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.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In a study of mainly white 5-, 7- and 10-year olds, there was no racial bias at age 5 in ratings of pain of black and white children after a needle stick.
“The study found that there was no racial bias at age 5.”
From Reducing Racial Inequities in Health: Using What We Already Know to Take Action (2019) · cites this paper as [112]
Research indicates that a lack of empathy develops early in life.
“Research also indicates that a lack of empathy develops early in life [112].”
From Reducing Racial Inequities in Health: Using What We Already Know to Take Action (2019) · cites this paper as [112]
In that study, children showed a weak bias (blacks feel less pain) at age 7.
“However, children showed a weak bias (blacks feel less pain) at age 7.”
From Reducing Racial Inequities in Health: Using What We Already Know to Take Action (2019) · cites this paper as [112]
By age 10, there was a strong, reliable racial bias with children rating the pain of the black child less than the white one.
“But by age 10, there was a strong, reliable racial bias with children rating the pain of the black child less than the white one.”
From Reducing Racial Inequities in Health: Using What We Already Know to Take Action (2019) · cites this paper as [112]
Cites
Comparing correlated correlation coefficients
Meng, X.-L., Rosenthal, R., & Rubin, D. B. (1992) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.111.1.172 · Cited by 2,472 · see citing works
Scheidegger, M., Walter, M., Lehmann, M., Metzger, C., Grimm, S., Boeker, H., Boesiger, P., Henning, A., & Seifritz, E. (2012) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0044799 · Cited by 282 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Hoffman, K. M., Trawalter, S., Axt, J. R., & Oliver, M. N. (2016) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1516047113 · Cited by 2,486 · see citing works
Self-citationReducing Racial Inequities in Health: Using What We Already Know to Take Action
Williams, D. R., & Cooper, L. A. (2019) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph16040606 · Cited by 415 · see citing works
- Authors
- Dore, R. A., Hoffman, K. M., Lillard, A. S., & Trawalter, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Virginia (US)
- Corresponding author
- Dore, Rebecca A.
- Venue
- British Journal of Developmental Psychology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2014-02-28
- Volume
- 32
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 218-231
- ISSN
- 0261-510X (ISSN-L)
- 2044-835X
- OpenAlex
- W1972067395
- Cited by
- 88
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 20 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 4
- FWCI
- 15.15
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- British Journal of Developmental Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Racial and Ethnic Identity Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Keywords
- racial bias, pain perception, intergroup perception, child development, racial stereotypes, black-white disparities, interracial contact, racial attitudes
- MeSH terms
- Age Factors, Child, Child Development, Female, Humans, Male, Pain, Social Perception, Racism
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
