COOPERATIVE AND COMPETITIVE BEHAVIOR OF CUBAN-AMERICAN AND ANGLO-AMERICAN CHILDREN.

SUMMARY Two groups of Cuban-American children, one attending a Cuban private school and another attending a public school, and a group of Anglo-American children were compared in their performance on the Madsen Cooperation Board. The total number of S s was 144 boys and girls aged six to eight years, classified as lower middle class or below, living in an urban environment. Under group reward instructions, Ss of all three groups demonstrated their ability to perform cooperatively, even if to different degrees. The three groups decreased in cooperation when the instructions were changed to emphasize the attainment of reward on an individual basis. However, only the Anglo-American Ss showed a significant increase in competitiveness with the change to individual reward instructions. The Anglo-American group was also the only one maintaining a significant level of competitiveness throughout the entire phase of individual reward instructions. No significant difference in the levels of performance of the two Cuban-American groups was found under group and individual reward instructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Psychology is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)