EFFECTS OF CONFIRMATORY AND CONTRADICTORY STIMULI AND DEVELOPMENT ON CHILDRENS INTERGROUP ATTRIBUTION

Intergroup attributional differences were investigated among Canadian children at three developmental levels who received confirmatory and c ontradictory stimuli about ingroup and outgroup individuals. Participa nts were 83 public school students divided into three levels of social attribution development. An intergroup attribution questionnaire asse ssed the degree of internality of participants' explanations of the su ccess and failure of ingroup and outgroup members, Results indicated t hat the participants responded differently to stimuli that confirmed e thnocentric assumptions than they responded to stimuli that contradict ed these assumptions. The precise nature of the responses, however, de pended on the developmental level of the participant: Whereas younger children tended to use attributions that favored the ethnic ingroup, o lder children actually used attributions that favored the outgroup.