Children in Multicultural Malaysia Prefer Their Ingroup Over an Outgroup but Imitate Indiscriminately

Abstract

This study scrutinised whether children's imitative tendency varied depending on the model's ethnicity in a multicultural nation, Malaysia. 123 Malaysian Chinese and Malay children aged four to six were shown how to complete two goal-oriented, tool-use tasks using either an inefficient but normative method or an efficient alternative. One-third of the children watched a demonstration by an ingroup model (Malaysian Chinese/Malay), another one-third watched a more-familiar outgroup model (a Westerner/White individual) and the remaining watched a less-familiar outgroup model (African). Children were also asked to rate their preference for each model and the models' knowledge of Malaysia. Children were equivalently likely to copy the inefficient tool use regardless of the model type, despite having a stronger preference and perceived model knowledge for their ingroup model. We also observed unexpected imitative patterns in a quarter of our sample. Our findings offered insights into the importance of considering cultural contexts when studying children's social learning.