Chinese children show racial and skin‐tone salience but little color evasion

Abstract

AbstractChildren may notice racial differences (i.e., show racial and/or skin‐tone salience), but deliberately avoid mentioning such differences (i.e., color evasion) with increasing age. This contradiction may be due to prevailing egalitarian social norms about race. Color evasion is understudied among children in China. In a sample of 155 Chinese children (71 girls and 84 boys) aged 7–11 years from urban regions of China, we collected measures of children's racial and/or skin‐tone salience and color evasion as well as their attitudes toward light‐skinned East Asian, tan‐skinned East Asian, and White groups. Analyses revealed that racial differences were salient to Chinese children, and that they showed little color evasion. Skin tone was most salient in children's categorization performance. We found a preference hierarchy where light‐skinned East Asian people were favored most, and White people least. Color evasion was negatively related to Chinese children's positive attitudes toward White people. The findings emphasize the importance of social contexts in shaping children's racial attitudes.