Socio-Economic Differences in Size-Judgments of Discs and Coins by Chinese Primary VI Children in Hong Kong

Abstract

The present experimental data provide some cross-cultural support for Bruner and Goodman's (1947) hypothesis about perceptual accentuation. 20 Hong Kong Chinese children from a lower socio-economic level overestimated valued coins more than 15 children from a high socio-economic level. The two Primary Class VI samples used were matched for education and age, and both spoke the Cantonese dialect. There was also some evidence for Tajfel's (1957) ‘interserial’ and ‘intraserial effects’ more particularly for the lower socio-economic children, although similar trends were apparent for the smaller group of higher socio-economic children.