UC Riverside

Children of color can be misperceived as being much older than they are. However, anecdotal evidence of this phenomenon has outpaced its empirical investigation. Utilizing a longitudinal sample of 245 children (50% assigned female at birth, 88.8% non-white), the current study examined adults’ perceptions of children’s age (APCA) over time (i.e., ages 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 years) to address questions regarding the shape of growth in APCA across childhood, predictors of growth, and how growth parameters (i.e., slope and intercept) may predict children’s educational (i.e., school grades and disciplinary actions) and socioemotional functioning (i.e., externalizing behaviors and social competence) at age 12. Four hundred adult raters provided over 15,000 ratings across more than 1,000 headshots of children from preschool to early adolescence. First, results indicated that growth in APCA proceeded linearly as perceived age ratings steadily increased with chronological age. There was also significant variation in patterns of linear change over time and estimated age values at age 12. Second, child sex assigned at birth and skin tone emerged as significant predictors of APCA over time. Adults’ overestimations of boys’ ages were greater than girls in early development (i.e., 4 to ~5.5 years), but girls were seen as older than boys in later development (i.e., ~ 5.5-12 years old). Children with darker skin tone ratings were perceived as older than those with lighter skin tones at all ages. Third, the APCA slope and intercept growth parameters did not significantly predict early adolescents’ educational and socioemotional functioning at age 12. Lastly, given the influence of pubertal status on the appearance of age, a supplementary, within-time analysis including the child’s pubertal status as a predictor of APCA at age 12 showed that the once-significant sex effect became non-significant, while the interaction between sex and skin tone became significant. Specifically, at age 12, adults rated girls with lighter skin tone as older than girls with darker skin tone, but skin tone was not related to APCA for boys. Together, these findings extend the evidentiary base for research on APCA while illuminating promising avenues for investigations of APCA in future research.