Over the years, current Western society has witnessed a dramatic shift in the expressions of prejudice. In the 20th century, prejudice was expressed in overt ways that easily portrayed negative attitudes toward the out-group. The overt nature of prejudicial expression was a respected societal norm. Instead of expressing prejudice in overt ways, current society expresses prejudicial attitudes more subtly and covertly which is not explicitly negative. The reason for this detrimental shift in prejudicial expression is the growing pressure to adhere to societal norms that respect and support equal rights among minority groups. This modern form of prejudicial expression is known as aversive prejudice. Aversive prejudice is the mismatch between ones implicit and explicit attitudes. People demonstrating aversive prejudice have high implicit prejudice and low explicit prejudice (Pearson, Dovidio, & Gaertner, 2009). Therefore, people who are high in aversive prejudice have internalized the societal norm of adherin
g to equal rights causing their expression of prejudice to be subtle and not explicitly negative to ensure they do not directly violate the social norm. Aversive prejudice is a complex process that requires individuals to be aware of social contexts and norms. It is for this reason that it has been previously thought that only adults have the social and cognitive skills that make them capable of expressing aversive prejudice. Young children are regularly thought to be unbiased and exempt from developing negative stereotypical attitudes towards out-group members. However, children begin to show preferences for their in-group by the age of five (Patterson & Bigler, 2006). Children prefer people who are similar to them in gender and race (Patterson & Bigler, 2006). Children use these in-group preferences to choose friends and orient themselves to a certain social group. Since children as young as five already display in-group preferences, is it possible for children to develop and display aversive prejudice?