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New research into childhood prejudice suggests that loyalty and disloyalty play a more important role than previously thought in how children treat members of their own and other groups. Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), a study into the ‘black sheep effect’, shows that children treat disloyalty in their own group more harshly than disloyalty within different groups.

Professor Dominic Abrams, of Kent University, who led the research team, says the findings will be valuable when applied to the classroom.

“This research has implications for peer victimisation and bullying as well as for the understanding and management of prejudice and discrimination in schools“.

For the past 30 years, research into prejudice between different groups suggested that children progress from regarding groups of people in simple terms of difference, such as White or Black, to regarding people more as unique individuals. However, this does not easily explain why prejudice happens at different ages for different types of groups or why adults continue to show prejudice.

The new research was stimulated by evidence that adults may show strong bias in favour of or against groups while also being staunch critics of individual members within those same groups. Rather than becoming less prejudiced with age, young people can grow to support their own group in a more targeted and sophisticated way. They focus not just on whether peers belong to their own group, but on how well they conform to social values, such as loyalty to the group.

Carried out with more than 800 children aged between 5-12 years, a series of 7 experimental studies showed that children in this early age group favoured loyal peers more if these peers belonged to the same group as themselves than if they belonged to a different group. Disloyalty within outside groups was seen to be more valued and not criticized in the same way as it would be from members of their own group. This “black-sheep effect” was found within national groups (French and English) and within gender groups where it was clearer for boys than girls.

The research consistently supported a new model, known as the Development Model of Subjective Group Dynamics, challenging previous theories of childhood prejudice. According to Professor Abrams, a more complete developmental account of ‘intergroup’ prejudice must understand not just why particular groups are victimized but also how children decide which individuals within those groups should be singled out for specially positive or specially negative treatment.

Note for prejudice

In its original use, the word prejudice refers to prejudgement: i.e. making a decision before becoming aware of the relevant facts of a case. The word has commonly been used in certain restricted contexts, particularly in the expression 'racial prejudice'. Initially this referred to making a judgement about a person based on their race, before receiving information relevant to the particular issue on which a judgement was being made; it came, however, to be widely used to refer to any hostile attitude towards people based on their race. Subsequently the word has come to be widely so interpreted in this way in contexts other than those relating to race. The meaning now is frequently any unreasonable attitude that is unusually resistant to rational influence.

Note for Loyalty

Loyalty evolved as devotion for one's family, gene-group and friends. Loyalty comes most naturally amongst small groups or tribes where the prospect of the whole casting out the individual seems like the ultimate, unthinkable rejection.
In a feudal society, centered on personal bonds of mutual obligation, accounting for precise degrees of protection and fellowship can prove difficult. Loyalty in these circumstances can become a matter of extremes: alternative groups may exist, but lack of mobility will foster a personal sense of loyalty.
The rise of states (and later nation states) meant the harnessing of the "loyalty" concept to foster allegiance to the sovereign or established government of one’s country, also personal devotion and reverence to the sovereign and royal family.
Wars of religion and their interminglings with wars of states have seen loyalty used in religious senses too, involving faithful support of a chosen or traditional set of beliefs or of sports representatives. And in modern times marketing has postulated loyalties to abstract concepts such as the brand. Customer churn has become the opposite of loyalty, just as high treason once stood as the opposite of the same idea. Compare loyalty card.

About Researcher:

Professor Dominic Abrams
Professor of Social Psychology
Director of the Centre for the Study of Group Processes

Research interests 
My main areas of current research are: (1) Social identity and intergroup relations (e.g. the contact hypothesis, nationalism, collective protest, contemporary aspects of prejudice), (2) Deviance (particularly the subjective group dynamics model being developed in collaboration with J. Marques), (3) Social identity in organisational contexts, (4) Group consensus processes (5) The self-concept and self-regulation of behaviour. I would welcome applications from potential doctoral students in these areas.

Contact:
Department of Psychology
Keynes College
University of Kent
Canterbury, Kent
CT2 7NP
United Kingdom

Tel. +44 (0)1227 827475
Fax. +44 (0)1227 827030
Email: Dominic Abrams 

About Fund

Economic and Social Research Council
The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is one of the seven Research Councils in the United Kingdom. It is state-funded (via the Department of Trade and Industry's Office of Science and Innovation), and provides funding and support for research and training work in social and economic issues.

The ESRC is based at Polaris House in Swindon, which is also the location of the head offices of four other UK Research Councils and RCUK.

The ESRC's mission is:
To promote and support, by any means, high-quality basic, strategic and applied research and related postgraduate training in the social sciences; 
To advance knowledge and provide trained social scientists who meet the needs of users and beneficiaries, thereby contributing to the economic competitiveness of the United Kingdom, the effectiveness of public services and policy, and the quality of life; 
To provide advice on, and disseminate, knowledge; and promote public understanding of the social sciences.