Development of racial identity in minority and majority children: An affect discrepancy model.

Proposes an affect discrepancy to explain the processes by which children come to know and identify with a minority or majority group. To test this model, 203 White and 91 Indian children in kindergarten and Grades 1 and 2 answered racial identity, preference, social distance and recognition questions by pointing to pictures of Whites, Indians, and Blacks. Several weeks later Ss completed measures of concrete operational thought and self-esteem. Indian children made more cross-racial choices than did Whites, even though Indians were more accurate than Whites in recognizing the pictures. Structural equation models indicated that for both groups, cognitive development was positively associated with own-group choices. Self-esteem was positively related to own-group choices for Whites but inversely related for Indians. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)