Cognitive and Affective Aspects of Children's National Attitudes

The purpose of the study was to investigate the joint effects of the child's level of intellectual maturity and of his system of preferences on his ability to understand that people other than himself (nationals of his own and of other countries that he ‘liked’ or ‘disliked’) would behave on the basis of principles guiding his own behaviour. The development of this ability to ‘reciprocate’ was investigated using tests of a fairly concrete nature and one actual play situation. The study confirmed previous findings, that as a function of age the children's preference for their own country becomes more marked and consistent and that they are also increasingly able to adopt the point of view of others; it has also shown, however, that this capacity is affected by the order of preferences in the sense that it is achieved with greater difficulty for countries which are disliked. These combined effects of age and affectivity, together with clear‐cut differences that were found between the behaviour of children from different social backgrounds, suggest that the development of national and international attitudes can be best understood when three major variables are taken into account: level of intellectual development, breadth of relevant experience, and the socially derived system of preferences.