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Ethnic role taking: The effects of preference and self‐identification (1)
Author(s) -
Aboud Frances E.,
Mitchell Frank G.
Publication year - 1977
Publication title -
international journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1464-066X
pISSN - 0020-7594
DOI - 10.1080/00207597708247370
Subject(s) - ethnic group , psychology , kinship , attribution , social psychology , preference , sociology , anthropology , economics , microeconomics
Children aged 6 to 9 years were asked to take the role of people from different ethnic groups. They were to do this by attributing kinship preferences to persons from their own ethnic group, from their most liked ethnic group and from their most disliked ethnic group. The first experiment conducted with White Americans demonstrated that they were able to attribute similar‐ethnicity preferences to people from their own and from their liked ethnic group, but not to people from a disliked group. Two sorts of errors were made: those resulting from egocentrism and those resulting from undifferentiated perception. A second experiment was conducted with Canadian Indian children in which more extensive attitude and perception measures were taken. Multiple regression analyses suggested that kinship attribution was based more on similarity between role person and kin than it was on the child's own egocentric preferences. The Indian children also made fewer errors on the disliked role. This was discussed in terms of conflicts about group identity and preferences.