The present study investigated the development of racial categorization and explicit racial biases in Singaporean Chinese preschoolers (N = 73). Three- to six-year-olds were found to be generally adept at categorizing novel faces by race and displayed significant improvements in their racial categorization abilities at six years old. Additionally, the strength of children's racial preferences varied along the developmental trajectory. While three- and four-year-olds did not exhibit own-race preferences, five- and six-year-olds preferred to befriend own-race children and preferentially assigned desirable jobs to own-race adults. None of the age groups, however, displayed preferences for either race when assigning undesirable jobs to adults, pointing to an absence of negative outgroup bias from three to six years old. Lastly, children who were better able to categorize novel faces by race also showed stronger tendencies to assign undesirable jobs to other-race adults and thus stronger outgroup negativity. Together, our findings suggest that ingroup positivity precedes outgroup negativity, and that racial categorization plays an important role in the development of negative outgroup bias, hence providing further support for developmental theories on intergroup bias formation.

本研究调查了新加坡华裔学龄前儿童（N = 73）种族分类和明显种族偏见的发展。发现三到六岁的孩子通常擅长按种族对新面孔进行分类，并且在六岁时他们的种族分类能力显着提高。此外，儿童种族偏好的强度随着发展轨迹而变化。虽然 3 岁和 4 岁的孩子没有表现出对自己种族的偏好，但 5 岁和 6 岁的孩子更喜欢与自己种族的孩子交朋友，并优先将理想的工作分配给自己种族的成年人。然而，在将不受欢迎的工作分配给成年人时，没有一个年龄组表现出对任何一个种族的偏好，这表明在 3 到 6 岁之间没有负面的外群体偏见。最后，能够更好地按种族对新面孔进行分类的孩子也表现出更倾向于将不受欢迎的工作分配给其他种族的成年人，因此更强烈的外群体消极情绪。总之，我们的研究结果表明，内群体积极性先于外群体消极性，并且种族分类在消极外群体偏见的发展中起着重要作用，因此为关于群体间偏见形成的发展理论提供了进一步的支持。