Preferences for Nonrepresentational Drawings by Navaho and other Children

Abstract

Children (N = 320) who were mostly 11 and 12 years old and from four different cultures-the Navaho Indian, suburban U.S., Israeli, and Costa Rican-selected preferred pictures. Two of five pictures were chosen from 32 different picture arrays in which all pictures were nonrepresentational drawings. Navaho and suburban children also picked the best and the least-liked pictures across all arrays. Preferences among cultural groups were discriminated by three scales scoring picture attributes of High Quality, Low Action, and Uniqueness. The Navaho girls produced the most extreme scores on each of the scales with most High Quality and Low Action choices and fewest Unique choices. It was concluded that (a) as a group the Navaho girls already conformed to the stereotype that adult Navahos have conservative but superior esthetic preferences, (b) sex differences that are of only borderline significance within a culture may still be important in cross-cultural comparisons, and (c) the overall best-liked pictures for Navaho and suburban children were similar even though some significant scale differences were found using the above forced-choice technique.