Suppressing the expression of prejudice and prejudice reduction from childhood to adolescence: the view of genetic social psychology

We propose genetic social psychology as a theoretical framework to render intelligible both the suppression of the expression of prejudice and prejudice reduction in childhood. In particular, we explore the role of positive in-group norms in prejudice reduction in childhood and adolescence and their interplay with realistic and symbolic threats and subgroup identification in the post-conflict setting of Cyprus in a sample of 303 (51.5% female) 7–12-year-old students (mean age = 8.73 SD = 1.58) and 387 (60.2% female) 12–17-year-old students (mean age = 14.24 SD = 1.45) collected from a random sample of thirty-nine schools in the Greek Cypriot community. The following hypotheses were tested (a) threats and social identification will form a closer link with prejudice in older than younger children (H1), (b) positive in-group norms will “trump” threats in relation to the expression of prejudice in older children (H2), (c) strength of identification would enhance the effect of positive in-group norms in the expression of non-prejudicial views (H3), and finally (d) strength of identification would enhance the impact of positive norms on prejudice reduction in childhood, through a deeper conversion process of threat reduction, whereas on the contrary, it will diminish their impact in adolescence through ideological resistance (H4). We found broad support for our hypotheses and discuss practical implications of the findings for education.