The rich get richer? Children's reasoning about socioeconomic status predicts inclusion and resource bias

Children's socioeconomic status (SES) is linked to disparate access to resources and affects social behaviors such as inclusion and resource allocations. Yet it is unclear whether children's essentialized view of SES (i.e., believing SES is immutable) or subjective social status (SSS) influences behavioral biases toward high- versus low-SES peers. We measured 4- to 9-year-old children's SES essentialism and SSS to test whether these predict inclusion and resource allocations to high- versus low-SES peers (N = 127; from a midsize city in the Southeastern United States; 49.6% female; parent-reported 54.2% White, 2.8% Black, 8.3% Latine, 5.6% Asian, 1.4% another race, 27.8% multiracial, 43.3% not provided). We also compared children's SES beliefs to their parent's. Children's SES essentialism and SSS decreased across the ages tested, and children reported higher SSS than their parents. Parents' SES essentialism predicted younger (but not older) children's SES essentialism. Moreover, SES essentialism mediated the negative relationship between age and preference for including high-SES peers, while SSS mediated the negative relationship between age and preference for allocating more resources to high-SES peers. This suggests that beliefs about the nature of SES may influence sociorelational behavior like including or excluding others, while perceived social status (SSS) may influence resource allocations. Furthermore, older children and those with lower SES essentialism included low- versus high-SES peers more often while older and lower SSS children distributed more resources toward low- versus high-SES peers. Thus, children's SES essentialism and SSS may also influence their behaviors to either perpetuate or rectify inequality. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Alcohol use and related consequences for monoracial and multiracial Native American/American Indian college students

Native American/American Indian (NA/AI) and Multiracial people (those who claim multiple racial identities) report notably high alcohol use compared to other racial groups in the United States. Nearly half of the NA/AI population is also Multiracial, yet NA/AI and Multiracial college students report different motivations for drinking alcohol. Therefore, it remains unclear if NA/AI individuals who are also Multiracial are at different risk for alcohol use and negative alcohol-related consequences, and if there are distinct patterns of risk factors in these understudied populations. Because college-aged students are at risk for high levels of alcohol use, this exploratory study used the AlcoholEdu for College™ survey to compare the association between initial drinking age, college location (urban vs. rural), and alcohol use motivations and consequences between monoracial NA/AI (N = 2,363) and Multiracial NA/AI college-aged students (N = 6,172). Monoracial NA/AI students reported higher incidences of alcohol use and alcohol-related problems such as blacking out and missing class, compared to Multiracial NA/AI students. Risk factors like earlier age of drinking onset were more strongly associated with negative consequences for monoracial NA/AI students compared to Multiracial NA/AI students. Despite similar levels of Internal Coping motivations for drinking (e.g., to feel more confident or sure of yourself), monoracial NA/AI students reported drinking more than Multiracial students and experienced more negative drinking-related outcomes. These results suggest Multiracial NA/AI students may draw on protective factors not accessible to monoracial NA/AI students, highlighting the need for interventions tailored to students at highest risk. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Seeing Gender: Perceptual Representations of Transgender Individuals

In four studies, we explored perceptual representations of the gender-typicality of transgender individuals. In Studies 1a and 1b, participants ( N = 237) created an avatar based on an image of an individual who disclosed being transgender or did not. Avatars generated in the transgender condition were less gender-typical—that is, transmen were less masculine and transwomen were less feminine—than those created in the control condition. In Study 2 ( N = 368), using a unique visual matching task, participants represented a target labeled transgender as less gender-typical than the same target labeled cisgender. In Study 3 ( N = 228), perceptual representations of transwomen as less gender-typical led to lower acceptability of feminine behavior and less endorsement that the target should be categorized as female. We discuss how biased perceptual representations may contribute to the stigmatization and marginalization of transgender individuals.