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The Other‐Race Effect in a Longitudinal Sample of 3‐, 6‐ and 9‐Month‐Old Infants: Evidence of a Training Effect
Author(s) -
Spangler Sibylle M.,
Schwarzer Gudrun,
Freitag Claudia,
Vierhaus Marc,
Teubert Manuel,
Fassbender Ina,
Lohaus Arnold,
Kolling Thorsten,
Graf Frauke,
Goertz Claudia,
Knopf Monika,
Lamm Bettina,
Keller Heidi
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
infancy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.361
H-Index - 69
eISSN - 1532-7078
pISSN - 1525-0008
DOI - 10.1111/j.1532-7078.2012.00137.x
Subject(s) - ethnic group , psychology , longitudinal study , race (biology) , developmental psychology , child development , large sample , longitudinal sample , demography , medicine , statistics , botany , mathematics , pathology , sociology , anthropology , biology
We investigated the development of the other‐race effect “ ORE ” in a longitudinal sample of 3‐, 6‐, and 9‐month‐old C aucasian infants. Previous research using cross‐sectional samples has shown an unstable ORE at 3 months, an increase at 6 months and full development at 9 months. In Experiment 1, we tested whether 9‐month‐olds showed the ORE with C aucasian and A frican faces. As expected, the 9‐month‐olds discriminated faces within their own ethnicity ( C aucasian) but not within the unfamiliar ethnicity ( A frican). In months. In Experiment 2, we longitudinally tested infants at 3, 6, and 9 months by presenting either the C aucasian or the A frican faces used in Experiment 1. In contrast to previous cross‐sectional studies and Experiment 1, we found that infants discriminated between all stimuli. Hence, we did not find the ORE in this longitudinal study even at 9 months. We assume that the infants in our longitudinal study showed no ORE because of previous repetitive exposure to African faces at 3 and 6 months. We argue that only a few presentations of faces from other ethnic categories sufficiently slow the development of the ORE .