Accent speaks louder than race when it comes to making friends

Washington: A Harvard University study has shown that when it come to making friends, children prefer those whose speech patterns – rather than skin colour – mimic their own.It has long been recognized that both kids and adults form and organize relationship networks largely based on the race, gender and age of others.

While previous research has shown that white kids in the United States tend to pick same-race friends, new findings suggest that race takes a back seat when foreign or non-native accents come into play. During the study, when offered the choice between making friends with either a white or black child who spoke French, English with a French accent or native English, the group of white, 5-year-old study participants overwhelmingly opted for the native speakers, regardless of their race. A related research has shown that 5-month-old infants also exhibit similar inclinations toward a native accent, which emphasizes its powerful role as a critical marker of social identity and group membership. "Given how difficult languages are to learn into adulthood, how someone speaks is a really good marker of where someone’s from, who they are and where they’ve been," Discovery News quoted Katherine Kinzler, lead author in the Harvard study and developmental psychologist at the University of Chicago, as saying. The study has been published in the journal Social Cognition. ANI