Over 40 hours of interviews with 10-year-olds in multiple states concluded that children who support former President Trump are more willing to visit the houses of families with opposing views than their Democratic-leaning counterparts.
“Researchers found that Democrat-supporting kids drove polarization in a new study” CNN reported on Thursday, suggesting that while Democratic-leaning children are more willing to discriminate against Trump supporters, kids in red states are more likely to repeat “misinformation.”
The findings were gleaned from more than 40 hours of interviews commissioned by CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” interviewing 80 elementary schoolers in Arizona, New Jersey, and Texas. The interviews, done with parents’ or guardians’ approval, were conducted in both the spring, before President Biden relinquished the nomination, and fall, long after Vice President Kamala Harris took the baton.
In both seasons, Arizona State University associate professor, child development expert and media psychologist Asheley Landrum, spoke with the children and noticed some key differences between respondents.
“Democrat-leaning kids were approximately 9 times more likely (or 800% more likely) to express negative emotions (nervous/worried or angry/frustrated) about Donald Trump than Republican-leaning kids were likely to express about Kamala Harris,” the study explained.
CNN host Anderson Cooper summarized on his show that “Overall, the biggest finding” was that “children in the study were polarized, with what researchers called more extreme responses from the blue state kids than the red state kids.”
“Donald Trump, he did bad things, he’s like Hitler,” a Democrat-leaning boy said.
When asked what the first word would be that pops into their head about the candidate they oppose, one child said it would be “liar” for Harris, while another said “pure evil” for Trump.
Landrum also showed each child an image of two houses, one with a sign for the Republican ticket and one with the Democratic Party ticket, and asked whether they or their families would be okay with them playing with a friend at the house of a family that supports the opposing party.
“Most, Landrum notes, were open to visiting the house associated with either political party. But she adds that a higher percentage of Democrat-leaning kids – a third of them in September – were unwilling to visit the homes of children whose families support Trump,” CNN reported. “Few of the Trump-leaning kids said they would be unwilling to visit a Democrat-backing house.”
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In May, one child from a Biden-supporting family suggested there would be an argument if they all visited a Trump-supporting family’s house, “Maybe like a food fight or something.”
One African-American child, when asked if his family would be okay with him going to the house of a child whose family supported Trump said, “No, because they know he does not like Black people, so they would not be happy to see me.”
Another also said his family would not allow him to go to a Trump-supporting family’s house, “No. No way. Because, like, my mom and dad don’t like Donald Trump at all. Not a single bit.”
Meanwhile, another boy was asked whether he would be okay going to somebody’s house who likes Harris, and he replied, “I think it would be fine, it’s just about the personality.”
Another question was asked about whether kids living in Trump-supporter houses and Harris-supporter houses could be friends.
One girl suggested people can be friends despite differences, “I like Taylor Swift, and they like Olivia Rodrigo, but we’re still friends.”
“It doesn’t matter if you are different by skin color or it doesn’t matter if you are different people, you can still be friends,” another boy said.
Landrum offered a theory as to why the responses from Democratic-leaning children were so much more polarized than those from Republicans.
“So, Donald Trump is a very polarizing figure, and it‘s very possible that the kids are reacting to their parents reacting to Donald Trump being a very different kind of political figure than what we‘ve seen before,” she said on CNN. “So do the red state kids hold as strong of attitudes? Well, not when we‘re talking about Kamala Harris, in part that could be because they don‘t know that much about her.”
