National identity and in-group/out-group attitudes with Greek-Cypriot children

Abstract

The primary purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the internalization of national identity and in-group/out-group attitudes among Greek-Cypriot children. We also aimed to investigate whether the internalization of national identity develops as a single/unified construct, or is manifested as the result of independent dimensions (i.e., national pride, degree of internalization, affect towards national group, etc.). Moreover, we examine whether the degree of national identity and “enemy images” (i.e., out-group stereotypes) are dependent on age and gender. In the present study, the participants were 75 Greek-Cypriot children, 40 boys and 35 girls with mean age of 10.03 years. The participants were divided into two age groups; younger group (n = 18) and older group (n = 57) with a mean age of 6.95 years for the younger group and 11.00 years for the older group. The results provide evidence against the thesis that the internalization of national identity in Greek-Cypriot children is a unified and consistent construct. In fact, internal consistency analysis reveals that each dimension of national identity is relatively independent. Further analyses show that none of the aspects of national identity correlate significantly with either positive or negative out-group attitudes. The internalization of national pride, however, shows a significant positive correlation with in-group positive bias. Accordingly, national pride and a positive internalization of national identity are negatively correlated with negative in-group attitudes. Age and gender comparisons reveal that girls show significantly higher scores on the importance of national identity subscale, and there is also a significant age by gender interaction on the same subscale showing that older boys have higher scores than younger boys but younger girls have significantly higher scores than older girls. The results of our study are discussed in relation to the sociocultural context of Greek-Cypriot society and the effects of the collective conflict experiences in the development of enemy images in childhood.