Implicit Racial Bias Predicts Categorization Bias Among Preschool-Age Children: Evidence from China and Canada

• In Event: At the Intersection of Social Systems, Perception, and Representation: Going Beyond Perceiving Faces and Languages

Abstract

Multiculturalism and multiracialism have become increasingly common globally. The way how multiracial people are categorized affects how they are treated (Chen & Ratliff, 2015; Roberts et al., 2017) and determines whether their self-verification needs are met (Remedios & Chasteen, 2013). So far, much of the research on perceptions of multiracial people was conducted with White American adults, showing that Black-White biracial are more frequently categorized as Black than White (Chen et al., 2018). It remains less known about the developmental origin and underlying mechanism of multiracial categorization in children.
The present study examined the categorization of Asian-White biracial among preschool-age children from China (N = 71, Mage = 5.41 years) and Canada (N = 70, Mage = 5.05 years). Children’s categorization of biracial was measured by two tasks: the parent-absent categorization task (Roberts & Gelman, 2015), where judgments were based on photos of biracial people, and the parent-present task, where decisions were based on pictures of grandparents. Also, children’s implicit racial bias was measured via a child-friendly Implicit Association Test, and explicit racial bias was measured via self-report. Based on existing evidence on the biracial categorization bias from Western samples (Chen et al., 2018; Roberts & Gelman, 2015), Hypothesis 1 was that children in both cultures would display Asian-categorization bias of categorization Asian-White biracial as Asian. Regarding the role of racial bias on Asian-categorization bias, given previous work in adults (Ho et al., 2017; Krosch et al., 2013), Hypothesis 2 was that children with more substantial pro-White bias would be more likely to categorize Asian-White biracial as Asian.
Results found cross-cultural similarities, such that Chinese and Canadian children showed Asian-categorization bias of categorizing Asian-White biracial as Asian, which is consistent with Hypothesis 1. Regarding the role of racial bias, cross-cultural differences were also observed: implicit racial bias predicted Chinese children’s, not Canadian children’s, categorization bias, indicating that Chinese children who held stronger implicit pro-White bias were more likely to categorize Asian-White biracial as Asian. These findings highlight important cultural (in)consistencies in multiracial categorization and, for the first time, suggest that children’s implicit racial biases are linked to their categorization of racially ambiguous people. Together, these findings inform the developmental origin and underlying mechanism of multiracial categorization across different sociocultural contexts.

Authors

• Miao Qian, University of Detroit Mercy
  Presenting Author

• Genyue Fu, Hangzhou Normal University

• Alison L Chasteen, University of Toronto