Use of a Conflict Paradigm to Study Race Awareness in Children

CANTOR, GORDON N. Use of a Conflict Paradigm to Study Race Awareness in Children. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1972, 43, 1437-1442. 60 white, secondgrade children made selective responses involving 6 different pairs of pictures -2 pairs of white boys (W-W), 2 pairs of blacks (B-B), and 2 pairs that included a white and a black (W-B). For each of the 3 picture-pair types, 1 choice was made of a boy described as 'good in some sense, the second choice being made of a boy described as bad. On the W-B trials, significantly more Ss chose white for good and black for bad than would be expected by chance. On the W-W trials, response latencies were longer for bad than for good choices, whereas the opposite relationship held on the B-B trials. Overall, Ss took longer to respond on W-W than on B-B trials; however, follow-up tests indicated this difference was significant for the bad but not the good choices, and for those Ss choosing white for good and black for bad on the W-B trials but not for the remaining Ss.