Reaction To Social Pressure From Adults Versus Peers Among Mexican, Mexican-American, And Anglo-American Rural Children

The purpose of this project was to investigate whether there was a significant difference in the adherence to conventional morality and the reaction to social pressure from adults versus peers among Mexican, Mexican-American, and Anglo-American children. The instrument used was the Moral Dilemmas Test (MDT) developed by Bronfenbrenner, Devereux, Suci, and Rodgers, which measures the reported readiness of children to engage in morally disapproved behavior and their reaction to social pressure exerted by adults and peers. The subjects were asked to respond to a series of conflict situations under three experimental conditions of confidentiality, scrutiny by parents, and scrutiny by peers. The test was administered in the spring of 1979 to 441 Junior High School students from four Northern California school districts. Eighty-two tests were administered in Spanish and 359 in English. There were 60 Mexican students, 60 Mexican-American students, and 60 Anglo-American students, half of them boys and half of them girls, who were randomly selected on a stratified basis. The findings showed that there were significant differences in the responses of the three groups to the MDT. Mexican children were more reluctant to engage in morally disapproved behavior than both Mexican-American and Anglo- American children. Mexican- American responses to conventional morality fell between those of Mexican and Anglo- American children. Anglo- American children scored lowest in conventional morality. The group most affected by social pressure, or the one which showed the larger difference between the base and the two experimental conditions was the Mexican-American group. The responses of Mexican-American children in this respect were significantly different from those of Mexican children. The three groups were differently affected by adult and peer social pressure. Mexican children scored significantly higher than Mexican-American children in their conformity to adult social pressure. Mexican children scored significantly lower than Anglo-American and Mexican-American children in the extent of conformity to peer social pressure. There was a significant sex effect in the responses of all students to the MDTs girls scored significantly higher than boys, and sex differences were significantly more pronounced in the Anglo-American group than in the Mexican group. No relationship was found between language spoken at home by Mexican and Mexican-American children and their responses to the MDT, nor was any relationship found between length of residency of Mexican children in the United States and their responses to the MDT