White children's empathy‐related responding and prosocial behavior toward White and Black children

Abstract

Relations among White (non‐Latinx) children's empathy‐related responding, prosocial behaviors, and racial attitudes toward White and Black peers were examined. In 2017, 190 (54% boys) White 5‐ to 9‐year‐old children (M = 7.09 years, SD = 0.94) watched a series of videos that depicted social rejection of either a White or Black child. Empathy‐related responses, prosocial behaviors, and racial attitudes were measured using multiple methods. Results showed that younger children showed less facial concern toward Black than White peers and greater increases with age in concern and prosocial behaviors (sharing a desirable prize) for Black, compared to White, targets. Children's facial anger increased with age for White but not Black targets. The findings can extend our understanding children's anti‐racism development.

White children's prosocial behavior toward White versus Black peers: The role of children's effortful control and parents' implicit racial attitudes

“…Children's attention focusing was positively correlated with prosocial behavior toward Black peers. Children's prosocial behaviors toward White and Black peers were positively correlated; comparisons in means by race can be found in Spinrad et al (2023). Children's prosocial disparity was positively correlated with their prosocial behaviors toward White peers and was negatively correlated with their prosocial behaviors toward Black peers.…”

“…How to cite this article: Xu, X., Spinrad, T. L., Xiao, S. X., Xu, J., Eisenberg, N., Laible, D. J., Berger, R. H., & Carlo, G. (2023). White children's prosocial behavior toward White versus Black peers: The role of children's effortful control and parents' implicit racial attitudes.…”

Parenting and White children's prosocial behaviors toward same‐race and other‐race peers: The moderating role of targeted moral emotions

“…Three distribution tasks were used to capture children's prosocial behaviors toward Black peers and White peers separately: chocolate sharing, star sharing, and money sharing. These distribution tasks were costly such that if the children chose to share with others, they would have less of the resource for themselves (Spinrad et al, 2023).…”

Parents’ color-blind racial ideology and implicit racial attitudes predict children’s race-based sympathy.

“…Even in early childhood, children differ in their sympathy toward different recipients, favoring mothers compared to strangers (Spinrad & Stifter, 2006). It is also possible that children differentiate among various racial targets in their sympathy responses, although such race-based sympathy has not been examined in prior work (for exception, see Spinrad et al, 2022). White children’s sympathy toward Black victims is of particular interest for the growing field of the development antiracist attitudes in the United States (Hazelbaker et al, 2022).…”

“…Each film was shot in four versions so that the cast included either all male or all female actors with either a Black or White victim. Participants watched same-sex films and the presentation of the stories and race of the target child were counterbalanced (four possible orders for each set, always viewing one Black victim and one White victim per set; Spinrad et al, 2022; also see Supplemental Materials).…”