Race, poverty, and psychology: A tale of two studies

20 boys

It would be a very simple solution to the throes of poverty, crime, and destitution if moving out of a poor neighborhood immediately changed a child’s life for the better. But in the U.S., it’s not that simple. Poverty, race, and mental health all come together to form complex relationships, relationships that a few new studies indicate may harm black boys more than anyone.

Researchers with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development recently wrapped up a study on the effects of moving children out of poverty. Previous studies on the matter were observational and sorely lacking in solid science. This particular study sought to make some reliable and firm conclusions. When combined with the findings of a UCLA study, showing how black boys are judged as less innocent than whites, the research provides an important jumping off point for meaningful conversations about race, childhood, and mental health.

Boys suffer when moved from poverty.

The Department of Housing study, called the “Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing Demonstration” was a sort of experiment on the poorest among us. Families were randomly selected from a volunteer group of 4,604 families in poor neighborhoods. One group among them received vouchers to move to lower-poverty neighborhoods. A second group received vouchers to move to the neighborhood of their choosing. The third group was a control and didn’t receive vouchers.

The researchers followed up with the families four to seven years after their move and found that overall, those who received vouchers increased their social connections with “more affluent people” and moved to neighborhoods with lower crime and poverty rates.

The girls in these families thrived, but the boys (perhaps surprisingly) suffered.

Girls who were 0 to 8 years old at the beginning of the study and between 13 and 19 at the conclusion experienced a great reduction in psychological distress and depression. But boys experienced increased mental health and behavioral problems.

The researchers said the differences between boys and girls could be attributed to “sex differences in both neighborhood experiences and in the social skills needed to capitalize on the new opportunities presented by their improved neighborhoods.”

Race was never mentioned. A fact particularly interesting given more than 60 percent of the children involved were “non-Hispanic black”.

Black boys seen as ‘less innocent’ than white boys, perceived as a threat.

Also released this week, a study from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, which found that black boys as young as 10 are not perceived in the same light of innocence as their white counterparts.

This research comes from the Phillip Atiba Goff, PhD, and his team of researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles. The UCLA team tested two groups of perceivers—one of which made up of 264 mostly-white female undergraduate students. The women were shown photos of people from infancy to 25-years old. The photos were of blacks, whites, and those of “unidentified” races, according to a press release.

One section of the study asked the women to judge the innocence of the people in the photos. Up until age 9, the children were judged as equally innocent regardless of race. But from age 10 onward, black boys were judged as “significantly less innocent” than other children. Further, they were judged as being an average of 4.5 years older than their true age.

In one part of the study, the researchers gave participants a description of a crime and then showed them a photo of a child, asking their input on the child’s innocence. Black boys were repeatedly judged as more culpable.

"The evidence shows that perceptions of the essential nature of children can be affected by race, and for black children, this can mean they lose the protection afforded by assumed childhood innocence well before they become adults," said co-author Matthew Jackson, PhD. "With the average age overestimation for black boys exceeding four-and-a-half years, in some cases, black children may be viewed as adults when they are just 13 years old."

Where perceived danger and mental health collide

The Department of Housing study didn’t mention race. Ignoring the impact of race on their findings, however, is like tiptoeing around the elephant in the room. No, not all young black men come from poverty, but the systems set up in this country have made them more likely to come from a poor background. Also, despite the study not mentioning race, the overwhelming majority of families involved were black.

The 2009 Census reveals that 20.1 percent of children live below the poverty line. While only 17 percent of white children are living in poverty, more than 35 percent of black children are. To take these children and put them into a new neighborhood and new environment, where they are no longer surrounded by peers and may-- according to the knowledge from the UCLA study-- be viewed as a threat or as guilty by design, is it any wonder they struggle mentally and emotionally?

The Department of Housing found:

· 7.1 percent of boys in the voucher group experienced depression, compared with only 3.5 percent of the boys in the control group.

· Post-traumatic stress disorder was diagnosed in 6.2 percent of the voucher boys and 1.9 percent of those who remained in poverty.

· Behavioral problems or conduct disorder was found in 6.4 percent of the children who moved from poverty and only 2.1 percent of those who didn’t move.

Researchers with the Department said that future programs to move families out of poverty and into other communities will have to “grapple with this complexity”.

“Better understanding of interactions among individual, family, and neighborhood risk factors is needed to guide future public housing policy changes in light of these sex differences,” they add.

Ignoring race and the perception of race by others, however, could make their recommendations futile.

If a child is viewed as dangerous, it will have lasting effects on their psyche. If they are treated as if they are some 4 years older than their actual age, they will not be given the opportunity to be children. When the research is looked at collectively, we can see the relationship between poverty, race, and child psychology is a complex one.

As the UCLA researchers admit, “Racially differential treatment of children is an important yet underexplored arena within social psychology,” and an arena that needs to be expanded upon. How do these flawed perceptions about children affect them as they grow and long into adulthood, and how can we even begin to dismantle the flawed perceptions of “average” people?

Pulitzer-prize willing novelist Alice Walker said, “The most important question in the world is, ‘Why is the child crying?’” Unfortunately, researchers with the Department of Housing—a direct line to policy makers—seem to want to avoid where that question could lead them.

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