It has been well-established that the developmental roots of racial prejudices emerge in early childhood, but scientists have a less clear understanding of how various influences affect these attitudes.
A new study in the journal American Psychologist offers some insight into these questions.
It found that White children whose favorite movie or television show portrayed fewer Black characters—relative to other movies or shows—were less likely to choose to play with a Black child, held less positive attitudes towards Black children, and were more likely to attribute Black-White inequalities to racial differences.
These findings were particularly strong in shows and films that showed few Black characters in high-status contexts or roles, such as authority figures or wealthy princesses. These results indicated that the dearth of Black characters in respected or sought-after positions contributed to views of racial bias among the study’s participants.
“Our findings highlight the role media play in the development of racial biases during childhood and underscore the importance of monitoring the messages young children receive when consuming media,” says Michael Rizzo, a postdoctoral researcher at New York University at the time of the study and now an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
“The good news is these findings offer pathways for addressing racial biases before they become deeply entrenched,” adds Marjorie Rhodes, a professor in NYU’s Department of Psychology and the paper’s senior author, who previously uncovered ways to reduce bias in children. “Compared with other environmental contributors to children’s biases, addressing the contents of media children consume is more straightforward. For instance, portraying more characters of color in high-status roles could be beneficial in shaping children’s attitudes about those of other races.”
Researchers have analyzed the impact of entertainment content on children’s beliefs and attitudes for decades. However, less studied is how this content is influential over time.
To better understand this phenomenon, Rizzo and Rhodes, along with researchers from the University of Connecticut and the University of California, Santa Cruz, conducted a study of nearly 600 White children in the United States for a year. This longitudinal study of children—four to eight years old—allowed the authors to see the impact of content on racial attitudes as it was consumed in children’s natural environments and over a 12-month period.
How the study was done
The American Psychologist research was part of a larger, online longitudinal study examining the psychological processes and developmental mechanisms underlying the emergence of racial biases in US children. Overall, the researchers asked the participants about their playmate preferences and their beliefs about racial inequalities while taking into account the types of programs they were watching—as reported by the children’s parents—and how these programs depicted characters of different races. This approach allowed the study’s authors to see if program content had any influence on the children’s attitudes and beliefs over time.
Attitudes and Beliefs
Children were shown faces of children on a computer screen (Asian, Black, Latine, and White) and asked who they would like to play with most. They were also shown faces of Black and White children and asked, “How nice do you think this child is?” and “How much do you like this child?”
They were also told about an example of a racial inequality and were asked to think about why that inequality exists. In this commonly used method, participants were shown images of a Black child who lived in a low-wealth house and a White child who lived in a high-wealth house and then asked to think about why each child lived in their respective house: “Because of things that happen in the world” (extrinsic reasons) or “Because of who they are inside” (intrinsic reason).
Parents and Content
In a survey, the children’s parents listed their child’s top three favorite shows or programs, how much they (the parents) valued racial diversity in their child’s friend group, their political affiliation, and their residential zip code. Parents’ values, politics, and the racial demographics of children’s zip codes (i.e., the proportion of White people in their residential zip code drawn from US Census data) served as control variables in the analyses in order to isolate the effects of children’s media consumption.
A total of 29 television shows and movies depicting primarily human characters were selected based on their popularity—as reported by their parents—amongst the participants. The content included nearly 11,000 characters across more than 2,000 scenes.
The researchers coded three three aspects of racial representation within these programs: overall racial representation; low-, middle-, and high-status context representation; and high-status role representation. For instance, scenes were coded as high-status if they contained clear cues to wealth or power, including castles or mansions, luxury vehicles, and depictions of wealthy people.
White characters were overrepresented in high-status contexts and roles compared to their overall representation in these programs. In addition, the participants were more likely to watch media with White characters than they were those with Asian, Black, and Latine characters.
What the researchers found
Overall, the results showed a connection between the children’s favorite television shows and movies and racial attitudes—depending on how Black and White characters were depicted:
- Children whose favorite media depicted a higher proportion of White relative to Black characters said they were less likely to choose to play with a Black child and were less likely to have positive attitudes towards Black children, even after taking into account their parents’ values and politics as well as neighborhood demographics.
- Children were more likely to choose a playmate—regardless of race—when the playmate’s racial group was more frequently represented in high-status contexts in children’s favorite media—regardless of their parents’ values, politics, and neighborhood demographics.
- Children whose favorite media depicted a higher proportion of White relative to Black characters in high-status contexts were less likely to choose to play with a Black child and more likely to endorse an intrinsic over extrinsic explanation for racial inequalities.
- Older children whose favorite media depicted a higher proportion of White relative to Black characters when they started the study became less likely to choose to play with the Black child over a one-year period. However, significant effects were not found for children’s explanations for racial inequalities.
- Notably, there were no effects or White children’s attitudes toward other White children, suggesting that consuming media with more Black characters does not reduce children’s positive feelings towards others of their own race.
“The relationship between media consumption and racial biases is likely dynamic and self-perpetuating: Children who watch biased media develop more racial biases, which leads them to favor media that reflect and reinforce those biases,” the authors write. “Our findings speak to the importance of breaking this cycle as early as possible.”
Journal
American Psychologist
