Co‐operative and competitive preferences and locus of control in Anglo‐American and Latvian‐American school‐age children

Abstract

The Social Behavior Inventory (SBI), a forced‐choice test to measure co‐operative‐competitive preferences, was administered to school‐age American (N=876) and Latvian (N=134) children and their parents. The American sample was drawn from thirty public schools in an urban area; the Latvian sample was obtained from six private schools in the midwest. The objectives were to study: (1) co‐operative‐competitive preferences of the two samples; (2) the relationship between children's cooperative‐competitive responses and locus of control tendencies (Nowicki‐Strickland Locus of Control Scale for Children), socioeconomic status, sex and age; (3) the relationship between children's responses and parent ratings on the SBI; (4) the differences of American and Latvian children on their co‐operative‐competitive preferences and locus of control tendencies. The results reveal that: (1) American and Latvian parents and children selected responses on the SBI in the co‐operative direction; (2) American and Latvian girls chose significantly more co‐operative responses than boys; (3) children (i.e., American and Latvian) who preferred co‐operative behaviours perceived themselves as internally controlled; (4) Latvian mothers perceived their children significantly more competitive than American mothers; (5) American mothers perceived their daughters significantly more co‐operative than Latvian mothers; and (6) American children perceived themselves significantly more co‐operative than Latvian children. Similarities exist between the two cultures but there is an indication that the Latvian sample is somewhat more competitive in nature, attributable perhaps to the socialization process of the Latvian subculture.