The Effect of Action Valence and Race on 3- to 8-Year-Old Children's Social Cognitive Judgments

Abstract

The present study investigated children's judgments of actions as a function of the valence of the action and the race of the actor. Three- to 8-year-old children were read an illustrated storybook in which 1 character did not share (a negatively valenced action) and the other character was helpful (a positively valenced action). The race of the characters was manipulated such that in the story, there was 1 Black character and 1 White character. Children were asked to make judgments about how mean/nice the characters were and what consequence (reward or punishment) they should receive for their actions. Despite the fact that children of this age show explicit and implicit pro-White biases (e.g., Baron & Banaji, 2006), children's judgments were based solely on the valence of action and not on character race. The findings are discussed in light of moral development and the development of bias as it pertains to race.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors thank the children and their families for participating in this research, and they thank E. Hinman, J. McLaughlin, and C. Minott for assistance.