National Identity and Outgroup Attitudes in Turkish Cypriot Children

Husnu, S. & Mertan, B.

Introduction & Aims
Previous research regarding national identity and outgroup attitudes of children has been thoroughly invesitgated (Barrett, 2007), however studies in settings defined by intractable conflict between political, cultural or ethnic groups is less common. Mertan (2011) found that Turkish Cypriot girls report higher national identification than boys, however found no evidence of age effects. Additionally, Turkish Cypriot children reported high levels of ingroup favouritism. Intergroup bias is not uncommon among children in early and middle childhood (e.g., Aboud, 1988). However, research suggests that direct contact can encourage more positive intergroup attitudes in children (Aboud & Levy, 2000; Aboud, Mendelson, & Purdy, 2003). The current study aimed to explore the relationship between national identity, outgroup attitudes toward Greek Cypriots and intergroup contact in a group of Turkish Cypriot children who had not personally experienced war or conflict but had been exposed to it indirectly through parental story-telling, teachers, curriculum.

Eastern Mediterranean University

"For Your International Career"

Method
Participants
Eighty two native Turkish Cypriot children (38 male, 44 female) aged between 6-12 participated in this study Contact Measures A number of various questions were asked regarding contact with Greek Cypriots. Prior positive contact was measured with a single item How often do you experience positive contact with Greek Cypriots and positive story telling was assessed by How often do your family members (mother, father, grandparents, etc) tell positive and warm stories regarding Greek Cypriots?

Materials
Strength of Identification Scale (Barrett, 2007) consists of seven subscales: degree; affect; negative internationalization; positive internationalization; importance; pride (alpha= .51). Trait attribution task containing 12 positive (e.g. clean, friendly, clever) and negative (e.g. dirty, lazy, dishonest) traits. An ingroup bias score was obtained by subtracting negative ingroup traits from positive ingroup traits and an outgroup prejudice score was obtained from subtracting positive outgroup traits from negative outgroup traits.

Procedure
After receiving parental consent children were administered the questionnaire by the researchers in their own homes or at schools in a face-to-face fashion.

Results
National Identity in Turkish Cypriot Children
A 2 (Gender: Male vs. Female) x 2 (Age: Young vs. Old) between subjects ANOVA on the total national identity score was conducted. Only age had a significant effect on national identification F (1, 78) = 6.96, p = .01; such that older children reported higher national identification (M = 4.21) compared to younger children (M = 4.06).

Mediating Role of Positive Story Telling & Moderating Role of Prior Positive Contact on Outgroup Prejudice
To test whether the relationship between ingroup bias and outgroup prejudice was mediated by positive story telling when prior positive contact was high we used Hayes (2013) PROCESS computational procedure. Using a 95% bias-corrected bootstrap confidence interval based on 5000 bootstrap samples, positive story telling directly predicted less outgroup prejudice ( = -4.45, p = .001), and ingroup bias did not directly predict outgroup prejudice ( =- .24, p = .10), which indicates mediation (See Figure below). Moderation effect was found R2= .24, F = 8.40, p = .0001. The indirect effect was higher in children with average or low prior positive contact variable.

Ingroup Bias and Outgroup Prejudice

Turkish Cypriot children attributed more positive traits to the ingroup (t (85) = 14.08, p = .00) and more negative traits to the outgroup (t (85) = 2.31, p = .024), showing high ingroup bias and outgroup prejudice, respectively (see Table 1).

Prior Positive Contact

=.33*

Positive Story Telling

=- 13*

= -4.45*

Valence
Positive
M (SD)

Negative
M (SD)

Ingroup Outgroup

3.36 (1.99) 1.85 (2.01)

0.12 (.54) 1.30 (1.45)

Ingroup Bias

= -.24

Outgroup Prejudice

Table 1. Trait attributions according to target group and positive-negative valence

Figure 1. Moderated mediation of prior positive contact on indirect effect of ingroup bias on outgroup prejudice via positive story telling. Note: * p <.010

Discussion
The results of the study suggest Turkish Cypriot children showed high national identification as well as ingroup favouritism and outgroup prejudice toward Greek Cypriots. The effects of ingroup bias on outgroup prejudice was reduced with positive story telling, especially when children had not experienced direct positive contact themselves. Parental story telling helped to reduce prejudice when contact was low. These findings suggest how important the role of parental attitudes and contact can be when dealing with childhood prejudice, particularly in contexts such as Cyprus where direct contact is minimal. Future research can test the role of indirect contact techniques in reducing prejudice in such contexts.

References
Aboud, F. (1988). Children and prejudice. Oxford: Blackwell. Aboud, F.E., & Levy, S.R. (2000). Interventions to reduce prejudice and discrimination in children and adolescents. In S. Oskamp (Ed.), Reducing prejudice and discrimination (pp. 269293). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Aboud, F.E., Mendelson, M.J., & Purdy, K.T. (2003). Cross-race peer relations and friendship quality. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 27, 165173. Barrett, M. (2007). Childrens Knowledge, Beliefs and Feelings about Nations and National Groups. Hove: Psychology Press. Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis. New York: The Guilford Press. Mertan, B. (2011). Childrens perception of national identity and ingroup/outgroup attitudes: Turkish Cypriot school children. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 8, 74-86.