Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Previous research has shown that children exhibit strong,language-based social biases, preferring speakers of theirlocally dominant accent over foreign language or foreign-accented speakers. Even when regularly exposed to multiplelanguages or to speakers with non-local accents, elementaryschool-aged children nevertheless display strong languagebiases, preferring to be friends with native speakers over non-native speakers. The present study revisited this issue,examining whether routine exposure to additional languagesand/or non-local accents influences language-based friendpreferences. Three- to 5-year-old children (N = 183) growingup in a large, multicultural, North American City with at least70% English exposure were presented with pairs of children—one speaking native-accented English and the other speakingforeign-accented English—and were asked to choose whomthey wanted to be friends with. While accent exposure was notfound to predict children’s preference, there was a significanteffect of language exposure, such that greater experience withmultiple languages reduced biases for native-accentedspeakers.