ABSTRACT
The picture of greater fear of strangers among Navajo children that emerges from a simple comparison of algebraically summed mean fear of strangers (FOS) scores emerges also from an analysis of group differences in the frequency with which individual behaviors were shown. Using a two-tailed chi-square test of the significance of the group differences during the first and second years separately, it became apparent that there were no significant group differences in fear of strangers during the first year, but several in the second year. In the first year FOS test behaviors there were no significant Navajo–Anglo group differences. Factor analyses of the FOS test behaviors in the first year revealed similar factors for both groups in which fearful and friendly behaviors were quite clearly separated on orthogonal factors and in which the most consistent indicators of fear were fret/cry and resist contact.
