Color bias in children revisited: Findings from Portugal

In earlier studies of preschool children in the United States, Western Europe, and Asia a bias has been demonstrated favoring the color white relative to the color black, and a bias favoring light-skinned human figures relative to dark-skinned figures. In this study, procedures used in previous studies were translated and administered to 5- and 8-year-old children in Portugal. Both types of bias were found among the Portuguese children providing additional evidence that the pro-white and pro-light-skinned biases are pancultural tendencies. The biases were not different by gender, but they were higher among 8-year-old children than 5-year-old children and, hence, seemed more likely to be attributable to cultural learning.