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Abstract
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The writers found that negro children tend to engage considerably more frequently than white children in church activities, playing school, writing poetry, social activities and boxing. It is probable that certain of the above play activities are compensatory in nature and that the racial differences in the extent to which they are participated in reflect differences in the need and possibility for obtaining substitute gratification. The feeling of inferiority on the part of the negro may not be due to an actual inferiority in ability, but rather to the treatment accorded him by white people. The writers have noted that one activity, boxing, which seems to be compensatory in nature, is a conspicuously popular one among negroes. Boxing is an activity symbolizing mastery which offers few insuperable barriers to the negro. In the study of the predominance of negroes over whites in boxing, the data were assembled from school children in Kansas and Missouri. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)
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