UC Merced

China has undergone rapid economic changes in recent years, yet little is known about how children in China understand the social status hierarchies around them. The present study addressed this gap by examining whether Chinese children held essentialist beliefs about two social status categories: residency, an important but understudied status-related category in China, and socioeconomic status (SES). We also examined whether children's beliefs about these categories varied with their age or their own social status background (residency, subjective SES). Chinese 5- to 9-year-old children (47 female) who held residency in a prestigious megacity (N = 50) or less prestigious non-megacities (N = 50) completed two tasks that measured whether they viewed residency and SES as biologically based or causally informative, two dimensions of essentialism. Results suggested that children viewed residency but not SES as biologically based, though this decreased with age. Children from megacities with higher subjective SES were more likely to view residency as causally informative with age, suggesting children with higher social status are more likely to essentialize this status-related category. Children's beliefs about SES did not vary with their social-status background. These findings suggest that the developmental trajectory of Chinese children's essentialist beliefs about social status vary across status-related categories, dimensions of essentialism, and their own social-status background.