Do Children See in Black and White? Children’s and Adults’ Categorizations of Multiracial Individuals

Do Children See in Black and White? Children’s and Adults’ Categorizations of Multiracial Individuals

Child Development
Published Online: 2015-08-28
DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12410

Steven O. Roberts
Department of Psychology
University of Michigan

Susan A. Gelman, Heinz Werner Distinguished University Professor of Psychology and Linguistics
University of Michgan

Categorizations of multiracial individuals provide insight into the development of racial concepts. Children’s (4–13 years) and adults’, both White (Study 1) and Black (Study 2; N = 387), categorizations of multiracial individuals were examined. White children (unlike Black children) more often categorized multiracial individuals as Black than as White in the absence of parentage information. White and Black adults (unlike children) more often categorized multiracial individuals as Black than as White, even when knowing the individuals’ parentage. Children’s rates of in-group contact predicted their categorizations. These data suggest that a tendency to categorize multiracial individuals as Black relative to White emerges early in development and results from perceptual biases in White children but ideological motives in White and Black adults.

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