ADULTS PERCEIVING CHILDREN:AN ANALYSIS ABOUT THE APPRAISAL OF CHILDREN AND THE INFLUENCE ON THEIR SOCIAL ATTITUDES

Existing literature suggests that children begin to manifest preferences for their social group at the age of 3-4 years, and that adults often underestimate the onset of ethnic bias in children. Parental motivation, as measured by the Parental Care and Tenderness (PCAT) questionnaire, emerges as an individual variable that correlates with various phenomena, including higher risk perception, lower trust in strangers, more negative attitudes towards outgroups, and harsher moral judgements. However, knowledge of how these differences in parental motivation directly affect children's social lives and perceived attitudes, particularly implicit attitudes, is limited. Four studies contribute to this research. Study 1 (N= 946) validated the PCAT in the Italian context and identified the two main factors ( Protection and Nurturance) identified by the PCAT-pn. It also found that PCAT scores, especially those related to the Protection subscale, were associated with a more conservative political orientation. Study 2 (N=172) examined spontaneous attitudes and motivation for parenting showing that differences in motivation for parenting, particularly related to Nurturance, were associated with a spontaneous approach to children. Study 3 (N=142) examined adults' predictions of children's intergroup and interethnic attitudes and found that adults predicted strong ingroup bias in children. Parents' motivations and participants' implicit attitudes predicted perceived ingroup preference. Study 4 (N=143) examined how adults processed children's social information, suggesting that parental motivation may not be involved in the encoding of information produced by children. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of considering parental motivation not only as a factor influencing behavioural and affective responses to children, but also as a mechanism that shapes adults' perceptions of children's social lives and interactions. In the second part of this work, the focus shifted to the role of significant adults in shaping children's intergroup attitudes, particularly through non-verbal behaviour. The literature points to the crucial role of non-verbal cues in influencing preschool children's intergroup attitudes and stereotypes, and emphasises their impact on explicit attitudes. Empirical evidence has highlighted children's preference for adults who display positive nonverbal behaviour, but the literature has predominantly focused on the influence of nonverbal behaviour on intergroup attitudes. Two studies conducted with children, Study 5a (N=336) and Study 5b (N=343), address the gap in understanding how nonverbal behaviour also influences intragroup attitudes and helps to promote more egalitarian and inclusive norms. These Studies used an experimental manipulation in which a significant adult observed an interaction between a White child (Egalitarian vs. Non-Egalitarian) distributing resources to a White child and a Black child. The adult showed positive nonverbal behaviour towards the Egalitarian child and negative behaviour towards the Non-Egalitarian child. Both implicit intergroup attitudes towards the White and Black child (Study 5a) and intragroup attitudes towards the Egalitarian and Non-Egalitarian child (Study 5b) were analysed. The results showed an effect of the experimental manipulation on implicit attitudes in Study 5a, but not in Study 5b. In addition, the manipulation influenced intragroup evaluations in both studies, with participants favouring the Egalitarian child. However, no significant effect of the manipulation is observed on explicit evaluations in intergroup contexts. The importance of nonverbal behaviour emerged as a significant factor, particularly in shaping the evaluation process in intragroup contexts. This highlights the need to consider the social norms associated with the group in order to reflexively promote more egalitarian and positive attitudes towards others.