White US Parents’ Racial Socialization Messages During a Lab-Based Discussion Task Predict Declines in their White Children’s Pro-White Biases

Although parent-child conversations about race are recommended to curb White US children’s racial biases, little work has tested their influence. We designed a guided (subtle and blatant) racism discussion task for US White parents and their 8-12-year-old White children. We explored whether children’s and parents’ (1) pro-White implicit biases changed pre-to-post conversation, (2) racial socialization messages (color conscious, external attributions for prejudiced behavior, colorblind racial ideology) predicted changes in their implicit biases, and (3) associations varied by the type of racism discussed. Children’s and parents’ biases significantly declined, pre-to-post discussion. Parents’ color conscious messages predicted greater declines, and messages reflecting colorblind racial ideology and external attributions predicted smaller declines in children’s bias. These patterns were observed during discussions of subtle, but not blatant bias. Effects of children’s messages on parents’ bias were mixed. Our findings suggest that color conscious parent-child discussions may effectively reduce implicit pro-White bias in White children.