Reports the results of a study on the most assertive member in integrated small groups composed of two black and two white junior high school boys, a study which attempted to determine if black assertives were treated differently and behaved differently than white assertives. (JM)

The study takes place in a field setting at three different schools. Each group is composed of two black and two white students assigned randomly to either an experimental or control condition. Fourteen groups were run for each condition or a total of 28 groups. In the control condition both blacks and whites receive the same neutral training…

This experiment attempted to alter the effects of race as a diffuse status characteristic. Black subjects were given instructions meant to induce "high competence" on a task performed with white subjects. All subjects were seventh and eighth graders who did not know each other prior to the experiment. Each group comprised two white and…

The experiments here reported represent attempts to produce "equal status interaction" in four-man groups of junior high school boys, two of whom are white and two black. The theory is that equality is not a consequence of interracial task performance. Rather, it is likely that generally held beliefs about the differential competence of…