Is My Group Better? Investigating Hong Kong Ethnic Majority and Minority Children’s Socializing Preferences

• In Event: Examining familial and early developmental processes among ethnic majority and minority families in Asia

Abstract

Previous work shows that at an early age, children are attentive to the social groups to which they belong (ingroups). Young children are sensitive to not only their ethnic group membership (Dunham et al., 2013), but also the status their ingroups are perceived to hold in the society (Chen et al., 2018). However, little work has directly tested how the intersections of ethnicity and economic status may shift children’s preferences. For the first time, we examine this question in Hong Kong, a non-Western society where individuals of different ethnicities co-reside.

Across three studies, we examined group preferences among children from the Chinese ethnic majority and from the South/Southeast Asian (Asian) and the White ethnic minorities in Hong Kong to test how they weigh ethnicity and social status together. We hypothesized that children would distinguish their ethnic ingroup members from other ethnic groups (outgroups), and that status differences will shift children’s preferences of those same ethnic groups. Additionally, we expected Chinese children to show a stronger preference for socializing with members from their ingroups compared to White and Asian children due to their membership in the ethnic majority; White children may also show greater ingroup preference than Asian children due to their relatively higher status in Hong Kong.

In total, 115 Chinese (Study 1: Mage = 5.63 years, SD = 0.86 years; 52 girls), 84 Asian (Study 2a: Mage = 6.38 years, SD = 0.97 years; 42 girls), and 43 White (Study 2b: Mage = 5.81 years; SD = 1.07 years; 23 girls) children participated in the study. Parents also completed a short demographic questionnaire to provide information about the children’s background.

Participants completed two sets of trials, one in which the ingroup was matched with one of two outgroups (e.g., Chinese ingroup versus Asian outgroup) and one in which the ingroup was matched with the other outgroup (e.g., Chinese ingroup versus White outgroup). Children were also randomly assigned to one of two conditions, in which they were shown (a) their ethnic ingroup member as wealthy and an outgroup member as poor (ingroup-rich condition, indicative of high status for the ingroup), or (b) the ingroup member as poor and the outgroup member as wealthy (ingroup-poor condition, indicative of low status for the ingroup). Afterwards, children were asked to indicate their preference between their ingroup member and the outgroup member across eight trials involving different socializing scenarios.

Results (see Figure 1) showed that Chinese children preferred to socialize with their ethnic ingroup over their outgroup; this preference was especially robust when the comparison outgroup was Asian. White children showed no preference for either individual, regardless of outgroup ethnicity. Asian children preferred to socialize with outgroup over their ingroup members. Additionally, children overall preferred to socialize with ingroup members more if they were portrayed as being high in status (see Table 1). Taken together, these findings illuminate the degree to which ingroup preference is expressed at the individual, local, and global levels, especially in an Asian context.

Authors

• Eva E. Chen, National Tsing Hua University
  Presenting Author

• Shaocong Ma, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

• Manya Bala, University of Hong Kong (HKU)

• Julian Groves

• Sarah Elizabeth Gaither, Duke Univeristy