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Therewhile ther also appears to be a correlation of self esteem and cooperation in 2nd generation Mexican American children,children. aAre culturalthese normdifferences whiledue into turncultural anorms? culturalDo normMexican ofAmericans competitivenessvalue incooperation themore Unitedthan Statescompetition isand associateddo withAnglo-Saxon highAmericans selfvalue competition esteem.more?

The relationship of cooperation-competition to self esteem was examined. The analysis consisted of combining the results from two former studies on generational differences for Mexican-American children in fourth, fifth, and sixth grade in predominantly Mexican-American schools to the one by Kagen and Knight. The communities involved in the studies were very stable, with similar income level. The mix of students for the Kagen and Knight investigation included "forty-one second-generation Mexican-American children, 50 third-generation Mexican-American children and forty-five Anglo-American children" (Peplau and Taylor, p. 332). The cooperation-competition measure used was a Social Behavior Scale, "which assesses total amount of rewards given to a peer as well as the frequency of alturism,/groupaltruism,/group enhancement, equality, superiority, and rivalry/superiority" (Peplau and Taylor, p. 332). Self-Esteem was measured using the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory.

The results showed that the modal response of Americans was adversary/superiority. For the 2nd generation Mexican Americans the modal response was equality followed closely by altruism/group enhancement. 3rd generation Mexican American children did not have modal response showing that 2nd generation Mexican American and Anglo Saxon American children tend to have higher self esteem than 3rd generation Mexican Americans.

To verify these results could be replicated, high low median splits were calculated and differences in cooperation-competition for the groups were analyzed. The results indicted the relationship of self esteem to cooperation-competition was indeed culturally based.

These findings show a need for previous researchers to change their theories that high self esteem students are likely to seek out competition as present results indicate the opposite, not only as being true, but culturally based. Assumptions by psychologists must also change. That is of minority groups in the U.S. as having lower self esteem then Anglo Saxon Americans. The present study shows minority students to be more cooperative, proving again that this is a culturally based definition.

To date, a wide range of methods have revealed a positive relationship in high self esteem and competitiveness in Black and White children in all communities within the United States. It is only among the recently immigrated Mexican American children that the relationship does not hold. In other words, from one generation to another for Mexican-American children, there tends to be less affiliation with the norms of their heritage and more of an affiliation with their current cultural influences.

Questions:
1. Do you feel that the results may have been different if the study involved older children? Why or Why not?
2. Do you think Mexican Americans place any merit in competition?
3. Why is it that that the competition-self esteem theory does not hold for recently immigrated Mexican American children?