166 THE EFFECT OF RURAL, UHBM UPBRINGING CM,, THE ATTITUDES OF NIGERIAN CHILDKM Michael Olaseboye Olasehinde* Machiavellianism has been defined by Christie and Geis (i97O) as a person1 s general strategy for dealing with people? especially t he degree to which oie f e e ls others are manipulatable in i n t e r - p e r s o n al r e l a t i c n s. A review of the e x i s t i ng l i t e r a t u re of studies en machiavellian, a t t i t u d es of children by Olasehinde (1973) has revealed t h a t, ameng o t h er c l a r i f i c a t i o n s, the genesis of machiavellian a t t i t u d es needed more d e t a i l ed study. therefore t he purpose of t h is investigation to find out t he effect of locale of upbringing on the development of machiavellian, a t t i t u d es of Yoruba children in the Western S t a te of N i g e r i a. Studies by Krapf-Askari (i959) and Hake (i972) do show t h at r e s i d e n t i al p a t t e r ns among t he Yoruba are of urban-rural dichotomy. The various l o c a l es of upbringing in t h is study were those of urban and r u r al n a t u r e. It was Aside from finding out the d i f f e r e n t i al effect of urban, and rural upbringing on c h i l d r e n 's manipulative behaviour, it was thought t h at a comparison of manipulativeness among children in different s o c i e t i e s, in . different s e t t i n gs and in different p a r ts of the same s e t t i ng could poten- tially be very valuable for studies of socialization, value and attitude formation. more broadly, have implications for the relations between historical experience, contemporary social structure, social values ami attitudes. In the same vein, the study of children's manipulativeness could, It would seem necessary to clarify what machiavellian ism might mean in different societies and how it might be manifested. While Christie and Geis (197 0) consider machiavellian ism as the degree to whi 3h one feels others are manipulatable in interpersonal relations, Oksenberge (i97i) working with ^Lecturer in Psychology and Education, Department of Educations University of Ife, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. 167 Chinese childraa in Hang Kong, says that the words sly and deceitful are adjectives that adequately describe a machiavellian, who is reputedly the master of the art of saying yes and meaning no. Touhey (i973) regards . machiavellianian as a tendency to endorse the precepts of historical Machiavelli's writings. The studies by Bascom (1969) and Fadipe (i97°) seem to highlight what machiavelliaaism means for the Yoruba. Bascom, quoting from the writings of Khollej reports that the name Yoruba was originally given to the Qyo Yoruba by the lulani of Northern Nigeria and it me3nt "cunning". Bvm todagr, there is a common expressicn in inter- personal relaticns amoig -fee Yorubaf do not can me« that is "ma lo Yoruba fun mi" meaning, Fadipe for his part claims that "the Yoruba have a time-henoured traditicn for equivocation, whan occasioi demands i t ". By equivocation, Fadipe mea-n-y a lack of directness in speech and action -which makes the Yoruba man to use nai-commital expressions and words whose meanings are the reverse of what is meant. Fadipe gives t h is example of Yoruba equivoc&ticn "keep the red blood down in the system and spit out white saliva". Thus, for "fee purposes of this paper, machiavellian!sm would mean cunningiess in speech and acticn and the skill in avoiding to get pinned dowi en what one gays or does. Subjects The sample consisted of 998 sixth grade pupils dravoi by complex random sample technique from both urban and rural schools in the Western State of Nigeria. The sample comprised males and females with an age. range of between 11.5 a nd I 2 ' 5 y ea rs. The urban and rural delimitations were based en the Nigerian national census of 1963* All the childrai in the study were of Yoruba parentage aid had to have lived in either an urban or rural locale since their birth up until the time this study was carried out- 168 Instrumen ts It approximated very closely to what machiavellian ism would The instrument used was the Yoruba translation of the Kiddie Mach Scale as.standardized by Christie and Geis (1970)• The scale comprised 20 Iikert-1ype format items for which there were no right or wrong aiswers- mean for the Yoruba childrm. The original instrument had to be trans- lated into the children's mother tongue by a back translation technique to ensure Stcauss's (19&9) phenomenal identity and conceptual equivalences of measurement* The Yoruba version of the instrument yielded a relia- bility coefficient of .81 by split-half odd-even test correlations* Procedure Data for this study were obtained by making the subjects respond to iiie-20 questionnaire items en the Kiddie Mach Scale* The questionnaire was administered on the subjects by the author, himself a Yoruba, who was involved in the back translation process if the instrument. Of the 20 items, ten indicated strong machiavelliai orientations the responses to which were scored 5> 4> 2s 1 on each of the items' 4-step response scale* The other ten items indicated anti-iaachiav'ellian orientation with their responses scored in reverse* The total scores on all items were computed for each subject classified as urbsai or rural-bred* The results were based on the total scores obtained by urban and rural children separately categorized into high or low machiavelliai scorers depeiding en the overall mean score of 59*36 for the entire sample. The mean machiavelliai score for the urban childrai was 68.00 while that of the rural childrm was 50*54. The results thus obtained were subjected to a one-way aialysis of variance as reported in Table 1» analysis-of .variance as reported in the Table • The results show very dis- tinctly that urban upbringing contributed more to Yoruba childrai's machi- avellian attitudes than rural upbringing. The main effect of differences between urban and rural upbringing revealed a high sigiificance level (.00-]). Diffcussion said conclusions. The findings of this study show basically that machiavellian attitudes are more conmm among urban than rural Yoruba children* In broad outlines, these findings laid support to the evidence provided by the works of Christie and Geis (i97O) and Nachamie (1969) in the liiited States, of Oksenberg (1971) in Hong Kong and de Niguel (1964) in Spain. The main value of this study therefore derives from the cross-cultural support for the notion that there is something about the urban experience, something about the structure of interpersonal experiences in the urban setting, which increases the l i k e l i- hood of manipulative and deceitful behaviour, apart from the traditional machiavellian characterisation of the Yoruba. The evidence yielded hj this study seems to call for a discussicn of the social setting whence the data come and to which they apply. In doing this, in a general as well as in a specific sense? a coherent theoretical formulation seems to emerge* In gaaeral, what there is about the urban experience that increases the incidence of machiavellian ism is that complex moral!iy predominates in rural communities. Bascom (i955)» Mabogunje (1962)9 Lloyd (1969) and Ojo (-1971) all seem to agree that the Yoruba are undoubtedly the most urbanized people in Tropical Africa. Specifically, there are urban experiences, as against the rur&l experiences that would produce more machiavelliai attitudes. These experiaices have to do with the following factors? vast exposure to mass media; the sheer number of people encountered; the population mobility from rural centres; the work situation; the the lessened importance of kin 170 rore exposure to the West and Christianity as less inter-generational ccntact; more dependence on others end contacts; less depeidence on nature; against traditional religion. Conversely, less machiavellian attitudes among rural childrm are probably due to some psychosocial characteristics which are restrictive of machiavellianism, such ass a strong sense of cornnunaliiyj a high sense of mutual obligation and gratitude aid a deep saise of sympathy with fellowmen. Thus? this study yields data that make three important contributions' first, it adds to our cross-cultural knowledge* Nachamie (1969)9 using +he same instrument with children of the same age group and same gr^de level in America, reports mean machiavellian scores of 50*53-.for Puerto Rican, 48.6O for Chinese, 42*27 for Negro and 51*33' for Caucasian children. Although it would seem hard to compare mean scores across cultures, the mean score of 59*3^ for the Yoruba children appears strikingly interesting- indication that scale scores are higher among Yoruba than among American children, the study moves a step, though with due caution, toward comparisons between cultares• In i ts Secondly, the evidence provided by the remits of this study extends our confidence that there are in truth some things basic about the urban experience that increase the phenomaion labelled machiavellianism, evei though the issue of cause and effect cannot be pressed too hard.. It»however, seems reasonable to sagr that as a class!ficatory device, urban and rural setting can show patterns of person^liiy development. linally, the success of the tran slated version of the Kiddie Mach Scale seems remarkable. Machiavellianism, as a psychological concept, seems to bear a kind of cross-cultural universality. The concept appears genera- lizable enough to be translated into a native isftiguage which, for the f i r st time, does not have Western tradition. 171 Table One-way .Analysis, of variance of wMach" scopes by Yoruba children brou^3.t upt separately In and rural areas Source Between > SB Urban/Rural . Upbringing 53345 .10 Interaction 1715 .70 m 1 1 Within Cell 89693 .70 998 Ms P 53345 .10 588 • 21* S .46 9 857 .85 90 .69 •P .001 172 References 1955 1969 Bascom, W«R« Bascom, W.R. Christie? R. aid Geis, P.L. 1970 de lfl.gp.al, A. Fadipe, M.A. Hake, J»M» Lloyd, P.O. MabogMnje, A«L. Hachamie, S« Ojo, A. 1964 1970 1972 1969 1969 1962 1969 1966 Urbanization amcng the Yoruba, Americai Journal of Sociology, 60:5, 446-454- The Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria; Case Studies in cultural anthro- pology • lew York: Holt, Riaiehart and Winston, Inc. Studies in Machiavellianism, lew York: Academic Press- Some Correlates of machiavellia- nismi The Spanish students. Mimeographed paper* Ibadan T&iiversHy Press* . Ibadan; ^ praqtices .in gorthem iaj Ibadati; Ibadan TBaiversiiy press • Ypruba towis and c i t i e s. Oxford: Clarendon Press. African in pengiin African Librajy. j^ change« Baltimore g ff to«i:g{ i:g Ibadan 1 Ibadaa :*j.iversi"fy Press* in children s Die scale, snd the ttipublished Ph»33» lew ttiiversily, bluffing ^.me» thesis, Columbia fork. iij' of I fe and of hndozi Press ltd* !*: I 173 1971 1973 1969 1973 Olasehinde, M.O. S t r a us s, JJ. Touhey, J . c. \, Machiavellianism in tradition inism in traditional Westernizd Chi Westernized Chinese students in rnized Chinese students i Lambert ad R W( Lambert and R. Weisbrod (eds«) Comparativ psychology ectives era social ra social Boston: Little, Brown d C () ti The changing perceptions of family power structure and manipulative behaviour ameng Yoruba chjldrai* Unpublished Ph»D> thesis* Columbia Dhiversily, New York. Phenomenal identiiy and conceptu" . equivalence of measurement in a paticnal comparative research Journal of Marriage and the 7 .,nily 31, P P- 233-239* Childrea-ring aitecendents Jid the emergence of machiavellian ism, Sociometry» 36\ pp. 194-206.