Adultification bias: what is it and how does it affect society?

Adultification bias is a psychological phenomenon linked to discrimination against minors.

Childhood is, in most cases, a time of innocence, happiness, tenderness and naivety. Children discover a vast world as they interact with their peers and grow up, assimilating new knowledge.

Unfortunately, adults sometimes see these children as older than they really are and, far from treating them with the same respect, they judge them much more harshly.

This phenomenon, which is called adultification bias, has been found to be especially common in U.S. schools, especially when it comes to treating children who are not yet adults.This phenomenon, which is called adultification bias, has been seen to be particularly common in U.S. schools, especially in the treatment of black girls whose skin tone seems to make them become little women in the eyes of their teachers, law enforcement officers, and even their own parents.

This issue is truly controversial and complex and, below, we will look at it in as much depth as possible.

• Related article, "What is Social Psychology?"

What is adultification bias?

Children are children. Childhood is the most beautiful and innocent time for most people. It is a time when we get to play with our friends, discover new experiences, and learn a lot in school. However, not all children are treated in the same way and, subtly but leaving a very deep imprint on their lives, they are attributed a greater degree of responsibility for their actions and, consequently, a greater severity in their mistakes: this is adultification.

Adultification bias, in its strictest sense, would refer to the way adults view certain children. how adults see certain children in a more adult perspective, even though they are aware of their age.. These children are judged as if they are fully responsible for what they do, and behaviors seen as innocent in other children are seen as actual acts of aggression in those particular children.

So, at first glance, the adultification bias may be a bit difficult to understand. What motive would lead an adult to treat a child as young as 6 years old in a more adult manner? Actually, this bias could occur in any context, but it is especially common when we are talking about black girls. it is especially common when we are talking about black American girls.. Despite the great advances that African Americans and women have achieved in the last 100 years, they are still treated unfairly in many contexts, and if we combine being black with being a woman, far from adding up the injustices multiply them, and girls are not exempt from this.

Black girls, little women

It is no secret that in the United States, despite the struggle for civil rights, African-Americans continue to live at greater risk than the average white person. Although racial segregation has long been a thing of the past, movements like Black Lives Matter remind us that being black means being treated worse, even as a child. There are many cases of African-American children who have been shot by police who saw them as a threat, even though they would never have done so to a white child of the same age.

The same is true for women. Regardless of race, girls are viewed negatively in comparison to boys when they behave exactly like boys.. For a boy to assert himself in front of the other kids is seen as a leadership trait, of knowing how to lead a group, while a girl is seen as bossy. Another example of this is that boys speak with a louder tone, but girls shout. As they grow up, men who run the show will be seen as winners, while women will be seen as usurpers, dominatrixes and macho women.

This type of discrimination can already be perceived in early childhood. and if both characteristics are combined, that is, being black and being a woman, the matter is even more exaggerated. Even at less than 6 years of age, black girls in the United States are treated in a very adult manner, as if they were little women. It is not that they are talked to as if they are adults, but they are judged as if they are. If the girl makes a mischief, typical of a girl of her age, the simple fact that she is black will cause her to be seen more as a serious intentional aggression rather than an innocent act.

Another case is the fact that the harm done to these black girls is relativized. Being seen as more adult, they are attributed with a higher degree of maturity and responsibility, which makes them more prepared to face the aggressions that may be made to them by their peers.This means that they are seen as more prepared to deal with the aggressions that may be inflicted on them by their peers of the same age. In other words, despite the fact that we are talking about very young girls, under 12 years of age, many teachers unconsciously assume that they are going to treat their problems from the same adult point of view with which they themselves see these girls.

An example of this is the testimony of a young African-American girl we will refer to as A., who had a very good white friend named K. when she was in school in the 1990s. In turn, K. had another friend, C., who had no sympathy for A. One day, C. felt jealous that K. wanted to play with A., so she went to A. and scratched her arms. A. asked her why she did this, and C. replied, literally, "I can't play with you because you're black, I want to get the dirt off you."

This is clearly a case of racism. A white girl has assaulted a black girl by explicitly telling her that she has a problem with her race. What did the teachers do? Did they take the three girls and talk to them about what happened? Well, they didn't. The teacher, still watching the scene, told A. herself to stop crying, to go on with her day, and they started the class. The teacher assumed that A., as childish as she was, would sooner or later understand that there is racism in this world.The teacher, far from confronting her, took advantage of her status as an authority figure.

It is clear that with this episode in the United States, teachers, law enforcement officers and even the girls' own parents assume that black girls are more adult and less innocent than white girls. They also see them as less in need of protection, in the sense that if they have a problem with the rest of their peers, they will manage to solve it themselves, and if they don't, they are the problem.

Despite the awareness of African-American and women's rights, society has not yet acquired the level of critical analysis to understand how their prejudices and biases influence the way they see reality. Even teachers, who should be the most vocal advocates for anti-racist and feminist change, are victims of this very same bias, making something as subtle as judging a girl as scandalous when she has barely raised her voice another way of perpetuating injustice..

Greater adulthood, harsher punishments

Adultification bias has been scientifically researched and exposed extensively by the Georgetown University Law Center on Poverty and Inequality, which showed how African American women between the ages of 12 and 60 had been categorized at some point in their lives as loud, rowdy, rowdy and highly disruptive, even in their earliest childhood.

Being seen as an adult as an adult results in being punished more often than their white peers. than their white peers. There is a 20% African-American population in the United States, yet looking at the statistics on girls punished or expelled from school, 54% of them are black girls.

One might think that they actually behave worse because blacks have a lower socioeconomic status compared to whites. However, taking into account their economic income and the large number of racist incidents (e.g., George Floyd) behind these percentages would be the sycophancy bias.

As we discussed with the case of A., the sycophancy bias makes adults not even think about the fact that these black girls are just that, girls, and that like any other girl, they need emotional help when something bad happens to them. need emotional help when something bad happens to them. By attributing to them greater adulthood and, therefore, greater responsibility for their actions, if they are the ones who have done something wrong, even if unintentionally, they automatically attribute to them a clear intentionality. Rather than mischief, they see it as a behavioral problem or because they are bad.

An example of this is the testimony of a black girl who, when she changed schools, found that the new institution did not want to accept her. The reason for this was that in her file it said that one day, while she was playing at recess, one of the balls she was playing with ended up in the face of another girl and accidentally hurt her. Far from asking the teachers what had happened or taking her to the principal's office to clarify the matter, the teacher in charge of the playground shift wrote it in her file as a clear aggression, making her a highly problematic child.

Summary

Despite the great strides that have been made in the areas of gender equality and racial diversity, to this day there are still many microaggressions, prejudices and biases that influence the way we perceive the behavior of black people and women.. These are manifested in a very strong way especially when we talk about black girls, at least in the North American context, who due to a defenseless position of not being adults but seen as such are more harshly judged than their white peers.

The adultification bias, insofar as it implies attributing adult characteristics to children, especially in this case to black American girls, means that what is seen as a simple innocent behavior in other children, a naive childish prank, in these girls is seen as a real statement of intent: the bad one, she is a girl who wants to cause trouble, and she knows what she is doing and must be punished very strongly.

Although much has been achieved, it is still not enough. Until people learn to identify and reduce these types of biases associated with race and gender, we will not achieve full equality. Schools must become the place where these injustices are cushioned and faded and it is up to adults, as they are truly responsible for their actions, not 6-year-old girls, to help achieve this. Let us behave like adults and see children for what they are, children.

Bibliographical references:

• Burton, L. (2007). Childhood adultification in economically disadvantaged families: A conceptual model. Family Relations: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Applied Family Studies, 56(4), 329-345. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2007.00463.x
• Gerding Speno, A., & Aubrey, J. S. (2018). Sexualization, Youthification, and Adultification: A Content Analysis of Images of Girls and Women in Popular Magazines. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 95(3), 625-646. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699017728918
• Epstein, R., Blake, J. J., Gonzalez, T. (2014) Girlhood interrupted: The Erasure of Blach Girls’ Childhood. Center of Poverty and Inequality. Georgetown Law. Etsados Unidos. Extraído de: https://www.law.georgetown.edu/poverty-inequality-center/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2017/08/girlhood-interrupted.pdf