The Psychology of Stereotypes: Why a Line in a Children’s Book Deserves Serious Attention
- Zhiqi Xu
- Jun 13
- 7 min read
Updated: Jun 26
This commentary aims to deconstruct the cultural and societal implications of a recent racism case from a behavioral science perspective. Drawing on my experience in designing educational resources for development intervention projects, I analyze the undermining effects on equality and social solidarity.
It is first published in the Contrapuntal Magazine, then reprinted by ISS blog BLISS.
Amsterdam marked its 750th anniversary by distributing 60,000 copies of a commemorative book, Mijn Jarige Stad (“My Birthday City”), to children across the Dutch city. But what was intended as a celebratory gift has instead sparked controversy over its casual perpetuation of racial stereotypes.
On page 31, within the book’s board-game section, young readers encounter this instruction:
“Ni Hao! Chinese tourists are blocking the bike path. To avoid them, go back to square 39.”
The passage, framed as playful gameplay, exposes a more troubling reality: how racial stereotypes can be seamlessly woven into educational materials, normalizing prejudiced thinking from an early age. What publishers likely viewed as harmless humour instead demonstrates how unconscious bias infiltrates children’s literature—and how such casual stereotyping can shape young minds in ways that extend far beyond the pages of a book.
The incident raises critical questions about editorial oversight in educational publishing and the responsibility institutions bear when shaping children’s understanding of diversity and inclusion. For a city celebrating nearly eight centuries of history, the oversight represents a missed opportunity to model the inclusive values Amsterdam claims to champion.
Who are Amsterdam’s Tourists?
The idea of Chinese tourists “blocking the bike path” paints a vivid, supposedly familiar image—but it’s not supported by data. According to the 2023–2024 Toerisme MRA report, visitors from Asia accounted for only 8% of hotel overnight stays in Amsterdam in 2023. In contrast, 54% came from the rest of Europe, 17% from the Americas, and 18% were Dutch.
Tourism growth between 2019 and 2023 was highest among European and American guests, not Asian ones. The visibility of Asian tourists is being exaggerated and weaponized through cognitive distortions like availability bias, where rare but vivid impressions are perceived as more common than they are.
From Bias to Dehumanization
In psychology, stereotypes are heuristics— mental shortcuts used to categorize and simplify. They reduce people to flattened, predictable group traits. Although they ease mental load, they cause real harm when used to navigate social life.
Children absorb stereotypes early. By age seven, many have already internalized group-based categories learned from books, media, and adults. When a schoolbook casts a specific ethnic group, in this case, Chinese, as a social nuisance, it builds implicit biases: automatic associations between group identity and negative traits.
But the path doesn’t end there. As Gordon Allport outlined in his “scale of prejudice,” stereotypes escalate. When repeated enough, they lead to objectification — seeing people not as individuals, but as representatives of a group. That group is then more easily dismissed, mocked, blamed, or even harmed—with less guilt.
The dehumanizing tone becomes especially stark when we read the other obstacles in the same game section:
“Een reiger heeft op je hoofd gepoept. Je moet terug naar huis (vakje 18) om je haar te wassen.”
(A heron pooped on your head. Go back home to wash your hair.)
“Plons. Je probeert een mega-duif te ontwijken met je fiets, maar valt in de gracht. Je moet helemaal terugzwemmen naar start.”
(Splash. You try to dodge a mega-pigeon on your bike, but fall into the canal. Swim all the way back to the start.)
In this context, Chinese tourists are the only human obstacle, grouped alongside animal accidents and fictional giant birds. This reinforces a subconscious lesson: some people are not peers — they are problems.
A historical pattern
The casual stereotyping found in Amsterdam’s children’s book follows a well-documented historical pattern where seemingly minor representations precede more serious discrimination. The Amsterdam book incident, while seemingly minor, fits within this broader historical context of how prejudice becomes embedded in society’s foundational institutions.
In 1930s Germany, anti-Semitic imagery and language appeared in school textbooks and public messaging years before systematic persecution began. Educational materials depicted Jewish citizens through derogatory caricatures and false narratives, gradually normalizing prejudice in the public consciousness.
During the latter half of the 20th century in America, media portrayals consistently framed Black Americans through the lens of criminality and violence. These representations helped build public support for policies that would lead to mass incarceration, with communities of colour disproportionately targeted by law enforcement and judicial systems.
Following 9/11 attacks, Muslims faced increasingly negative portrayals in media and popular culture, depicted as inherently threatening or suspicious. This narrative shift preceded and justified expanded surveillance programs that specifically monitored Muslim communities and individuals.
Scholars who study the sociology of discrimination have identified this progression as a common precursor to institutional bias: stereotypical portrayals in popular culture and educational materials gradually shift public perception, creating the social conditions necessary for discriminatory policies to gain acceptance.
East Asians, especially those perceived as Chinese, have long faced similar treatment. During COVID-19, Asians across Europe were verbally harassed and physically attacked. In Tilburg, a Chinese-Dutch student at Tilburg University, Cindy, was brutally attacked in an elevator after asking a group to stop singing a racist song: Voorkomen is beter dan Chinezen (“Prevention is better than Chinese”). She suffered a concussion and knife wounds. Before leaving her unconscious, the attackers said they would “eradicate the coronavirus.”
Cindy’s story illustrates the continuum from mockery to violence, and how normalized stereotyping can desensitize people to cruelty.
And racists don’t differentiate between Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese. When one is mocked, all are targeted.
Systemic Roots
Equally troubling is that, according to the publisher’s own statement, the book passed through multiple levels of review and testing—city departments, school boards, and teachers, without objection. This reflects a deeper issue: normative bias, where majority-group perspectives are mistaken for neutrality.
It’s not necessarily malice. But when no one notices, it signals a system that is not built to detect or understand minority harm.
Public reactions have further exposed this divide. Dutch media figure Tina Nijkamp publicly criticized the passage and highlighted the absence of East Asian representation in Dutch TV and media. However, some online commenters called the backlash oversensitive, arguing “it’s just a joke” or “I’m Chinese and I’m not offended.”
Psychologically, this reflects pluralistic ignorance and false consensus bias: the assumption that one’s view is universal, and the failure to recognize diverse lived experiences.
But the data contradicts these dismissals. In March 2024, the Dutch government released the first national survey on discrimination against people of (South)East Asian descent. One in three reported experiencing discrimination in the past year. Minister Van Gennip responded:
“Discrimination against people of (South)East Asian descent must stop.”
Asian-Dutch community leader Hui-Hui Pan (@huihui_panonfire) posted a widely shared critique:
“Mijn stad is jarig. Maar waarom vieren we het met racisme?”(“My city is having a birthday. But why are we celebrating it with racism?”)
She called it “racism in children’s language.” The Pan Asian Collective, which she founded, launched a national campaign and is organizing the National Congress against Discrimination and Racism on 26 June 2025, where Utrecht University and Dataschool will present findings on Asian underrepresentation in 25 years of Dutch media coverage.
Their message: this isn’t about one book—it’s about a long, visible pattern of exclusion.
Entrenched Normalization
In response to public concern, various institutions linked to Mijn Jarige Stad began clarifying their roles. The Amsterdam Museum stated it was not involved in content creation, despite its name appearing in the book. Stichting Amsterdam 750 funded the project, but delegated execution to the Programmabureau Amsterdam 750, part of the city government. The publisher, Pavlov, initially issued a standard response emphasizing positive intent and broad involvement:
“The book was developed in collaboration with all primary schools through the Breed Bestuurlijk Overleg (BBO), and extensively tested with students and teachers from three different Amsterdam schools… We sincerely had no intention to insult or hurt any group.”
This response—focused on process, intention, and positive feedback—sidestepped the core issue: harm was done, and a line that dehumanizes East Asians passed through supposedly inclusive safeguards. The problem isn’t that one group failed; the problem is how normalized and institutionally invisible anti-Asian stereotypes remain, even in materials for children.
This is not a matter of blaming a single actor or demanding symbolic apologies. The book should be recalled, and what’s needed now is an honest reckoning — not just of the production process, but of how certain forms of discrimination are so implicit, so embedded in everyday thinking, that they go unnoticed by those involved and even by broader audiences who dismiss criticism as oversensitivity.
Yet this very invisibility is reinforced by the fragmentation of accountability. It highlights a deeper issue: when everyone is involved, no one is responsible. And when no one notices the harm, it reveals how profoundly such portrayals are normalized in our collective imagination.
From Learning to Living
From a behavioral science perspective, the issue extends far beyond questions of political sensitivity. Research demonstrates how cognitive shortcuts—the mental patterns children use to navigate social situations, become deeply embedded through repeated exposure to stereotypical representations.
Child development studies reveal that young minds absorb social hierarchies through seemingly innocuous content, internalizing messages about which groups hold value and which can be dismissed. These early lessons shape neural pathways that influence decision-making well into adulthood.
The potency of stereotypes lies not in their malicious intent but in their subtle persistence. They need not provoke outrage to encode prejudice, nor offend every reader to establish harmful categories of human worth. When children encounter these patterns repeatedly—whether in games, stories, or casual conversation—they learn implicit lessons about power dynamics and social belonging.
Educational content serves a dual purpose: it teaches explicit knowledge while simultaneously transmitting unspoken values about empathy, respect, and human dignity. A board game instruction becomes more than entertainment; it becomes a framework for understanding who deserves consideration and who can be overlooked.
The distribution of 60,000 books represents more than a municipal celebration. It constitutes the widespread dissemination of social scripts—subtle but powerful instructions that will influence how an entire generation of children perceives and interacts with others throughout their lives.
In this context, editorial choices carry profound responsibility, shaping not just individual attitudes but the social fabric of communities for decades to come.
Comments