Conceptual priming affects the efficiency of White (but not racially minoritized) children’s social categorizations

Once children learn category-relevant traits and characteristics, they must automatically apply them to people to navigate social interactions. Yet, how social categorization becomes automatic is not entirely clear. The present work tests whether and how priming conceptual knowledge of social categories might influence the efficiency of social categorization across development. Children (N = 223; Mage = 7.24, SDage = 2.51; 132 girls, 90 boys; 50.26% racially minoritized; 49.74% White) were primed with gender-relevant, race-relevant, or neutral words and then gender-categorized racially diverse faces under a time constraint. Priming concepts of social categories delayed categorization for White children 6 years and younger. By 12 years, priming categories facilitated White children’s automatic categorizations. Conceptual priming did not affect the efficiency of racially minoritized children’s social categorizations. Top-down information then contributes to how social categorization becomes efficient, but children’s identity influences what information they use to inform categorizations.