Color Bias and Racial Preference in White South African Preschool Children

Abstract Early experience theory and cultural socialization theory offer differing explanations for the emergence of a prowhite/antiblack color bias in young children. The authors assessed prowhite preference to three stimulus types (inanimate objects, animals, and humans) in 3- and 5-year-old White South African children. The 3-year-olds showed no color bias to objects, some color bias to animal stimuli, and stronger color bias to human (racial) figures, with generally higher levels of bias in the 5-year-olds. These and other findings are consistent with a cultural socialization approach, implying that color bias in early childhood is acquired through verbal learning of human color symbolism. It is suggested that a culturally widespread tendency to prefer the color white over black may be a product of society and history rather than of early experiences.