Children's racial bias in perceptions of others' pain

Abstract

Previous research indicates that American adults, both Black and White, assume a priori that Black people feel less pain than do White people (Trawalter, Hoffman, & Waytz, 2012, PLoS One, 7[11], 1-8). The present work investigates when in development this bias emerges. Five-, 7-, and 10-year-olds first rated the amount of pain they themselves would feel in 10 situations such as biting their tongue or hitting their head. They then rated the amount of pain they believed two other children - a Black child and a White child, matched to the child's gender - would feel in response to the same events. We found that by age 7, children show a weak racial bias and that by age 10, they show a strong and reliable racial bias. Consistent with research on adults, this bias was not moderated by race-related attitudes or interracial contact. This finding is important because knowing the age of emergence can inform the timing of interventions to prevent this bias.

Young children perceive less humanness in outgroup faces

“…This finding draws attention to another interesting parallel with the work of Dore et al. () who found the belief that outgroup members feel less pain than ingroup members was not moderated by explicit social preference for own‐race individuals. Additionally, in a study with adults, Demoulin et al.…”

Racial bias in pain assessment and treatment recommendations, and false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites

“…Conversely, participants who endorsed fewer false beliefs (−1 SD) rated the black target as feeling more pain than the white target [β = −0.48, SE = 0.20, t(211) = −2.34, P = 0.020]. In other words, as in study 1, participants in study 2 who endorsed false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites exhibited a racial bias in pain perception similar to the bias shown in previous work (11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17). Unexpectedly, participants who did not endorse such beliefs exhibited a bias in the opposite direction.…”

“…Taken together, this work provides evidence that false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites continue to shape the way we perceive and treat black people-they are associated with racial disparities in pain assessment and treatment recommendations. this research has also shown that racial attitudes, measured both implicitly and explicitly, do not predict racial bias in pain perception or treatment (11,15,18), with the exception of one study showing that implicit pro-white attitudes predicted physicians' likelihood of recommending thrombolysis treatment (19). Racial bias in perceptions of pain (and possibly treatment) does not appear to be borne out of racist attitudes.…”

“…In fact, recent work suggests that racial bias in pain treatment may stem, in part, from racial bias in perceptions of others' pain. This research has shown that people assume a priori that blacks feel less pain than do whites (11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17). In a study by Staton et al (14), for instance, patients were asked to report how much pain they were experiencing, and physicians were asked to rate how much pain they thought the patients were experiencing.…”

Got Pain? Racial Bias in Perceptions of Pain

“…Yet, although (many) people today may reject notions that Black people have inferior blood, they continue to believe that Black people's bodies are fundamentally different from White people's bodies (Williams & Eberhardt, ). And, in our own work, we find that people continue to assume that Black people feel less pain than do White people (Dore, Hoffman, Lillard, & Trawalter, ; Hoffman & Trawalter, ; Trawalter et al, ; Waytz, Hoffman, & Trawalter, ).…”