psych questions

Children’s Racial Categorization in Context

Kristin Pauker, 1 Amanda Williams,

2 and Jennifer R. Steele

3

1 University of Hawaii,

2 Sheffield Hallam University, and

3 York University

ABSTRACT—The ability to discriminate visually based on

race emerges early in infancy: 3-month-olds can percep-

tually differentiate and 6-month-olds can perceptually

categorize faces by race. Between ages 6 and 8 years,

children can sort others into racial groups. But to what

extent are these abilities influenced by context? In this

article, we review studies on children’s racial categoriza-

tion and discuss how our conclusions are affected by how

we ask the questions (i.e., our methods and stimuli),

where we ask them (i.e., the diversity of the child’s sur-

rounding environment), and whom we ask (i.e., the diver-

sity of the children we study). Taken together, we suggest

that despite a developmental readiness to categorize

others by race, the use of race as a psychologically salient

basis for categorization is far from inevitable and is

shaped largely by the experimental setting and the greater

cultural context.

KEYWORDS—racial categorization; racial stereotyping and

prejudice; social development

Racial prejudice is one of the most pressing social issues of our

time. Social and developmental psychologists have sought to

understand more deeply when racial biases emerge in child-

hood. Despite the foundational role of racial categorization in

stereotyping and prejudice, research with children has focused

almost exclusively on the downstream consequences of racial

categorization rather than the process of racial categorization

itself. In this article, we review what is known about racial cate-

gorization from infancy into late childhood, with a focus on

recent research. In addition, we argue that researchers need to

devote greater attention to the experimental setting and the lar-

ger cultural context to advance our theoretical and practical

understanding of the development of racial categorization.

WHEN CAN CHILDREN CATEGORIZE BY RACE?

The answer to this question depends largely on how categoriza-

tion is defined. For example, does noticing differences between

racial groups, sorting targets with similar skin color together,

identifying physical features as typical of group members, or

labeling members of different racial groups provide sufficient

evidence of racial categorization? In this article, we define racial

categorization as the tendency for race to be perceived as a psy-

chologically salient and meaningful basis for grouping others.

This definition builds on the developmental intergroup theory

(DIT; 1), in which four main factors contribute to the psychologi-

cal salience of social categories: (a) perceptual salience (i.e.,

whether categories are marked by discriminable visual features),

(b) proportional group size (i.e., proportionally smaller groups, or

minorities, tend to be more distinct), (c) explicit labeling by

adults (e.g., “the Black child”), which suggests the dimension

merits attention and provides a category label, and (d) implicit

use in the environment (e.g., through racial segregation of neigh-

borhoods), which may lead children to independently construct

explanations regarding the importance of shared attributes (1).

Measuring racial categorization involves administering tasks that

map onto these factors, and exploring how and when children

consistently and spontaneously use the category to organize

information and direct behavior. This definition of racial catego-

rization highlights not only how many inputs (both perceptual

and conceptual) integrate to inform children’s categorizations,

but also how context directs whether race is salient psychologi-

cally and thus used habitually in a psychologically meaningful

way. Although outside the scope of this article, one important

conceptual input into children’s categorizations is their intuitive

theories, including beliefs that social categories are natural

Kristin Pauker, University of Hawaii; Amanda Williams, Sheffield Hallam University; Jennifer R. Steele, York University.

This work was supported by a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R00-HD065741) to Kristin Pauker.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Kristin Pauker, Department of Psychology, University of Hawaii, 2530 Dole St., Sakamaki C400, Honolulu, HI 96822; e-mail: [email protected].

© 2015 The Authors

Child Development Perspectives © 2015 The Society for Research in Child Development

DOI: 10.1111/cdep.12155

Volume 10, Number 1, 2016, Pages 33–38

CHILD DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES

kinds (2). Yet even these intuitive theories may be shaped by

cultural context (2–4). Although some factors contributing to the psychological salience of race can emerge quite early in infancy

(e.g., perceptual discrimination) and other components depend

more on linguistic skills that develop later in childhood (e.g.,

labeling by race), all are influenced by both the immediate

(experimental) and broader (cultural) context.

Infants

Although infants are not attuned to racial differences at birth

(5), their ability to differentiate perceptually based on race

develops early in homogeneous cultural contexts. By 3 months,

White, Black, and Asian infants from countries where their race

is the majority (i.e., White infants in the United Kingdom, Black

infants in Ethiopia, and Asian infants in China) look longer at

same-race faces than at other-race faces (5–7). However, despite this visual preference for same-race faces, young infants do not

show impaired recognition of other-race faces that is typically

seen in adults (8). Instead, at 3 months, White and Asian

infants from countries where their race is the majority can rec-

ognize different faces of their race as well as different faces of

other races (9, 10). These infants demonstrate a decreasing abil-

ity to differentiate other-race faces across many out-groups

between 3 and 9 months, and by 9 months, they recognize

same-race faces but have difficulty recognizing other-race faces

(9, 10), similar to the impaired ability to recognize other-race

faces seen in adults (8).

Thus, while 3-month-olds raised in homogenous cultural con-

texts show sensitivity to distinctions between racial groups, they

can still individuate faces within racial groups. However, the

ability to individuate within racial groups apparently changes

with development and environmental input—and children become tuned to the faces they encounter most frequently as

they age. Consistent with the strong connection in adults

between categorical processing of race and impaired recognition

of other-race faces (8), this perceptual tuning also apparently

coincides with infants’ ability to categorize faces by race (11).

Infants can perceptually categorize some faces by race at

6 months (12): Specifically, in one study, when White 6-month-

olds with limited exposure to other-race faces were familiarized

with many Black or Asian faces (i.e., faces belonging to a single

racial category), they distinguished between a new face from

the familiarized racial category compared to a new face from a

novel racial category (i.e., Asian or Black, respectively; 12).

This design tests whether infants categorized a new face from

the familiarized category as part of the same category and a face

from the novel racial category as part of a different category.

However, at 9 months, White infants no longer distinguished

between many other-race categories, instead forming a broader

distinction between same-race (White = in-group) and other- race faces grouped together (Asian and Black = out-group; 12). In all the studies with infants we have reviewed, stimuli

consisted of color photographs of faces that used both facial

features and skin tone as visual markers of race. Thus, we can-

not determine whether infants use one or both of these visual

cues to process same- and other-race faces. However, in some

studies (13), the ability to differentiate same- and other-race

faces was not necessarily based solely on low-level perceptual

cues such as skin color. When presented with computer-gener-

ated faces that depicted prototypical physiognomy and skin

tone (i.e., Eurocentric facial features with White skin tone and

Afrocentric features with Black skin tone) or faces that isolated

these aspects (e.g., Eurocentric features with Black skin tone

and Afrocentric features with White skin tone), the neural

responses of White majority 9-month-olds in the United States

did not differ when viewing prototypical White faces in com-

parison to faces that isolated Black features (i.e., skin tone or

face shape), but did differ in comparison to prototypical Black

faces (13). Thus, infants may rely on both facial shape associ-

ated with a racial group and skin tone to distinguish same-

from other-race faces.

Do these examples reflect individuals’ ability to perceptually

differentiate racial categories or merely to differentiate what is

familiar and what is not? As studies often involve comparing

familiar and unfamiliar race faces, this effectively assesses

whether children can separate their familiar group from a per-

ceptually distinct group (11). To build on this work, researchers

should present many groups of unfamiliar other-race faces to

further examine infants’ ability to perceptually differentiate and

categorize faces based on race (cf. 12).

Although it is unclear whether infants’ abilities to categorize

by race reflect more than perceptual differentiation, the central

role of cultural context in these effects deserves emphasis.

Because biases in visual attention are not present at birth (5),

limited exposure to other-race faces may lead to the perceptual

narrowing favoring same-race faces. Indeed, in one study, White

and Black 3-month-olds in Israel who are exposed frequently to

faces from both these racial groups did not look preferentially

toward faces of a same-race relative to other-race faces (6). Even

minimal exposure to other-race faces in infancy facilitates the

ability to recognize other-race faces (14–16). Thus, from a very young age, infants display sensitivity to race that is driven by

cultural context, such as the faces they are exposed to in their

environment.

Toddlers

Recent studies raise questions about the extent to which young

toddlers readily use perceptual cues to categorize new racial

group exemplars, even if they appear to do so as 6-month-olds.

In one study (17), 19-month-old Jewish Israeli toddlers failed to

match new exemplars to a category of exemplars they had just

been familiarized with, including those high in perceptual (e.g.,

gender, race, shirt color) and cultural (e.g., ethnicity) salience,

unless the category exemplars were paired with a novel category

label (e.g., “Look, a Tiroli”) during familiarization. In contrast,

26-month-olds matched new race and gender exemplars with

Child Development Perspectives, Volume 10, Number 1, 2016, Pages 33–38

34 Kristin Pauker, Amanda Williams, and Jennifer R. Steele

the expected category (i.e., selecting a Black target after being

familiarized with color photographs of Black people), regardless

of whether category exemplars were paired with a novel category

label. Thus, younger toddlers’ representation of racial categories

apparently relies on cultural input (e.g., category labels) rather

than emerging solely based on visual cues.

Does being able to perceptually differentiate racial categories

correspond with viewing race as a meaningful, psychologically

salient category that guides behavior (1)? Early in development

it does not, because in infancy, looking preferences are unre-

lated to social behavior. At 10 months, when infants in homoge-

nous cultural contexts robustly recognize same-race compared to

other-race faces, White American infants do not prefer toys

offered by video-recorded White women over those offered by

video-recorded Black women (18). Even older toddlers fail to

demonstrate race-based differences in behavior: White Ameri-

can 2- to 3-year-olds are equally likely to give toys to White or

Black women depicted in color photographs (18). Furthermore,

when the experimental context places social categories in com-

petition, children may prioritize categories other than race and

these may predict behavior (19). When presented simultane-

ously with color photographs of children or adults that vary

systematically by gender and race, White American 3- to 4-

year-olds’ friendship selections, inferences about shared prefer-

ences, allocation and acceptance of toys, and preference for

novel activities and objects are determined more by gender than

race (20, 21).

Children

Children may perceptually differentiate racial group members

based on similar features. But when provided with category

labels, by ages 3 or 4, White Canadian children can identify

the racial group membership of targets depicted in color pho-

tographs (in accordance with adult judgments; 22), and by

ages 6–8, both Black and White children can consistently classify others by race (23). However, in studies of target

groups other than Blacks and Whites, race is not as psycho-

logically salient. For example, when asked to sort color pho-

tographs of children by racial label (White, Black, Asian),

only a slim majority (60%) of White, Black, and Asian 3- to

5-year-olds from multiracial schools in the United Kingdom

used the terms in a manner consistent with adult categoriza-

tions (24). Additionally, when studies included a wider range

of stimuli, such as computer-generated faces that varied in

their prototypicality (in both skin tone and physiognomy), pre-

dominantly White American 4- to 9-year-olds relied more on

skin color than physiognomy when categorizing by race (25;

see also 26). Children did not use facial features as category-

diagnostic information in the same way as adults do, suggest-

ing that children may not have an adult-like conceptualization

of race. These results raise the possibility that past findings

may depend primarily on children’s directed attention to cate-

gory labels and skin color.

LOOKING FORWARD: BRINGING CONTEXT

INTO FOCUS

Although we know much about when children can categorize by

race, we do not know a great deal about when they do so sponta-

neously and what factors affect these categorizations. Further-

more, how much of our conclusion—that race is perceptually discernible by 3 months and explicitly identifiable around

6 years—is based on the stability or homogeneity of the tasks, groups, or environments in studies? In other words, are the con-

clusions about the development of racial categorization biased

by the experimental and cultural contexts in which researchers

have asked these questions? We believe they may be.

As an illustration, we used an open-ended measure to capture

how 8- to 12-year-olds in the continental United States and

Hawaii categorized prototypical White and Black target chil-

dren, depicted in color photographs, by race (27). While White,

Asian, and Latino monoracial and multiracial children in the

continental United States typically listed one racial label per

target, consistent with adult categorizations (e.g., they labeled

the Black target as African American), in Hawaii, White, Asian,

and Black monoracial and multiracial children tended to per-

ceive the monoracial targets as multiracial or belonging to many

groups. Both White and Black targets were described on average

by 3–4 racial/ethnic labels (e.g., labeling the Black target as Black, Chinese, and Native Hawaiian). Perhaps because of their

experience with a large multiracial population (23% of Hawaii

residents identify as multiracial), children growing up in Hawaii

may default to a multiracial prototype and be less likely to rely

on perceptual cues to categorize racially because they are less

predictive in this environment. This example illustrates how

expanding our methods (e.g., moving beyond forced choice or

labels provided by the experimenter) and highlighting where

research is conducted (e.g., a heterogeneous, highly multiracial

environment) can provide new insights into racial categorization.

Although such less structured tasks are not without limits (e.g.,

reliance on children’s verbal abilities, difficulties in scoring

responses), results from these measures can clarify how we

interpret responses on more structured tasks that assess chil-

dren’s racial categorization and ensuing attitudes. Researchers

should look carefully at how experimental and cultural contexts

affect our understanding of racial categorization across develop-

ment. Specifically, we need to consider how we ask the ques-

tions (i.e., our methods and stimuli), where we ask them (i.e.,

the diversity of the child’s surrounding environment), and whom

we ask (i.e., the diversity of the groups we study).

Methods and Stimuli

Many of the tasks used to examine racial categorization inadver-

tently increase the salience of race in the experiment by, for

example, explicitly using racial labels, using racially prototypi-

cal targets, or making comparisons that differ only by race and

not by other competing social categories (e.g., gender, age). In

Child Development Perspectives, Volume 10, Number 1, 2016, Pages 33–38

Racial Categorization in Context 35

open-ended spontaneous description tasks (e.g., a child sees a

target and is prompted, “Tell me about this person; what do you

see?”), White, Black, and Asian preschool and elementary

school children in monoracial and multiracial cultures mention

race rarely (24, 28, 29). However, when children are asked to

sort photos that vary by dimensions (e.g., race, gender, facial

expression, age, clothing) into piles that “go together,” children’s

use of race as a spontaneous sorting dimension increases with

age (24, 30), becoming more reliable around 6 years (30). How

racial categorization is assessed can therefore lead to differing

conclusions about the extent to which children spontaneously

categorize others by race.

Attending to whether the experimental context makes race

psychologically salient does not inherently value unstructured

over structured tasks. Rather, it should help us expand our

repertoire of experimental tasks, interpret more effectively

results that vary across experimental context, and provide fur-

ther insight into the conditions under which others will be spon-

taneously or deliberately categorized by race. For example,

attention to experimental context may affect the interpretation of

valuable, highly structured measures, such as those that assess

children’s implicit racial biases. In tasks where targets are cate-

gorized by race (i.e., the Implicit Association Test), White

American participants display an implicit pro-White (relative to

Black) bias at 6 years that remains stable into adulthood (31).

But measures that do not require overt racial categorization (i.e.,

the Affective Priming Task) yield a different developmental tra-

jectory: Among White German 9- to 15-year-olds, implicit bias

(in the form of out-group negativity) emerged only in early ado-

lescence (32; see also 33). Thus, even among implicit measures,

racial salience in the experimental context may affect research-

ers’ conclusions. Experimental contexts that increase the sal-

ience of racial categories may overestimate the extent to which

children use race spontaneously when perceiving other people.

Similarly, the focus on prototypical exemplars of various racial

groups may artificially heighten children’s attention to race. Not

only does this drastically oversimplify the task children face

when they meet a new person, but also the representation of

stimuli in most experiments reduces within-race variation and

underestimates the dynamic nature of how we perceive other

people (34). We must broaden the range of stimuli used to

include racially ambiguous and multiracial targets to deepen

our understanding of the categorization process (35–37). Similar to adults, primarily majority (i.e., White American) children are

flexible in how they categorize racially ambiguous faces, inte-

grating both visual and top-down category cues (38), or using

their intuitive understanding of race as distinct and immutable

(i.e., essentialist reasoning) to guide how they process and

remember racially ambiguous faces (39). Examining racially

ambiguous and multiracial targets can facilitate our understand-

ing of how conceptual knowledge may bias the category judg-

ments of perceptually identical stimuli. Researchers should also

examine the extent to which different social categories (e.g., race

and gender) intersect to inform perception and social categoriza-

tion (40). Finally, studies have begun to rely on more implicit

measures of spontaneous categorization (33, 41, 42), which is an

important area to develop.

Diversity of Cultural Contexts and Populations

As a whole, most research on racial categorization has been con-

ducted in relatively homogenous cultural contexts (often in the

United States), primarily with White children. Although we have

cited research from several countries (e.g., Canada, China,

Ethiopia, Israel, the United Kingdom, the United States),

researchers must examine both racially homogeneous and

heterogeneous cultural contexts and groups. We need to include

more racial-minority children in this work, including multiracial

children who have been almost entirely excluded (cf. 4, 43). In

studies that explicitly examined more heterogeneous cultural

contexts, where children have exposure to people from a variety

of racial groups, diversity can allow children to maintain greater

flexibility in components of racial categorization. For example,

in one study, infants with intensive cross-race experience did

not look preferentially toward same-race faces (6), and in

another study, older children in a more diverse city were less

likely than children in a rural community to view race as a natu-

ral kind (44). In addition, even within the same cultural context,

children from a minority group (e.g., Black) may categorize

others by race more readily (24, 45), and integrate perceptual

and conceptual knowledge about race earlier to inform category

judgments (36).

CONCLUSION

In this article, we reviewed studies on racial categorization in

childhood and put their findings in context by highlighting that

how, where, and to whom we ask our research questions can

influence our conclusions. While race is perceptually discrim-

inable early in infancy and used spontaneously by children as

young as 6 years to sort others, racial categorization depends on

the immediate (experimental) and broader (cultural) context. To

deepen our knowledge of the conditions under which children

consistently and spontaneously categorize others by race, we

must deepen our understanding of how context can influence

the cues that children attend to when categorizing others.

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38 Kristin Pauker, Amanda Williams, and Jennifer R. Steele