Studies with adults suggest that implicit preferences favoring White versus Black individuals can be reduced through exposure to positive Black exemplars. However, it remains unclear whether developmental differences exist in the capacity for these biases to be changed. This study included 369 children and examined whether their implicit racial bias would be reduced following exposure to positive Black exemplars. Results showed that children's implicit pro‐White bias was reduced following exposure to positive Black exemplars, but only for older children (Mage = ~10 years). Younger children's (Mage = ~7 years) implicit bias was not affected by this intervention. These results suggest developmental differences in the malleability of implicit racial biases and point to possible age differences in intervention effectiveness.

The prevalence of implicit intergroup bias in adults underscores the importance of knowing when during development such biases are most amenable to change. Although research suggests that implicit intergroup bias undergoes little change across development, no studies have directly examined whether developmental differences exist in the capacity for novel implicit associations to form or change. The present study examined this issue among children ages 5-12. Results from over 800 children provided evidence that novel implicit associations formed quickly, regardless of child age, association type (evaluative or non-evaluative) or the target of the association (social or non-social). Moreover, the magnitude of these changes was comparable across conditions. Coupled with similar findings among adults, these data underscore the importance of first impressions in shaping implicit intergroup bias and provide further evidence that the acquisition of implicit associations is governed by a domain-general mechanism that may be fully in place by age 5.

Communion and agency are often described as core human values. In adults, these values predict gendered role preferences. Yet little work has examined the extent to which young boys and girls explicitly endorse communal and agentic values and whether early gender differences in values predict boys' and girls' different role expectations. In a sample of 411 children between the ages of 6 and 14 years, we found consistent gender differences in endorsement of communal and agentic values. Across this age range, boys endorsed communal values less and agentic values more than did girls. Moreover, gender differences in values partially accounted for boys' relatively lower family versus career orientation, predicting their orientation over and above gender identification and parent reports of children's gender expression. These findings suggest that gender differences in core values emerge surprisingly early in development and predict children's expectations well before they make decisions about adopting adult roles in their own families.

Research suggests that exposure to stories about Black adults who are contributing positively to their community can reduce implicit pro-White/anti-Black racial bias in older children (ages 9 -12). The aim of the current research was to replicate and extend this finding by investigating whether a different child-friendly manipulation exposing children to positive Black exemplars and negative White exemplars could decrease implicit pro-White/anti-Black racial bias in children aged 5 to 12 years, both immediately following the intervention and 1 hr later. In addition, a second aim of this research was to examine whether child-friendly positive exemplar exposure would similarly reduce adults' implicit racial bias. In a sample of White and Asian Canadians (N ϭ 478; 182 male, 296 female), recruited from a community science center (children) and a public university in Vancouver (adults), 9-to 12-year-old children's racial bias was reduced up to 1 hr after this new intervention, while the effectiveness of the intervention on 5to 8-year-old children's bias was less clear. Interestingly, this intervention did not reduce adult levels of bias. The results of a follow-up study (N ϭ 96; 23 male, 72 female, 1 nonbinary) indicate that exposure to child exemplars can reduce bias in adults, but only when additional instructions are provided to internalize the presented association. Thus, the current study provides evidence that depicting counterstereotypical exemplars can reduce implicit racial bias in children for up to 1 hr after exemplar exposure, but there may be important developmental differences in the conditions required to change this bias.

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