ABSTRACT
Differential experience with own-and other-race faces cultivates an early
visual preference and recognition advantage for the familiar race group.
With age and continued asymmetry in own-and other-race face experience,
own-race face recognition biases persist and race-based preferences for social
partners and stereotypes emerge during early childhood. Early own-race
biases are more likely perceptually driven, whereas later biases more likely
derive from perceptual as well as social-conceptual influences (e.g., relating
to a particular social group)*hence, the temporal delay in the emergence of social preferences and stereotypes. Examining the transition from a
perceptually driven face recognition bias to a bias influenced by a mixture
of perceptual and social-conceptual factors warrants further studies during
the early childhood years when social category formation and categorization
of the self in relation to social categories develop. This transitional phase
would additionally be important to investigate in relation to the role of early
interracial contact in ameliorating the emergence of race-based social
preferences and stereotypes. Given an initial reliance on perceptual cues in
categorizing familiar and unfamiliar groups of individuals, perhaps early
exposure to other-race individuals would not only minimize the own-race
recognition bias, but might also minimize the later use of race in social
categorization, which would, in turn, minimize race-based social preferences
and stereotypes. It is further the case that despite the early development of
own-race biases, later experiences with a novel race group can enhance other-
race face recognition and improve evaluations of other-race individuals.
Future studies should identify and examine mediating factors that can
potentially maximize the positive effects of intergroup experience on
minimizing the development of own-race biases.
