Race, Gender, and the Development of Cross-Race Egalitarianism

Abstract

Over the course of development, children acquire adult-like thinking about social categories such as race, which in turn informs their perceptions, attitudes, and behavior. However, children's developing perceptions of race have been understudied particularly with respect to their potential influence on cross-race egalitarianism. Specifically, the acquisition of racial constancy, defined as the perception that race is a concrete and stable category, has been associated with increased awareness of racial stereotypes and group status differences. Yet, little work has investigated behavioral outcomes stemming from the acquisition of racial constancy beliefs. Here, we investigate whether the presence or absence of racial constancy beliefs differentially predicts inequality aversion with racial ingroup versus outgroup members for young children. White children (N = 202; ages 3-8) completed three sticker resource-allocation games with either a White or a Black partner shown in a photograph, after which racial constancy was measured. Results revealed that the acquisition of racial constancy interacted with partner race to predict inequality aversion outcomes in one game; however, age and gender also exerted strong effects.

Children’s cross-cultural categorizations of racially ambiguous faces in Taiwan and the U.S.

“…samples (e.g., Gaither et al, 2014;Gaither et al, 2020;Pauker et al, 2014). However, we did not have clear predictions about racial constancy's influence on categorization outcomes since it was unclear how a U.S.-based measurement of racial knowledge that has been tested primarily on White U.S. children may translate to racial minorities in both a Western and an Eastern context.…”

“…Finally, knowing that racial constancy beliefs not only shift White adult and children’s racially ambiguous categorizations (Chen & Hamilton, 2012; Gaither et al, 2014), but also White children’s prosocial behaviors (Gaither et al, 2020), we also wanted to test whether racial constancy endorsements generalized to an racial/ethnic minority sample and to populations outside of the U.S. Thus, children between the ages of 3–7 years were recruited since it is across those years that racial constancy understandings start to form at least in U.S. samples (e.g., Gaither et al, 2014; Gaither et al, 2020; Pauker et al, 2018).…”

“…Finally, knowing that racial constancy beliefs not only shift White adult and children’s racially ambiguous categorizations (Chen & Hamilton, 2012; Gaither et al, 2014), but also White children’s prosocial behaviors (Gaither et al, 2020), we also wanted to test whether racial constancy endorsements generalized to an racial/ethnic minority sample and to populations outside of the U.S. Thus, children between the ages of 3–7 years were recruited since it is across those years that racial constancy understandings start to form at least in U.S. samples (e.g., Gaither et al, 2014; Gaither et al, 2020; Pauker et al, 2018). However, we did not have clear predictions about racial constancy’s influence on categorization outcomes since it was unclear how a U.S.-based measurement of racial knowledge that has been tested primarily on White U.S. children may translate to racial minorities in both a Western and an Eastern context.…”

“…Racial Constancy Task. Next, children completed a previously used and validated short three-item racial constancy measurement (Gaither et al, 2014(Gaither et al, , 2020Hirschfeld, 1995;Pauker et al, 2010;Ruble et al, 2007;Semaj, 1980). Following past methods exactly to ensure our abilities to test for generalizeability not only between cultural contexts but also in comparison to past work, children were shown three faces (all photos matched to the child's gender): one was either a Black, White, or East Asian child (depending on the condition) whose photo was placed above that of a Black, White, or East Asian adult.…”