Around the globe, individuals are affected by exclusion, discrimination, and prejudice targeting individuals from racial, ethnic, and immigrant backgrounds as well as crimes based on gender, nationality, and culture (United Nations General Assembly, 2016). Unfortunately, children are often the targeted victims (Costello & Dillard, 2019). What is not widely understood is that the intergroup biases underlying systemic racism start long before adulthood with children displaying notable signs of intergroup bias, sometimes before entering grade school. Intergroup bias refers to the tendency to evaluate members of one’s own group more favorably than someone not identified with one’s group and is typically associated with prejudicial attitudes. Children are both the victims and the perpetrators of bias. In this review, we provide evidence of how biases emerge in childhood, along with an analysis of the significant role of intergroup friendships on enhancing children’s well-being and reducing prejudice in childhood. The review focuses predominantly on the context of race, with the inclusion of several other categories, such as nationality and religion. Fostering positive cross-group friendships in childhood helps to address the negative long-term consequences of racism, discrimination, and prejudice that emerges in childhood and continues through to adulthood.

在全球范围内，个人受到针对来自种族、民族和移民背景的个人的排斥、歧视和偏见以及基于性别、国籍和文化的犯罪的影响（联合国大会，2016 年）。不幸的是，儿童往往是目标受害者（Costello & Dillard，2019 年）。没有被广泛理解的是，系统性种族主义背后的群体间偏见早在成年之前就开始了，儿童表现出明显的群体间偏见迹象，有时在进入小学之前。群体间偏见是指对自己群体成员的评价比不认同自己群体的人更有利的倾向，通常与偏见态度有关。儿童既是偏见的受害者，也是偏见的肇事者。在这次审查中，我们提供了关于偏见如何在童年时期出现的证据，并分析了群体间友谊在增强儿童幸福感和减少童年偏见方面的重要作用。审查主要侧重于种族背景，包括其他几个类别，例如国籍和宗教。在童年时期培养积极的跨群体友谊有助于解决童年时期出现并持续到成年期的种族主义、歧视和偏见的负面长期后果。