A longitudinal study of the development of religious preference and prejudice in catholic christian children

The present study was aimed at studying the development of religious preference and prejudice in Catholic Christian Children by taking a longitudinal design. The subjects for this study consisted of 20 children of 5 ½ years of age who were selected on a random basis from Ranchi city of Jharkhand. These children were studied through a pictorial test of religious preference-prejudice at an interval of every six months till they attained the age of 08 years. Analysis of results showed that Catholic Christian children were highly ethnocentric and that ethnocentrism developed faster than prejudice in them. By the age of 7 ½ years prejudice became stable and Muslims were their target of prejudice.