Initial theory and research examining children's implicit racial attitudes suggest that an implicit preference favoring socially advantaged groups emerges early in childhood and remains stable across development (Dunham, Baron, & Banaji, 2008). In two studies, we examined the ubiquity of this theory by measuring non-Black minority and non-White majority children's implicit racial attitudes toward White and Black racial outgroups in two distinct cultural contexts. In Study 1, non-Black minority children in an urban North American community with a large Black population showed an implicit pro-White (versus Black) bias in early childhood. Contrary to previous findings, the magnitude of this bias was lower among older children. In Study 2, Malay (majority) and Chinese (minority) children and adults in the Southeast Asian country of Brunei, with limited contact with White or Black peers, showed an implicit pro-White (versus Black) bias in early childhood. However, the magnitude of bias was greater for adults. Together, these findings support initial theorizing about the early development of implicit intergroup cognition, but suggest that context may affect these biases across development to a greater extent than was previously thought. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgQP8e4MSCk&feature=youtu.be.

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Historically, the field of psychology has focused on racial biases at an individual level, considering the effects of various stimuli on individual racial attitudes and biases. This approach has provided valuable information, but not enough focus has been placed on the systemic nature of racial biases. In this Review, we examine the bidirectional relation between individual-level racial biases and broader societal systems through a systemic lens. We argue that systemic factors operating across levels — from the interpersonal to the cultural — contribute to the production and reinforcement of racial biases in children and adults. We consider the effects of five systemic factors on racial biases in the USA: power and privilege disparities, cultural narratives and values, segregated communities, shared stereotypes and nonverbal messages. We discuss evidence that these factors shape individual-level racial biases, and that individual-level biases shape systems and institutions to reproduce systemic racial biases and inequalities. We conclude with suggestions for interventions that could limit the effects of these influences and discuss future directions for the field.

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There is mounting evidence that North Americans are better able to remember faces of targets who belong to the same social group, and this is true even when the social groups are experimentally created. Yet, how Western cultural contexts afford the development of this own group face recognition bias remains unknown. This question is particularly important given that recent findings suggest that first-generation East Asian Canadians do not show this bias. In the current research, we examined the own-group bias among first-and second-generation East Asian Canadians, who vary systematically in their exposure to and engagement in a Western cultural context, and tested mediators that could explain any difference. In Study 1, second-generation East Asian Canadians showed better memory for same-group (vs. other-group) faces. In Studies 2 and 3, as well as a meta-analysis of all three studies, we found some additional evidence that second-generation East Asian Canadians show better memory for same-group (vs. other-group) faces, whereas first-generation East Asian Canadians do not, but only when each cultural group was examined separately in each study, as no interaction with generational status emerged. In Study 2, and in a higher powered pre-registered Study 3, we also examined whether second-(vs. first-) generational status had a positive indirect effect on same-group face recognition through the effects of acculturation and perceived relational mobility in the immediate social environment, however this mediation model was not supported by the data. Overall, the results provide some additional evidence that the effect of mere social categorization on face recognition may not be as consistently found among East Asian participants.