Cross-cultural differences in strategies of peer persuasion of hebrew-speaking and arabic-speaking children

The purpose of the current research was to examine strategies of persuasion used by Arabic-speaking and Hebrew-speaking boys and girls to determine the relative contributions of culture and gender in determining communication styles. Children were asked to write a letter to a male or female peer asking for a gender-stereotyped or a gender-neutral gift. Four meta-categories were identified: formality, self-focus, otherfocus, and gift-focus. For each meta-category except gift-focus, there were significant main effects and interactions. Language group was significant for formality and otherfocus but not for self-focus. Importantly, there were several interactions between participant gender, target gender, and gender-stereotypy of gift, but these did not interact with language group. The results were discussed in the context of children's socialization to the ethos of musayara and dugri in Arabic-speaking and Hebrewspeaking culture.