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Andrew (
Hilliard and Liben (2010) -

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Student resources )* " # Student resources # Sociocultural approach # Key studies: sociocultural # Hilliard and Liben (2010)
!
Welcome to Inthinking /
+ Abnormal psychology
Social Identity Theory can be used to explain the formation of 
+ Biological approach stereotypes. The following study by Hilliard and Liben looks at
+ Cognitive approach how social category salience can lead to the development of &
+ Developmental psychology stereotypes of the "out-group."
+ Health psychology This study could also be used to explain gender role '
+ Human relationships development as well as the enculturation of gender roles.
+ Research methods 1
Sociocultural approach
+

Key studies: sociocultural

+

Abrams et al (1990)
Asch (1956)
Bagby and Rector (1992)
Bandura (1961) Background information
Berry (1967)
Charlton et al (2002) Social Identity Theory argues that by categorizing ourselves into in-groups and out-groups, we then begin to see the
Chen et al (2005) members of outgroups as more similar to each other than they actually are. Out-group homogeneity then makes it
Drury et al (2009) easy for us to apply stereotypes to the members of the groups without having to consider whether the
characteristics are actually true of a particular individual. In addition, since we do not usually interact with the out-
Fagot (1978)
group as much as with our in-group, we learn very little about their traits and are more likely to maintain
Festinger (1956) stereotypes.
Greenfield (2006)
Schaller (1991) carried out a study of 141 introductory psychology students in which participants were randomly
Hamilton and Gifford (1976)
assigned to be members of a group. They were either told that they were in "group A", "Group B" or they were in a
Harris & Fiske (2006) control group with no group categorization. They were also told that there were more people in group A than in
Hilliard and Liben (2010) group B. They were then given a booklet with a series of statements that described members in both the group to
Kearins (1981) which they had been assigned and the group that was not their group. There was an equal number of positive and
negative statements about each group. They were then given a list of traits and asked to rank each group on
Kulkofsky et al (2011)
a 10 point scale. The results are seen in the table below:
Lueck and Wilson (2010)
Norasakkunkit & Uchida (2014)
Rogers & Frantz (1961)
Sherif et al (1954)
Steele & Aronson (1995)
Tajfel (1971)
Understanding Milgram (1963)
Wood (2002)
+ Revision (review): Sociocultural
+ Writing samples: Sociocultural
+ Practicing Paper 3

You can see that each group tended to rate their in-group as more positive. The control group (unaffiliated) did not
have a significant difference in its rating of groups A and B.

In another study, Linville and Jones (1980) gave participants a list of traits and asked them to think about either
members of their own group (e.g., African-Americans) or members of another group (e.g., European Americans)
and to place the traits into piles that represented different types of people in the group. The results of these studies
showed that people perceive out-groups as more homogeneous than their ingroup. African Americans used fewer
piles of traits to describe European Americans than African-Americans, young people used fewer piles of traits to
describe elderly people than they did young people, and students used fewer piles for members of other universities
than they did for members of their own university.

Although both of these studies have high levels of internal validity, they are both rather artificial tasks. What would
happen if we tried to study the role of SIT in a naturalistic environment? This was the research done by Hilliard and
Liben (2010).

Procedure and results

Hilliard and Liben carried out an experimental study to determine how social category salience may play a role on
the development of stereotypes and inter-group behaviour in elementary school children.

The study took place at two preschools. The participants were 57 US children ranging from 3 years 1 month to 5
years 6 months. Each school had a roughly equal number of male and female children.

The study used a pre-test/post-test design. To begin, each child completed a gender attitude test (POAT-AM) to
measure their “gender flexibility.” They were shown pictures of activities or occupations, and for each item asked if
boys, girls, or both boys and girls ‘‘should’’ perform it. The test included 22 culturally masculine (e.g, be a
firefighter), 20 culturally feminine (e.g., play with dolls), and 24 neutral (e.g., fly a kite) items by pointing to one of
three cards to show who they believed should do the activity. The test calculated the number of ‘‘both men and
women’’ responses. Lower numbers of ‘‘both’’ responses indicate a higher number of gender stereotypes.

A second measure was taken by observing their play to determine to what extent they played with same-sex vs
opposite-sex peers.

The schools were randomly allocated to one of two conditions.

The high salience condition: Children were made aware of their gender by having them line up by sex,
posting separate boys’ and girls’ bulletin boards, and the teachers’ use of gender-specific language (e.g., ‘‘I
need a girl to pass out the markers’’ and ‘‘Good morning boys and girls’’). Teachers were instructed not to set
up competitive activities between the boys and girls.

Low salience condition: Teachers were given no instructions about changing their behavior. This served as
the control group.

It is important to note that in both preschools, it was the policy to avoid gendered language. Children in both
conditions had experienced similar classroom environments prior to the study.

The study lasted for two weeks. The results can be seen below.

In this first graph, you can see that in the pre-test, both
groups had a similar number of "both" responses when
looking at images of activities/occupations on the
POAT-AM gender attitude test. However, after the two-
weeks of high gender salience, there was a significant
decrease in the number of "boths" - meaning that the
children had more gender stereotypes.

In the graph below, you can see how the amount of

time playing with the opposite gender changed over a
period of two weeks. In the low salience condition,
there is no significant change. However, in the high
gender salience condition, play with the "out-group"
decreased significantly.

After two weeks, children in the high salience condition showed significantly increased gender stereotypes and
decreased play with other-sex peers.

After the study, the children participated in a debriefing program administered by both teachers and experimenters.
This debriefing program was included in an effort to counteract any possible increase in stereotyping and to help
children understand prejudice and stereotypes.

Evaluation

The study was experimental - that is, an independent variable was manipulated and more than one dependent
variable was measured. This was also done in the children's natural environment. The study is a field experiment.
The study has high ecological validity, but since the environment cannot be strictly controlled, the study has low
internal validity.

The study suffers from sampling bias. The preschool in this study was not free. So, the participants are most
likely middle to upper-class children. In addition, the preschools had a policy of gender neutrality in the classroom.
This was perfect for the experiment, but this means that the parents of these children were most likely of a certain
education level as well as shared a set of values. This may make it more difficult to generalize the findings beyond
the sample.

The study does indicate a cause and effect relationship, but it is not really possible to measure the child's level of
salience, even though the study set up situations in which this was the goal.

Although the study did use the debriefing to counteract any negative effects of the two-week experiment, there are
ethical concerns about undue harm to the children; that is, it may not be possible to reverse their newly developed
behaviours.

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$ Comments 5
Dayna Duncan 12 February 2021 - 18:48
Hi John, I thank you for all your guidance through this site. I do want to make a comment on your evaluation
of Hilliard based on sampling bias. Being from the United States I can tell you that at least in Florida we have
free preschool for 4 year olds and it was in existence in 2010. I do believe its a state funded program and
cannot speak to other states. I would need to look at the publication to see the details, but wanted to let you
know it's not completely accurate to make the blanket statement that Preschool is not free in US. :) I think the
better indication that this may be upper middle class is the program of gender neutrality! Dayna
%
John Crane 13 February 2021 - 06:05
Thanks, Dayna. I will update this. The preschool was a private school, so that alone should be the sampling
bias.
%

Christine Rinehart 12 March 2021 - 05:48

If students want to use Hilliard and Liben for enculturation of gender roles can they tie in gender schema
theory also or would that be too much in a SAQ?
%
John Crane 12 March 2021 - 08:31
I think that this would be too much. And the study is not really focused on gender schema theory, but on
social identity theory.
%

Christine Rinehart 15 March 2021 - 04:59

Thank you!

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