novel internal property from a target person to either a person who shared the target's weight, race, or neither. Again, children selected the weight-matched individual (d = 1.98), suggesting they view an individual's weight as more predictive of their internal properties than their race. Overall, results suggest that children's early shape bias extends into the social domain. Implications for weight bias and early social cognition are discussed. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Preschoolers extend novel labels based on people's weight rather than their race. Preschoolers infer internal features based on people's weight rather than their race. Shape biases are present, and correlated, across the social and object domains.

Socioeconomic status predicts children's moral judgments of novel resource distributions.

Children's moral judgments of resource distributions as having "fair" or "unfair" origins play an important role in early social cognition. What factors shape these judgments? The present study advances research on this question in two primary ways: First, while prior work has typically assigned children to an advantaged or disadvantaged position in an experimental setting, here we also investigated how relative objective and Subjective Socioeconomic Status (OSS and SSS) predicted children's judgments. Second, while prior work has asked children to judge distributions with known origins, here we presented children with novel and causally ambiguous distributions, thereby simulating children's initial encounter of resource distributions in the social world. We assessed participants' (n = 113, 6- to 9-year-olds) OSS and SSS and then introduced them to a machine that distributed Skittles on an unknown basis. Participants received half as many, twice as many, or the same number of Skittles as a peer in three between-subjects conditions, and then rated the machine's fairness. Results revealed that children who rated their families as wealthier relative to their neighborhoods (higher SSS) rated the machine as more fair. However, children from families that were actually wealthier relative to their neighborhoods (higher OSS) were more likely to rate the disadvantage-giving machine as unfair. Together, results represent the first evidence that OSS and SSS shape children's moral judgments of resource distributions, consistent with evidence that these two forms of socioeconomic status have unique impacts on adults' judgments of inequality. Implications for moral and social development are discussed.

The development of early numeracy in deaf and hard of hearing children acquiring spoken language.

Most deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children are born to hearing parents and steered toward spoken rather than signed language, introducing a delay in language access. This study investigated the effects of this delay on number acquisition. DHH children (N = 44, meanage  = 58 months, 21F, >50% White) and typically-hearing (TH) children (N = 79, meanage  = 49 months, 51F, >50% White) were assessed on number and language in 2011-13. DHH children showed similar trajectories to TH children but delayed timing; a binary logistic regression showed that the odds of being a cardinal-principle (CP) knower were 17 times higher for TH children than DHH children, controlling for age (d = .69). Language fully mediated the association between deaf/hearing group and number knowledge, suggesting that language access sets the pace for number acquisition.

Causal Explanations for Weight Influence Children's Social Preferences: Biological-Essentialist Explanations Reduce, and Behavioral Explanations Promote, Preferences for Thin Friends.

The current study experimentally investigated the impact of causal-explanatory information on weight bias over development. Participants (n = 395, children ages 4-11 years and adults) received either a biological or behavioral explanation for body size, or neither, in three between-subjects conditions. Participants then made preference judgments for characters with smaller versus larger body sizes. Results showed that both behavioral and biological explanations impacted children's preferences. Relative to children's baseline preferences, behavioral explanations enhanced preferences for smaller characters, and biological explanations reduced these preferences-unlike the typical facilitative impact of biological-essentialist explanations on other biases. The explanations did not affect adults' preferences. In contrast to previous findings, we demonstrate that causal knowledge can impact weight bias early in development.

From "haves" to "have nots": Developmental declines in subjective social status reflect children's growing consideration of what they do not have.

Subjective social status (SSS), or a person's view of their own socioeconomic status, has important consequences for social cognition and wellbeing, yet little is known about its development before adolescence. Previous research finds that SSS declines during childhood. We sought to replicate this finding, and also to extend it by investigating what aspects of children's reasoning drive this developmental decline. To do so, we assessed four- to ten-year-old children's SSS using a MacArthur Ladder Task (n = 377), which has been validated for use with children in this age range. We then assessed children's open-ended rationales for their SSS judgments. Results indicated that SSS declined over child development, replicating previous work. We also confirmed that this decline corresponded with improvements in SSS accuracy; young children overestimated their SSS relative to their objective SES, but were relatively accurate by age ten. Moreover, trends in children's rationales revealed that developmental shifts in both SSS and SSS accuracy corresponded with children's references to what they do not have, but not with references to what they do have, nor with references to any particular status cues (e.g., houses, lifestyle). Thus, children may increasingly consider what they lack to determine their status. Implications for self-evaluation and social cognition are discussed.

Children Consider Procedures, Outcomes, and Emotions When Judging the Fairness of Inequality.

Children tend to view equal resource distributions as more fair than unequal ones, but will sometimes view even unequal distributions as fair. However, less is known about how children form judgments about inequality when different procedures are used. In the present study, we investigated children's consideration of procedures (i.e., resource-distributing processes), outcomes (i.e., the distributions themselves), and emotions (i.e., the emotional reactions of those receiving the resources) when judging the fairness of unequal resource distributions. Participants (N = 130, 3- to 8-year-olds) were introduced to a Fair Coin (different color on each side) and an Unfair Coin (same color on both sides). In two between-subjects conditions, they watched a researcher flip either the Fair or Unfair Coin in order to distribute resources unequally between two child recipients. Participants then rated the fairness of this event, provided verbal justifications for their ratings (coded for references to procedures and/or outcomes), and rated the emotional state of each recipient (from which an Emotion Difference Score was computed). Results revealed that participants rated the event as more fair in the Fair Coin than the Unfair Coin condition. References to the outcome in children's justifications predicted lower fairness ratings, while references to the procedure only predicted lower ratings in the Unfair Coin condition. Greater Emotion Difference Scores predicted lower fairness ratings, and this effect increased with age. Together, these results show that children consider procedures, outcomes, and emotions when judging the fairness of inequality. Moreover, results suggest age-related increases in consideration of recipients' emotions makes inequality seem less fair, even when fair procedures are used. Implications for the development of fairness are discussed.

Verbally Highlighting Extrinsic Causes of Novel Social Disparities Helps Children View Low-Status Groups as Structurally Disadvantaged Rather Than Personally Inferior.

As part of their "essentialist" intuitions, young children tend to form personal attributions for observed intergroup differences - attributing them to groups' intrinsic natures or inborn characteristics. Much research has linked this essentialist view of social groups with prejudiced attitudes. However, less research has explored children's capacity to form structural attributions for observed intergroup differences - attributing them to groups' extrinsic circumstances or access to opportunities - or how structural attributions relate to social attitudes. Structural attributions could enable children to view low-status groups as extrinsically disadvantaged rather than intrinsically inferior. We were interested in whether verbally highlighting the extrinsic causes of novel social status disparities could support young children in forming structural attributions for them, thereby mitigating the formation of prejudice toward novel low-status groups. To investigate, we introduced participants (n=106 5- and 6-year olds) to novel social status disparities that could be attributed to either intrinsic or extrinsic causes, and we framed the disparities in either intrinsic, neutral, or extrinsic terms. We then assessed children's attributions for the disparities (through two measures: explanations and interventions) and their social attitudes toward the groups (through two measures: friendship preferences and prize allocations). Results indicated that participants tended to provide mostly personal attributions overall but that extrinsic framing led them to provide significantly more structural attributions. Extrinsic framing did not significantly impact social attitudes overall, but exploratory analyses revealed that it impacted participants' friendship preferences in particular. Together, results suggest that verbally highlighting extrinsic causes can disrupt children's intuitive tendency toward personal attributions, with promising implications for their views of low-status groups.