Children' And Adolescents' Reasoning About Exclusion In Novel Groups

This study examined children’s and adolescents’ reasoning about the exclusion of others in peer and school contexts. Participants (80 8-year-olds, 85 11-year-olds, 74 14-year-olds, and 73 20-year-olds) were asked to judge and reason about the acceptability of exclusion from novel groups by children and school principals. Three contexts for exclusion between two groups were systematically varied: unequal economic status, geographical location, or a control (no reason provided for group differences). Regardless of condition, participants believed that exclusion was less acceptable in peer than school contexts, and when children excluded rather than principals. Participants also used more moral and less social conventional reasoning for peer than school contexts. In terms of condition, whereas 8-year-olds rated exclusion based on unequal economic status as less acceptable than when based on geographical location or no reason when enacted by a principal, 14-year-olds rated the unequal economic condition as more acceptable than the other two contexts. Eleven- and 20-year-olds did not distinguish economic status differences. The findings suggest that children and adolescents are sensitive to context and take multiple variables into account, including the type of group difference (socioeconomic status or other reasons), authority status of the perpetrator of exclusion, and setting (school or peer). Patterns may have differed from past research because of the socio-cultural context in which exclusion was embedded and the contexts of group differences.本研究考察了儿童与青少年对同伴及校园情境中他人被排斥事件的推理判断。参与者共计312名，包括80名8岁儿童、85名11岁儿童、74名14岁青少年及73名20岁青年，要求他们对儿童与学校校长将个体排除出新异群体（novel groups）的行为可接受性进行评判，并阐述其推理依据。研究者系统操纵了两类群体间产生排斥行为的三类情境：经济地位不平等、地理位置差异，以及对照组（未对群体差异的成因作出说明）。无论在哪种实验条件下，参与者均认为，相较于校园情境，同伴情境中的排斥行为更不可接受；且相较于由学校校长实施的排斥行为，由儿童实施的排斥行为更难被认可。此外，相较于校园情境，参与者在同伴情境中更多采用道德推理（moral reasoning），更少运用社会常规推理（social conventional reasoning）。就实验条件的年龄差异而言，当排斥行为由学校校长实施时，8岁儿童会将基于经济地位不平等的排斥行为判定为比基于地理位置差异或无明确群体差异理由的排斥更不可接受；而14岁青少年则认为，经济不平等情境下的排斥行为相较于另外两类情境更具可接受性。11岁儿童与20岁青年则未对经济地位差异相关的排斥情境做出区分。本研究结果表明，儿童与青少年对情境具有较高的敏感性，会综合考量多重变量，包括群体差异的类型（社会经济地位（socioeconomic status）或其他成因）、排斥行为实施者的权威身份，以及实验场景（校园或同伴群体）。本研究的结果模式与过往研究存在差异，这可能源于排斥行为所处的社会文化语境，以及群体差异的具体情境设置。