Parents’ Perceptions of Children’s Racial Bias: The Role of Confirmation Bias

• In Event: Poster Session 14
  In Poster Session: PS 14 Topic - Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Abstract

Children’s racial bias has negative effects on the health and well-being of targets of bias (Trent et al., 2019). Parents have been implicated as important agents for addressing children’s biases (e.g., Pahlke et al., 2012; Scott et al., in press), but the parents of children who mostly frequently exhibit bias (i.e., young White children; Dunham et al., 2007) tend to avoid addressing race with their children (Vittrup, 2018). White parents may not address race with their children because adults underestimate children’s processing of race (Sullivan et al., in press). Moreover, White parents predict that their own children will display less racial bias than the average child (Scott et al., in prep).

White parents’ tendency to view their own children as less biased than the average child may be supported by a confirmation bias (Nickerson, 1998). In particular, it is possible that parents are tuned into instances in which their children do not express racial bias while dismissing instances in which their children display bias. In the present study, we investigated parents’ memory for identical information when viewing their own child versus another child complete a measure of racial preferences. If parents fall prey to confirmation bias, they would show better memory for another child’s (vs. their own child’s) racially-based preferences. Additionally, we evaluated parents’ reactions to viewing children’s choices on a social preference task.

White child participants (to date N=114; target N=128; ages 5–7 years) completed 22 trials of a social preference task; on each trial, they were shown photographs of two children who differed in race (i.e., one Black child, one White child) and were asked with whom they would like to play. The parents of the children were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. In the own child condition, parents watched a recording of their child completing the social preference task. In the other child condition, parents watched a recording of a child actor completing the task. In the other child condition, the choices made by the child actor were precisely matched to the actual choices of the parent’s own child. (We used a green screen to superimpose their child’s choices into the video of a child actor.) After watching the videos, parents were asked to estimate the child’s bias and were asked to report their reactions to the behavior they observed.

Overall, parents were quite accurate in their estimations of children’s choices. Parents’ accuracy in predicting children’s choices did not differ whether they watched their child or another child, t(112)=1.35, p=.18, np2=.02. Furthermore, regardless of condition, parents reported more distress as children displayed more racial bias, t(110)=4.27, p<.001, np2=.14.

Together, these findings suggest that when provided with evidence of children’s bias, parents accurately attend to the evidence. Furthermore, parents’ distress about children’s bias regardless of whether they watched their child or another child provides promise for motivating parents to address race with their children. Namely, if parents are shown evidence of children’s bias, they may better recognize the need to address race with their children.

Authors

• Katharine Scott, Northwestern University
  Presenting Author

• MaKayla Liebeck, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  Non-Presenting Author

• Bailey Immel, University of California - Santa Barbara
  Non-Presenting Author

• Patricia G. Devine, University of Wissonsin
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kristin Shutts, University of Wisconsin - Madison
  Non-Presenting Author