New research from UCLA psychologists suggests that infants under one year old are aware of racial and ethnic differences.
A group of Hispanic and White infants, all 11 months old, were shown pictures of White, Latina and African-American adult women they did not know, two at a time, on a computer screen. Researchers used technology to track where the infants looked and for how long.
The results showed that the infants looked longer at African-American than White or Hispanic faces, even when several controls were applied.
“The babies showed such consistent patterns . . . that it appears that they are aware, at some level, of ethnic differences,” Scott Johnson, co-author of the study and a UCLA professor of psychology, said in a statement.
Johnson, an expert in infant perception, brain development, cognition and learning, said the findings should not be used to indicate prejudice.
“I don’t think this tells us about the origins of prejudices and stereotypes,” Johnson said. “We didn’t find any evidence in our data for that.”
The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, and will be published in the February edition of the journal Cognition, but is currently available online here.
According to another study on children’s perception of race and racism, children are very much aware of racial differences, and many of racism. However, few texts on child development and early childhood education offer true insight into how young children develop an understanding of their own and others’ racial and cultural identities, the study’s authors reported.
