A new psychological study showed many Caucasian children believe African American's feel less pain.
This belief was present as young as the age of seven and was prevalent by the age of 10.
"Our research shows that a potentially very harmful bias in adults emerges during middle childhood, and appears to develop across childhood," the study's lead investigator, Rebecca Dore, a Ph.D. candidate in developmental psychology at the University of Virginia, said in the news release.
The research suggests explicit biases tend to emerge during early childhood. The researchers could find no trace of racial bias in five-year-olds, but once they reached the age of seven biases started to emerge.
"Our finding can't speak to how parents or teachers, for example, might intervene and try to halt these biases at an early age, but we currently are running a study that might speak to that question," Dore said. "However, what this study can inform is the timing of any interventions. If we want to prevent this bias from developing, it needs to be done by age [seven], or age 10 at the latest."
The problem is rarely addressed because many adults and teachers feel uncomfortable addressing the issue.
"Talking to children about racial issues early may be important for preventing the development of biases that could have consequences in adulthood," Dore said.
The researchers looked at five, seven, and 10-year-olds for their study. The participants were asked to rate how much pain children of the same gender and various races felt in different images of situations, such as slamming their hand in a door or bumping their heads.
When the (mostly Caucasian) seven and 10-year-olds were shown pictures of black children they tended to rate them as being in less severe pain than they would white children.
"The scope of Dore's study does not explain why children are exhibiting this bias; however, her collaborators have research showing that one reason adults perceive black people as feeling less pain is because they assume black people have experienced more hardship in their lives," the news release reported.
