Children's explanations for success shape implicit bias.

Abstract

Children's social preferences often mirror societal hierarchies, favoring higher-status and more successful groups. How children explain why some groups succeed while others do not may contribute to the development of these preferences. Attributing disparities to internal factors, such as effort or ability, risks instilling bias, whereas recognizing structural differences in access to opportunity may mitigate it. Across two studies, we examined children's reasoning about internal and structural explanations for a novel group disparity and whether these explanations impacted their social evaluations. In Study 1 (N = 155, ages 3-8; 64% White, 27% East Asian), children rated internal and structural explanations as similarly plausible, but by age 6, preferred structural explanations when outcomes were shaped by unequal access to opportunity and internal explanations when opportunities were equal (d = 0.33). In Study 2 (N = 289, ages 5-10; 52% White, 37% East Asian), children who favored internal explanations showed implicit success bias, whereas those who prioritized structural explanations showed no such bias, driven primarily by reduced positivity toward the successful group (d = 0.27). These findings suggest that how children explain inequality may shape their implicit attitudes toward success in ways that can either reinforce or disrupt social hierarchies.