It doesn’t take a social scientist to persuade most of us that children are watching and listening to the adults around them — including in their political feelings and views. But it sometimes helps to see some interview examples demonstrating the impact loud and clear.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper reached out to Stanford Professor Shanto Iyengar, who with Matthew Tyler had reported that “adolescents today are just as polarized as adults” — demonstrating that teenage distrust politically has “risen sharply.” The veteran reporter wanted to know, is there any evidence this is happening with young children too?
In collaboration with Asheley Landrum, a media psychologist at Arizona State University, they designed an elementary school interviewing study, speaking twice with a group of 52 fourth grade students in politically contrasting districts (Texas and New Jersey) — in May and September 2024 — with an aim of exploring the “early signs of political polarization in children.”
This group included 20 children from Democrat-supporting parents or guardians (stating they want Biden or Harris to win the 2024 election), 12 children from Republican-supporting parents or guardians (wanting Trump to win 2024 election) and 20 children from more independent parents or guardians. (These two rounds of interviews spanned major shifts on the Democratic ticket, with the first round of interviews in May involving children discussing President Joe Biden as the opponent of former President Donald Trump, while the second round in September followed the first debate between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris).
Virtually nothing definitive can be concluded from such a small sample of children, of course, except one stand-out fact demonstrated below: the extent to which children are adopting the political perspectives, attitudes and hostilities of their parents, families, and society as a whole. Here are five specific insights from the relatively small sample of 9- to 10-year-old-children:
Even young children are scared and angry — in this case, especially those from liberal families
These researchers found children with Democratic parents expressing stronger emotions — both positively, in saying they liked Harris, and negatively in the dislike they expressed for Trump. While the children with Republican parents showed “positive attitudes” toward Trump, they weren’t as strong — and felt more “neutral to positive” when it came to the Democratic candidate.
This contrast was especially evident in the strongest negative emotions. Both in May and September, the researchers also found stronger negative emotions toward Trump (angry/frustrated, nervous/worried) expressed by children of Democratic parents and children living in blue-state districts than they heard from children with Republican parents — with “blue state kids” and children with Democratic parents three to six times more likely to say that Trump makes them feel nervous or worried — compared with the sentiment of children with Republican parents and “red state” kids in regards to the Democratic candidate.
This contrast became even more dramatic in the follow-up this fall, with children from blue states and Democrat-supporting parents five to nine times more likely to express negative emotions about Trump (nervous/worried or angry/frustrated) than children from red states or children with Republican-supporting parents were likely to express about Harris.
These children from conservative families are more open to being friendly
Across the board, children with Democratic parents appeared significantly more hesitant at the possibility of warm relationships with politically-opposite peers and their families — reflected in three different findings.
First, when asked whether two kids whose parents supported different candidates could be friends with each other, children with Democratic parents were twice as likely than children with Republican parents to say “no” — that these children from parents supporting opposing candidates could not be friends.
Second, although all children expressed some hesitance at the possibility of visiting the homes of peers whose family supports the other political party, children with Democratic parents were once again five to seven times “less willing to visit the homes of children” whose families supported the other candidate. Compared with 22-33% of children who said they wouldn’t be willing to visit the home of a peer whose parents supported the opposing candidate, only 4-9% of children with Republican parents said they were not willing — demonstrating, as the researchers said, a “greater willingness to visit the homes of children whose families back the Democratic candidate.” Specifically, children with Republican parents or from red states were four to 15 times more likely (depending on the interview time) to say they would go to a peer’s house whose family strongly supported an opposing candidate.
Third, about a third of participants thought their parents would be unwilling to let them visit the home of a peer whose family supports an opposing political party — with children of Democratic parents three to four times more likely than those with Republican parents to “say that their families would not allow them to go to a peer’s house whose family strongly supports an opposing candidate.” In the opposite direction, children with Republican parents were three to four times more likely than kids with Democratic parents to say that “their families would allow them to go to a peer’s house whose family strongly supports an opposing candidate.”
Many of these kids seem to dig Harris
Across the 52 children surveyed, 34 of them (65%) supported Kamala Harris for the next president — equally split among boys and girls. These numbers did vary depending on region (only 50% of red-state kids favor her, compared with 86% of blue-state kids).
Red-state kids were three times more likely to say they’d vote for the Democrat when it was Harris than when it was Biden. In addition to all but one of the children with Democratic parents, Harris was favored by three of the 12 children with Republican parents and 12 of the 20 children with parents leaning towards other candidates. Fifteen children (29%) said they would vote for Trump if they were older, and three declined to support either candidate.
In addition to the majority of children with Democratic parents who said that Harris would make a “really good” (79%) or “sort of good” (16%) president, researchers were surprised to find 58% of children with Republican parents felt that Harris would be “sort-of good” as president, whereas 17% said they weren’t sure. Another 17% said she would be really bad.
Race and gender aren’t a sticking point for these children
Researchers noted that “race seemed to be a non-issue generally,” with 86% of the children saying voters are “ready for a woman of color as president” — split fairly evenly across blue-state and red-state children.
Five children said “race can’t matter to voters because it is not supposed to matter what color of skin someone has” — with another five saying, “Race won’t matter more to voters because we’ve already elected a person of color, Obama.”
Most of the children in New Jersey (15, 68%) and over half of the kids in Texas (19, 63%) said it would be a good thing to have a woman as president — with seven children saying “it’s historic that a woman would be elected president, so that’s why it matters more that she’s a woman.”
One girl thought it was a bad idea for a woman to be president, saying that women are “too dramatic” — giving the impression in the interview she learned this from her father. Another five children — split between boys and girls — were concerned that other people wouldn’t want to vote for women.
Children repeat some of the same wild claims their parents believe
Twenty of the 52 children (38%) shared claims about one of the candidates that would be widely considered to be untrue from reputable sources — with the vast majority of these claims “attributed to friends and family members, most often parents.”
Sixty percent of those claims focused on Trump, although not always in a negative light. For instance, one child claimed, “Donald Trump gives away half of his personal money to the military to purchase better gear.” Other specious claims include:
- Trump “supported people who said that the coronavirus vaccine apparently makes metal (utensils and metal stuff) stick to you” (which the child made sure to add “is 100% a lie.”)
- Three students suggested that Biden or Trump aren’t effective presidents because they fall asleep during meetings.
- Two participants in Texas mentioned that they heard that Biden behaves strange around children: “I’ve heard he sniffs little kids.” Another said, “There’s like videos on public, let’s say TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, that show Joe Biden doing all this crazy stuff. And some of it shows him sniffing kids’ hair, which is weird.”
- “Biden dropped out of the race because he realized that he could get assassinated”
- “Kamala was taunting Donald Trump during the debate by doing the chicken dance.”
- ”Kamala Harris was cheating on the debate, and I know how,” one of the students said, continuing: “David Muir said clearly before it started, that there is no handwritten notes allowed at the debate. But guess what! Kamala Harris left the debate with a notebook in her hand, meaning she wrote notes… written for her what to say. Also, her earrings looked like they were little earbuds telling … her what to say, which is kind of fishy.”
This last child said that his father told him this while watching the debate. Another girl repeated a damaging claim about Harris, but seemed skeptical: “My dad said that he found it online. He just said that he believes it because he thinks that Google’s always right. I don’t believe that though.”