Parents underestimate children’s racial bias, especially when considering their own children

• In Event: Reducing Racial Prejudice and Stereotypes in Childhood: New Evidence for Debiasing Programs

Abstract

White children display racial biases from an early age (Shutts et al., 2013). Such biases perpetuate racial inequality and lead to adverse outcomes for minority children (Brown & Bigler, 2005). Nevertheless, White parents generally believe that their children are unlikely to express racial biases (Pahlke et al., 2012). In the present research, we sought to understand why parents hold such beliefs. In particular, do parents think that children, in general, are racially unbiased? Or, do parents simply think their own children are particularly unlikely to be biased? Further, how accurate are parents’ beliefs about their own and other children’s racial biases?
White parents and their children (N=80 dyads) were recruited in the upper midwestern region of the United States. Child participants (ages 5–7 years) completed 22 trials of a social preferences task; on each trial, they were shown unique photographs of two unfamiliar children who differed in race (i.e., one Black child, one White child) and were asked with whom they would like to play. Boys viewed photographs of other boys; girls viewed photographs of other girls. While children completed the social preference task, parents (who were in a separate room) were told about the nature of the task and were given the opportunity to see an example trial. Then, they were asked to estimate how many times (out of 22) their child and “the average child” would choose the White child in the task. When considering the average child, parents were directed to think about children who matched their own child in age.
Analyses revealed several noteworthy findings. First, replicating our prior research, parents anticipated that their children would express less bias than the average child, F(1, 79)=13.40, p<.001, 95% CI: [0.56, 1.89]. In other words, they thought their own children would choose more Black social partners than other children would. Second, parents underestimated the extent to which their own children actually expressed racial bias in the social preference task, F(1, 79)=25.84, p<.001, 95% CI: [2.07, 4.73]. Third, parents underestimated the likelihood that children in general—both their own and the average child—would express racial bias. Yet, their underestimation of bias was more extreme when thinking about their own children compared to when thinking about the average child, F(1, 79)=8.83, p=.004, 95% CI: [-1.93, -0.38]. See Figure 1.
Together, these studies reveal that parents generally assume children will show less bias than they do—and further, that parents are particularly unaware of their own children’s proclivity to express bias. If parents do not expect their children to express racial bias, they have no reason to work to engage in prejudice-reduction practices with their child. Implications for increasing parental awareness of bias and opportunities for leveraging the parent-child relationship to address children’s racial biases will be discussed.

Authors

• Katharine Scott, Northwestern University
  Presenting Author

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

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

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

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