Babies are already racist by nine months old, study finds

We tend to see children as innocents – but it turns out the seeds of prejudice can be sown very early in life.

Two linked studies at the University of Toronto show that infants aged six to nine months can already show racial bias.

Two experiments showed that infants ‘preferred’ to look at faces of members of their own race – and associated them with ‘happy’ music.

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In another experiment, babies ‘followed’ the gaze of a woman’s face – and were more likely to do so when it was a member of their own race.

The finding suggests that even at six to eight months of age, infants are biased towards learning from members of their own race.

‘The findings of these studies are significant for many reasons,’ said Dr. Kang Lee, professor at OISE’s Jackman Institute of Child Study, a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair and lead author of the studies.

‘The results show that race-based bias already exists around the second half of a child’s first year.’