Intergroup attitudes in preschool children in conflictual intergroup settings: The case of Romania and Lebanon

Children’s intergroup attitudes emerge early in development; yet, most research has focused on contexts where egalitarian values are formally promoted, while structural inequalities remain implicit. Less is known about how these attitudes develop in conflictual sociocultural settings marked by visible exclusion and power asymmetries. This study addresses this gap by examining intergroup preferences among preschool-aged children in two sociopolitically stratified yet understudied contexts: Lebanon and Romania. We investigated how children evaluate peers from their ingroup, a stigmatized outgroup (Syrians in Lebanon, Roma in Romania), and a valued outgroup (French). In both studies, children completed a physical distance task and a friendship choice task. In Study 1 (N = 94, Mage = 4.13 years, SDage = 0.83 years; 42 girls), distinct photographs were used for each group. Children showed a strong preference for the valued outgroup and consistently rejected the stigmatized outgroup across both tasks. These results were observed even among the youngest participants. In Study 2 (N = 87, Mage = 4.98 years; SDage = 0.82 years; 45 girls), the same photographs were used, and only group labels were varied. When physical appearance was held constant, the preference for the valued outgroup disappeared. Children instead favored the ingroup and continued to reject the stigmatized outgroup, indicating that labeling alone was sufficient to elicit exclusion.These findings underscore the robustness of early bias against stigmatized groups, the sensitivity of young children to symbolic group labels, and the powerful role of both visual and social cues. They support the Integrative Developmental-Contextual Theory and highlight the urgency of early, context-sensitive interventions.Keywords: Early intergroup attitudes, Conflictual settings, Preschoolers, Physical distance, Affiliation