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This study of self-perception and achievement among Black adolescents surveyed 248 thirteen- and fourteen-year-old eighth graders in 1980 who were previously surveyed as ten- and eleven-year-old fifth graders in 1977. The major devel opmental dimensions investigated were stability—whether or not these youngsters exhibited self-perception and/or achievement patterns of an erratic turmoil ridden or con tinuous nature, and chunge—the nature of the differences found in self-perception and achievement between the pre- adolescent and adolescent periods. Data are presented also on the White youngsters included in the survey. The objec tive of providing these data is to assess whether adolescent development occurs differently in Black and White Ameri can culture. Along this line the problematic tradition of generalizing to Black children, the patterns of cognition and performance found in White children, and some ideological problems of critical importance to an emerging "Black" psychology are discussed. The findings indicate that the developmental pattern of Black adolescents may be charac terized as one of positive instability. Some reasons are presented why adolescent development may differ across cultural (racial) lines, and further study of the possibility is urged.

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The author studied 101 black and 412 white fifth-grade students and found no significant racial differences on any measures of general or area-specific (i.e., school, peers, home) self-esteem when socioeconomic status (SES) was controlled but found significant differences by SES on most measures when race was controlled. There was a positive correlation between self-concept of ability and SES when race was controlled, but when SES was controlled black children scored significantly higher than did white children. Black and lower-SES subjects scored significantly lower than other subjects on academic achievement and achievement orientation. This study highlights the need to move from the current concern with the psychological consequences of desegregation for black children toward addressing the misfit relationship between all lower-SES children and the school.

Dehumanization is observed in adults across cultures and is thought to motivate the worst forms of human violence. The age of first expression and the degree of socialization required to foster dehumanization remains largely untested. Here we show that several different representations of humanness, including a novel one, readily elicit blatant dehumanization in adults and children (5-12 years of age). We also find that dehumanizing responses in both age groups are associated with stronger perception of outgroup inferiority and a willingness to punish outgroup transgressions. Results rule out the need for exposure to cultural norms throughout adolescents and adulthood before observing significant outgroup dehumanization. We argue these findings provide support for the hypothesis that dehumanization emerges with theory of mind abilities in early childhood rather than resulting from a more general-purpose mechanism that is a by-product of adult abilities for metaphorical reasoning and social learning.

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