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Immanent justice among gold coast children
LES POPULATIOI~3 AUTOCHTONES NOIRES D'AFRIQUE
171
IMMANENT JUSTICE AMONG GOLD COAST CHILDREN BY G. JAHODA
( University of Glasgow) The aim of this stud) was to investigate the extent to which Piaget's theory of immanent justice (i.e. the belief in the existence of automatic punishments which emanate from things themselves) is supported by data from African school children. The earlier cross-cultural investigations by Havighurst and Neugarten with chiidr,m from several American tribes are briefly reviewed. In order to make the rest,its comparable, their general approach was followed. Havighurst and Neugarten's adaptation of Piaget's story of the stolen apples was slightl) modified to make it sui.~able for the African environment, but the form o| tl~eir three questions was maintained. The sample throughout consisted of 60 boys and 60 girls, distributed evenly over school grades Primary ! to Middle IV, the age range being approximately 6-18. In the absence of significant se,;-differences, results for boys and girls were combined. The actua! questioning was done by an African interviewer in the vernacular. In cc,ntrast to Havighurst and Neugarten, me.re "yes" or "no" answers were not accepted without further probing. The main results were (I) a significant dech,ae in pure immanent justice responses with increasing age: (2) a correspondiag ris,e in naturalistic types of answer; (3) culturally determined magical explanations were also encountered. in the discussion of this material it is suggested that a fundamental ;Lmbiguity tn the notion of "immanent" justice as pat forward by Piaget precludes any meaningful quantitative comparisons. Furthermore, doubt is expressed conc¢rning Piaget's view that immanent justice should not be expected to decline in "primitive" society. Finally, Havighurst and Neugarten's apparent confirmation of Piaget's theory i~ demonstrated to be most probably only the consequence of their atomistic scoring procedure.
171
IMMANENT JUSTICE AMONG GOLD COAST CHILDREN BY G. JAHODA
( University of Glasgow) The aim of this stud) was to investigate the extent to which Piaget's theory of immanent justice (i.e. the belief in the existence of automatic punishments which emanate from things themselves) is supported by data from African school children. The earlier cross-cultural investigations by Havighurst and Neugarten with chiidr,m from several American tribes are briefly reviewed. In order to make the rest,its comparable, their general approach was followed. Havighurst and Neugarten's adaptation of Piaget's story of the stolen apples was slightl) modified to make it sui.~able for the African environment, but the form o| tl~eir three questions was maintained. The sample throughout consisted of 60 boys and 60 girls, distributed evenly over school grades Primary ! to Middle IV, the age range being approximately 6-18. In the absence of significant se,;-differences, results for boys and girls were combined. The actua! questioning was done by an African interviewer in the vernacular. In cc,ntrast to Havighurst and Neugarten, me.re "yes" or "no" answers were not accepted without further probing. The main results were (I) a significant dech,ae in pure immanent justice responses with increasing age: (2) a correspondiag ris,e in naturalistic types of answer; (3) culturally determined magical explanations were also encountered. in the discussion of this material it is suggested that a fundamental ;Lmbiguity tn the notion of "immanent" justice as pat forward by Piaget precludes any meaningful quantitative comparisons. Furthermore, doubt is expressed conc¢rning Piaget's view that immanent justice should not be expected to decline in "primitive" society. Finally, Havighurst and Neugarten's apparent confirmation of Piaget's theory i~ demonstrated to be most probably only the consequence of their atomistic scoring procedure.