Research Article
Open access
Published on 21 December 2021
Download pdf
Zhang,C. (2021). The Development of Racial Attitudes among Chinese Adolescents and Adults. Communications in Humanities Research,1,55-63.
Export citation

The Development of Racial Attitudes among Chinese Adolescents and Adults

Chenhao Zhang *,1,
  • 1 Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

https://doi.org/10.54254/2753-7064/1/ICEIPI_236

Abstract

Race and race-related issues are pervasive in the United States, causing detrimental consequences at individual and societal levels. Not only in the United states, racial conflict also exists in racially homogeneous countries, such as China, given the rising economic development and cultural communications between Chinese society and other nations. The present article aims to reveal the development of racial attitudes among Chinese adolescents and adults. We assessed implicit and explicit racial attitudes toward Black and White people among 60 Chinese participants (M age = 18.04; 34 female). Participants’ implicit racial attitudes were measured via an Implicit Association Test (IAT), and their explicit racial attitudes were measured via an explicit scale. We found that Chinese adolescents and adults displayed both implicit and explicit racial biases against black people; however, they did not show implicit or explicit racial biases against white people. We also found that participants’ implicit and explicit racial biases were not affected by their age or gender.

Keywords

implicit racial attitude, explicit racial attitude, adolescents, adults, development

[1]. China: Covid-19 Discrimination Against Africans. (2020, October 28). Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/05/china-covid-19-discrimination-against-africans

[2]. Minorities Who “Whiten” Job Resumes Get More Interviews. (2017, May 17). HBS Working Knowledge. https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes-get-more-interviews

[3]. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Education, D. O. B. A. S. S. A., Justice, C. O. L. A., Committee on Proactive Policing: Effects on Crime, Communities, and Civil Liberties, Majmundar, M. K., & Weisburd, D. (2018). Proactive Policing: Effects on Crime and Communities (National Academies Press of Sciences, Engineering, Medicine Consensus Study Report). National Academies Press.

[4]. Brenan, B. M. (2021, June 22). New Highs Say Black People Treated Less Fairly in Daily Life. Gallup.Com. https://news.gallup.com/poll/317564/new-highs-say-black-people-treated-less-fairly-daily-life.aspx

[5]. Greenwald, A. G., & Banaji, M. R. (1995). Implicit social cognition: Attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes. Psychological Review, 102(1), 4–27. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.102.1.4

[6]. Baron, A. S., & Banaji, M. R. (2006). The Development of Implicit Attitudes. Evidence of Race Evaluations From Ages 6 and 10 and Adulthood. Psychological Science, 17(1), 53–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2005.01664.x

[7]. Dunham, Y., Chen, E. E., & Banaji, M. R. (2013). Two Signatures of Implicit Intergroup Attitudes. Psychological Science, 24(6), 860–868. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612463081

[8]. Scott, K. E., Shutts, K., & Devine, P. G. (2020). Parents’ Expectations for and Reactions to Children’s Racial Biases. Child Development, 91(3), 769–783. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13231

[9]. Currarini, S., Jackson, M. O., & Pin, P. (2010). Identifying the roles of race-based choice and chance in high school friendship network formation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(11), 4857–4861. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0911793107

[10]. Beattie, G., Cohen, D., & McGuire, L. (2013). An exploration of possible unconscious ethnic biases in higher education: The role of implicit attitudes on selection for university posts. Semiotica, 2013(197). https://doi.org/10.1515/sem-2013-0087

[11]. Setoh, P., Lee, K. J. J., Zhang, L., Qian, M. K., Quinn, P. C., Heyman, G. D., & Lee, K. (2019). Racial Categorization Predicts Implicit Racial Bias in Preschool Children. Child Development, 90(1), 162–179. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12851

[12]. Qian, M., Heyman, G. D., Quinn, P. C., Messi, F. A., Fu, G., & Lee, K. (2021). Age-related differences in implicit and explicit racial biases in Cameroonians. Developmental Psychology, 57(3), 386–396. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001149

[13]. Qian, M. K., Heyman, G. D., Quinn, P. C., Messi, F. A., Fu, G., & Lee, K. (2016). Implicit Racial Biases in Preschool Children and Adults From Asia and Africa. Child Development, 87(1), 285–296. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12442

[14]. Greenwald, A. G., Nosek, B. A., & Banaji, M. R. (2003). Understanding and using the Implicit Association Test: I. An improved scoring algorithm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(2), 197–216. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.2.197

[15]. Dunham, Y., Baron, A. S., & Banaji, M. R. (2008). The development of implicit intergroup cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12(7), 248–253. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2008.04.006

[16]. Lane, K. A., Kang, J., & Banaji, M. R. (2007). Implicit Social Cognition and Law. Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 3(1), 427–451. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.lawsocsci.3.081806.112748

Cite this article

Zhang,C. (2021). The Development of Racial Attitudes among Chinese Adolescents and Adults. Communications in Humanities Research,1,55-63.

Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.

Disclaimer/Publisher's Note

The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s). EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.

About volume

Volume title: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Educational Innovation and Philosophical Inquiries (ICEIPI 2021), Part 2

Conference website: https://www.iceipi.org/
ISBN:978-1-915371-02-7(Print) / 978-1-915371-03-4(Online)
Conference date: 12 August 2021
Editor:C. Rowley
Series: Communications in Humanities Research
Volume number: Vol.1
ISSN:2753-7064(Print) / 2753-7072(Online)

© 2024 by the author(s). Licensee EWA Publishing, Oxford, UK. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. Authors who publish this series agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the series right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this series.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the series's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this series.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See Open access policy for details).