Kids as young as 6 months judge others based on skin color | Hacker News Reader

Kids as young as 6 months judge others based on skin color

newsweek.com

14 pointscwan12 comments

The "racy" subheading of the article (which was also used for the HN submission) was probably not written by the author of the article. The actual article does NOT say that children as 6 months "judge others" based on skin color. It DOES say that one study makes the rather banal observation that 6 month old babies can detect a difference between white skin and dark skin. As far as I can see, the article does not suggest that babies are making any sort of judgement about the person.

to paraphrase from a couple sections of the article: they are making judgements of 'like me, not like me' and that 'like me' is better than not like me. they may not have context for what black and white are or for that matter race, but they are still making value judgements based on it.

That's not true. The article says that it's the three to six YEAR olds who are making value judgements, not the 6 MONTH old babies. The headline is making a more dramatic point than is supported by the article by conflating all ages. From the article:

How do researchers test a 6-month-old? They show babies photographs of faces. Katz found that babies will stare significantly longer at photographs of faces that are a different race from their parents, indicating they find the face out of the ordinary. Race itself has no ethnic meaning per se—but children's brains are noticing skin-color differences and trying to understand their meaning.

When the kids turned 3, Katz showed them photographs of other children and asked them to choose whom they'd like to have as friends. Of the white children, 86 percent picked children of their own race.

i will go back to your original comment and again state that i think the article is attempting to imply that not only are they recognizing differences of skin color but the article presents additional info in relation to 'the t-shirt test'. that the 'judge' isn't out of line with what the article implies. what i take away as the message the article wants to convey:

young children notice differences between things. even when no value is assigned to those differences by others, like me is seen as better. judgements are made. children as young as 6 months show this quality of noticing the differences in skin color.

the implication is clear. to say that the sub headline isnt in line with the article is in my mind, specious.

Again you bring up an element - the t-shirt test - which has nothing to do with 6 months olds. There is an enormous developmental and cognitive difference between a 6 month old infant and a four year old child. An infant is extremely observant - this is well-documented - but is not making any judgements about those observations, other than "Am I fed, safe and comfortable". The implication that a six month old is judging others based on race is an astonishing and improbable claim so it's highly significant that that claim is not substantiated by the article. Newsweek was wildly skewing the science to sell magazines.

again, back to the entire point... i think that the subheadline is inline with the content of the article. it isnt an attempt to change the meaning of the article, it is what the other was trying to imply.

skewing science? yes. but you said you doubted that the author had anything to do with the 6 month making judgements line. i disagree. i think the entire article is trying to lead you to that idea.

i'm not arguing that they didn't misrepresent things with that headline, i'm just saying that the entire article makes the same attempt at misrepresentation. the only original statement of yours i disagree with is:

"The "racy" subheading of the article (which was also used for the HN submission) was probably not written by the author of the article"

you then say:

"The actual article does NOT say that children as 6 months "judge others" based on skin color. It DOES say that one study makes the rather banal observation that 6 month old babies can detect a difference between white skin and dark skin."

which is true but beside the point in my mind because i think that the 6 month old children makes judgements based on race is something the article implies and wants the read to come away with.

Splitting people around you into groups and labeling them as 'us' and 'them' lies in biology. It can't be totally suppressed. What schools could actually do is to give those two colored T-Shirts randomly to the kids to create artificial division that would allow them to get past the tribal labeling period without forming persistent bias based on some real unchangeable (although insignificant) quality such as skin color.

My 3 year-old and 5-year old are around others of different skin colors often and neither have ever asked about skin color or verbalized anything like that. That's because they're not around racists. My wife and I recognize others based on their character not skin color. One friend of theirs is Malcolm, not "the black kid". Another kid is Benjamin, not "the asian kid". If the morons of this world would stop giving color so much attention, maybe the next generation would realize that skin color doesn't matter at all.

You really need to read the article. Because it talks about this idea in detail, and its conclusions are that what you are doing does not work.

I think you're missing the OPs point.

This is purely anecdotal, but I grew up in a military town. As a consequence, all of my peers and many of my friends were of mixed race, color, and creed. I don't recall segregating my friends based upon the color of their skin. I do, however, recall a strong bias against children that weren't in my same age group. I also vaguely recall flipping out when I was very young when I was taken to a store and saw a man who was blind in one eye (it was pure white). Children discriminate based on things that don't match up with their own experiences, and I was no exception. I certainly never treated my mixed race peers any differently; I grew up with them.

While the t-shirt experiment is interesting, it lends credence to my own experience. Children will categorize things and some things (age) are little more important categorically than other things. The OP suggested that his children have grown up in an area where they're exposed to mixed races. Guess what? They probably genuinely don't feel any different toward their friends who "aren't like them." I'd bet money that if, on the other hand, you were to place an older child in with them (or a young one), they'd probably discriminate far more!

I think the study is flawed. The language used intentionally creates a bias. I think it would have been more appropriate if they had performed a test based upon showing pictures of people of mixed race and then asked the appropriate questions. I'd wager that someone smiling (regardless of color) would probably receive a "yes" if asked if they were friendly or nice. Likewise, someone with a miserable expression would be more apt to be viewed as "mean."

There's a whole lot more to the thought processes of a child than race, I'm afraid. Articles like this do nothing to aid race relations. Counter to the claims, I think these individuals are doing a gross disservice to our society. I guess I'm disgusted that they'd presume children are easily understood and, because of their limited experience, aren't smart enough to know what they're doing by being so judgmental.

Kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for.

My mother tells me that when she was very young she had never seen a black person before as the neighborhood she lived was all white (not segregated, just homogeneous.) She tells me that when her parents decided to move and put their house up for sale a black couple came to take a look at the house. When they drove up, she and her sister we so amazed that they shouted incessantly "Look, Mom, Look! They're black!"much to embarrassment of her parents. She tells me that she doesn't remember making any judgments about the people based on their color, but the remarks were obvious enough to show that yes, kids notice.

True enough.

I live in Korea, where plenty of newborns notice me and stare specifically at me until I'm out of view. I'm definitely the first non-Korean they've ever seen.

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