Monoracial and biracial children: effects of racial identity saliency on social learning and social preferences

Abstract

Children prefer learning from, and affiliating with, their racial in-group but those preferences may vary for biracial children. Monoracial (White, Black, Asian) and biracial (Black/White, Asian/White) children (N = 246, 3-8 years) had their racial identity primed. In a learning preferences task, participants determined the function of a novel object after watching adults (White, Black, and Asian) demonstrate its uses. In the social preferences task, participants saw pairs of children (White, Black, and Asian) and chose with whom they most wanted to socially affiliate. Biracial children showed flexibility in racial identification during learning and social tasks. However, minority-primed biracial children were not more likely than monoracial minorities to socially affiliate with primed racial in-group members, indicating their in-group preferences are contextually based.

Figure 1. Summary of Mean Percentages of Primed Racial Ingroup Preferences by Participant Race

Note. Higher numbers reflect greater endorsement of primed racial ingroup member’s object function (max = 100%), error bars represent standard error, and the dotted line designates chance levels.