School of Psychology, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
School of Psychology, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, Northern Ireland.
J Community Psychol. 2020 Jul;48(5):1512-1526. doi: 10.1002/jcop.22344. Epub 2020 Mar 16.
How and when children develop an understanding of group boundaries have implications for conflict resolution. When social divisions are not perceptually distinct, symbols become particularly important. Framed by the Social Identity Development Theory, this study was designed to assess children's categorization of symbols with conflict-related group labels.
In Northern Ireland, 218 children (M = 8.14, SD = 1.83, range 5-11 years old) participated in a novel task designed for this study. The sample was evenly split by child gender and community background.
Children sorted symbols above chance with both the hypothesized national (i.e., British/Irish) and ethno-political (i.e., Protestant/Catholic) labels, showing a stronger association for the former. Sorting was also stronger for ingroup symbols, compared to outgroup symbols, and increased with age.
These findings reflect the potential role that a divided social world has on the development of children's understanding of conflict-related groups. The results also have implications for intergroup relations among children in divided societies.
儿童如何以及何时形成对群体界限的理解对冲突解决具有影响。当社会分歧无法被直观地区分时，符号就变得尤为重要。本研究以社会认同发展理论为框架，旨在评估儿童对具有冲突相关群体标签的符号进行分类的能力。
在北爱尔兰，218 名儿童（M=8.14，SD=1.83，年龄范围为 5-11 岁）参与了这项专为该研究设计的新任务。该样本在儿童性别和社区背景方面平均分配。
儿童以假设的民族（即英国/爱尔兰）和族裔政治（即新教/天主教）标签对符号进行了高于随机水平的分类，前者的关联更强。与外群体符号相比，内群体符号的分类更强烈，且随着年龄的增长而增强。
这些发现反映了分裂的社会环境对儿童对冲突相关群体的理解发展的潜在影响。研究结果还对分裂社会中儿童之间的群体关系具有启示意义。
