Young children have no trouble discussing issues of race while young teens, influenced by social taboos, avoid the topic in social settings, according to a joint study from professors at Harvard Business School and Tufts published last month.

The paper, entitled “Learning (not) to talk about race: When older children underperform in social categorization,” is one of two new studies on race written by Business School Professor Michael I. Norton along with lead author Evan P. Apfelbaum, a PhD candidate at Tufts, and Samuel R. Sommers, an assistant professor at Tufts.

“The impetus for the paper on children was trying to understand the extent that we see race yet ‘don’t,’” Apfelbaum said. “We know that infants as young as six months can discriminate between different races, yet children eventually come to the conclusion that using this principle to describe people based on skin color is inappropriate, even when it is helpful information.”

The researchers based their study on the board game “Guess Who?” The players were presented with a set of pictures and asked questions to determine the randomly-chosen picture of the other player.

“In our version, half of the participants were white and half were African Americans,” Norton added. “The question we faced was whether a person would use race in their description as they would gender or height.”

“We found that young kids were willing to ask about race, but the 10 and 11 year olds acted more like adults—they were less willing to ask about race versus other characteristics,” Norton said.

According to Apfelbaum, the primary motivation behind trying to ignore the issue of race is “a desire to not appear prejudiced. Being called a racist is one of the most undesirable terms for an individual.”

He said he believed that these individuals were following the wrong strategy, despite their well-meaning intentions.

“What we find, ironically, is that individuals most concerned about what other people think of them on the issue of race will be the most colorblind in their interactions,” he said. “This is the behavior that makes them look more prejudiced in the eyes of black observers when the context of race is relevant.”

Apfelbaum pointed out that the researchers are still studying how individuals can best handle the topic of race in social settings without appearing prejudiced.

“Sweeping race under the rug is not an effective strategy,” Apfelbaum said. “Race has to be engaged in some regards.

Through this research, however, we have a very exciting prospect for intervention.

The fact that students start to harness social norms around the age of 10 suggests that this is a point where we can introduce positive intergroup behaviors and correct the ineffective behaviors that emerge.”

—Staff writer Prateek Kumar can be reached at kumar@fas.harvard.edu.