Childrens Preferences for Different Aged Teachers

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Childrens Preferences for Different Aged Teachers

• Jennifer Higgins
• Metropolitan State College of Denver

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Introduction

• How do young children perceive adults?
• Children are more likely to attribute positive
  qualities to individuals considered more
  attractive (Langlois, 2000)
• Children as young as 3 discriminate differences
  in facial attractiveness
• Children base friendships on attractiveness
  (Dion, 1973)
• Children were shown pictures of other children
  and asked to pick a new friend
• A significant amount of children chose the
  attractive child

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Literature Review

• Do children (aged 3-7) associate positive and
  negative attributes with someone based on their
  attractiveness
• Ramsey Langlois (2002) Children were read eight
  stories and were asked to point to the character
  who exhibited a certain trait
• Children tended to associate positive traits with
  the attractive female
• Concluded that children may have an attractive
  bias towards positive traits

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Literature Review

• Adams Crane (1980) examined preschoolers views
  of unattractive and attractive school-age
  children and middle-aged adults
• Children were shown two pictures and asked to
  pick which person they would like to play with
  and they consistently chose the more attractive
  person
• Children were asked who was the nicest and they
  consistently credited the more attractive person
• Children as young as 4 make judgments on
  perceived attractiveness of others

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Literature Review

• Weinberger (1979) researched childrens views of
  the elderly
• Ranking system of different age groups
• Elderly were identified as
• Having the fewest number of friends
• Ugliest
• Sickest
• Last person they would want for a best friend
• Children do possess negative stereotypes of the
  elderly

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Present Study

• Past research has demonstrated
• Children as young as 3 discriminate differences
  in facial attractiveness
• Children equate attractiveness to positive
  traits
• Children as young as 4 make judgments on
  perceived attractiveness of others
• Children do possess negative stereotypes of the
  elderly (i.e., ageism)
• Purpose is to examine childrens age preference
  and perceptions of a teacher by using photographs
  of different aged women

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Research Question Hypotheses

• Would young children perceive older prospective
  teachers differently than younger prospective
  teachers?
• HYP1 Children will choose a disproportionate
  amount of younger teachers to be their future
  teacher.
• HYP2 There is a significant difference between
  positive and negative comments expressed by
  children among the different age teachers.

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Methods Participants

• 39 four year olds
• SES Middle class
• Various ethnic backgrounds
• Recruited from two public schools and one private
  school in a metropolitan city in the Northern
  Rocky Mountain region

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Methods Materials Measures

• Open-Ended Questions
• Pictures selected
• Why do you want her as your teacher?
• What do you think she would be like in the
  classroom?
• Pictures not selected
• Why did you not want the other women as your
  teacher?
• What do you think the other teachers would be
  like?
• What do you think they would be like in your
  classroom?
• 3 sets of pictures
• One young woman (20s)
• One middle aged woman (40s)
• One older woman (60s)

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Materials Pictures

• Young Middle-Aged Older

Set 1
Set 2
Set 3
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Methods Procedure

• Pilot Study
• Pictures presented to adults and tested accuracy
  of teacher age
• Present study
• Children were asked to choose their teacher from
  a set of 3 pictures
• Open-ended questions
• Small reward
• Steps 1, 2, and 3 repeated for sets 2 and 3

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Results Hypothesis 1

• Chi-square analyses were computed to examine
  whether childrens choice of the young teachers
  occurred more frequently than the middle and
  older women
• X²(2) 37.54, plt .001, X²(2) 17.23, plt .001,
  X²(2) 46.31, plt .001, for sets one, two, and
  three respectively

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Frequency of Choices for Teachers Across the
Three Sets
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Results Hypothesis 2

• Dependent t-tests were performed
• Young teachers had more positive than negative
  comments, t(38) 8.57, plt.001
• Middle aged teachers had more negative than
  positive comments, t(38) -2.67, plt.011
• Old teachers had an almost equal number of
  negative and positive comments, t(38) .49, ns

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Discussion

• The present study found children prefer younger
  women as their teachers
• This supports past studies
• Children make judgments based off facial
  attractiveness (Dion, 1973)
• Attractive people are considered good (Dion
  Berscheild, 1972)
• Children associate positive qualities with better
  looking individuals (Ramsey Langlois, 2002)

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Implications

• Is it important to know and understand what is
  reported in this study?
• This is a typical psychological duh study
• Life after 20s?
• Preliminary resultsview with caution?
• Externally attribute perception bias of younger
  children
• How do we mediate the effect of this finding?

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Limitations

• Needed more consistent material
  items in photos or photographs
  from the neck up
• A major confound was in Set 2
• Blue shirt
• Jewelry
• Children had some difficulty responding to why
  they did and did not want certain teachers
• Somewhat abstract

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Future Research

• Validity and reliability of survey S.D.S. scale,
  teacher perception inventories
• Look for Developmental differences
• ECE vs. Elementary vs. Secondary
• Investigate ethnicity differences
• Study gender effects
• Teacher Student
• Varying the degrees of attractiveness within same
  age group

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References

• Adams, G. R., Crane, P. (1980). An assessment of
  parents' and teachers' expectations of preschool
  children's social preference for attractive or
  unattractive children and adults. Child
  Development, 51(1), 224-231.
• Byrnes, James P. (2001). Cognitive development
  and learning in instructional contexts. Needham
  Heights, MA Allyn Bacon.
• Dion, K., Berscheid, E., Walster, E. (1972).
  What is beautiful is good. Journal of Personality
  and Social Psychology, 24(3), 285-290.
• Dion, K. K. (1973). Young childrens stereotyping
  of facial attractiveness. Developmental
  Psychology, 9(2), 183-188.
• Griffiths, J. A., Nesdale, D. (2006). In-group
  and out-group attitudes of ethnic majority and
  minority children. International Journal of
  Intercultural Relations, 30(6), 735-749.
• Ramsey, J. L., Langlois, J. H. (2002). Effects of
  the beauty is good stereotype on childrens
  information processing. Journal of Experimental
  Child Psychology, 81(3), 320-340.
• Robinson, T., Umphery, D. (2006). First- and
  third-person perceptions of images of older
  people in advertising an inter-generational
  evaluation. International Journal of Aging and
  Human Development, 62(2), 159-173.
• Weinberger, A. (1979). Stereotyping of the
  elderly elementary school childrens responses.
  Research on Aging, 1(1), 113-136.