The Characteristics Of Meta-stereotype And Its Influence On The Intergroup Relations Of Migrant Children And Urban Children

For a long time, migrant children as one of disadvantaged groups have aroused widespread attention of the whole society. Migrant children and urban children generated by the household registration system show distinct intergroup feature, but the research on intergroup relations of these two groups has been rare. Because the beliefs regarding the stereotype that outgroup members hold about his or her own group have a significant impact on intergroup contact, it’s important to examine the characteristics of meta-stereotype and its Influence on the intergroup relations of migrant children and urban Children under the level of intergroup.Based on questionnaire and situation experiment, migrant children and urban children were selected to participate in the research. In terms of appearance, personality, behavior, learning and interpersonal, this study revealed the content and nature of meta-stereotypes, defined functional mechanism of meta-stereotype on intergroup contact, and examined the effect of meta-stereotype manipulations on intergroup relations under different contact situations. Through three parts of the research, we get the following conclusions:(1) Meta-stereotypes of migrant children and urban children had both positive and negative attributes. Specifically, migrant children held a significant negative meta-stereotype, and urban children showed a positive bias.(2) There were significant differences of meta-stereotypes and intergroup anxieties between migrant children and urban children, meta-stereotype of migrant children was more negative than that of urban children, and migrant children reported higher levels of intergroup anxiety when they contacted with urban children. However, there were no significant differences of quantities and qualities of intergroup contact between migrant children and urban children. (3) There was main effect of migrating time in meta-stereotype, intergroup anxiety and quantity of contact. This indicated that as migrating time goes by, the levels of negative meta-stereotype and intergroup anxiety tended to reduce, and quantity of contact was an increasing trend. Post hoc comparisons found that one year is an important turning point in migrating time.(4) Mediating effect analysis showed that meta-stereotypes of migrant children and urban children were negatively associated with intergroup contacts and the relationships were partially mediated by intergroup anxieties. The sizes of mediating effect of migrant children and urban children were 0.224 and 0.157 respectively, the proportion of the total effect of the two groups that was mediated were about 48.2% and 37.2%.(5) Mediated moderating effect analysis found that both unrestricted model and restricted model had goodness of fit, the amount of chi-square value did not significantly change. This indicated that there was no significant difference between the two models, it was suggested that mediated moderating effect was not significant.(6) There were no significant effects of meta-stereotype manipulations, group membership and contact situations on the cognitive aspects of intergroup relations, indicating that cognitive dimension had stability.(7) There was a significant impact of positive or negative meta-stereotype on the emotional aspects of intergroup relations, participants in positive group showed higher favorability and liking toward outgroup members than they were in negative group.(8) There were significant interaction effects of both between meta-stereotype and group membership and between meta-stereotype and contact situations. A simple analysis indicated that (a) when migrant children received some positive information, their favorability and liking toward outgroup members could be significantly increased. (b) participants who obtained positive information in the competitive situation could significantly improve their favorability and liking toward outgroup members.(9) There was main effect of group membership in the behavioral aspects of intergroup relations, migrant children’s desire to contact with outgroup members was significantly lower than urban children’s.