Castelli et al. (2007)

Who and when

Castelli et al. (2007)

Method

Laboratory Experiment

Aim

To test the loyal member effect

Participants

36 male and female children ages 4-7

Procedure

1. Interview to get to know the children

2. 2 images of kids playing were shown to each child individually. (on was of two white kids playing, and the other was 1 black kind and one white kid)

3. The children were told the kids in the image were playing happily

4. Participants were told to rank the images with positive or negative adjectives (happy/sad, clean/dirty) 

Findings

Children preferred kids in their ingroup and evaluated members of their groups based on who they interacted with.

Strengths

• High internal validity

• Easy to replicate

Limitations

• Low ecological validity

• Limited sample