Social Reasoning, Subjective Group Dynamics, and Children's Evaluations of Exclusion

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。研究表明，从幼儿到成年，被排除在社会群体之外是同伴互动、人际关系和群体的特有现象。事实上，排斥构成了群体动态的一个基本特征，它源于社会群体发展和维持的基本过程。然而，为了保持自己的群体身份，个人往往会排斥那些不符合群体期望的人。虽然发展群体认同是适应性的，但基于对群体规范的期望的排斥可能导致偏见和歧视性的结果。这个过程是如何在儿童时期出现的？虽然先前的道德推理研究表明，儿童认为被群体排斥是错误和不公平的，但其他研究结果表明，儿童在群体间二元环境中表现出群体内偏爱和群体外偏见。这些关于群体包容和排斥的不同观点将通过借鉴发展社会认知中的两个互补理论模型进行研究。首先，社会认知领域的研究产生了关于儿童社会和道德规范的发现，并记录了儿童用于包容和排斥他人以及评估排斥“行为”的规范。其次，发展性主观群体动力学研究记录了群体认同、群体忠诚和群体互动中使用的越轨规范之间的关系，测量了儿童对排斥“目标”的评价。目前的研究项目将调查如何在群体内和群体间同伴动态的背景下评估排斥行为和目标。孩子们是否更喜欢支持道德规范（对行为的评价）的外群体成员（目标的受欢迎程度），而不是拒绝道德规范的内群体成员？关于行为/目标关系的判断是如何随着规范类型、儿童年龄、排斥对象和其他变量的变化而变化的？这些问题将通过进行三项实证研究来解决，其中9岁和13岁的儿童和青少年将接受访谈和调查。三个目标将作为每个研究的重点：性别、种族/民族和学校关系。要实施的一套措施包括儿童对排斥和包容行为的评价，对越轨目标的好感度，对群体内/群体外关系的评价，以及对社会和道德推理的使用。这些措施将根据参与者的群体认同、年龄、性别和种族以及社会规范和群体忠诚规范的类型进行分析，以供参与者进行评估。这项研究更广泛的影响在于理解包容和排斥的起源，这反映了道德推理以及偏见和刻板印象的基础。当基于偏见和陈规定型观念的排斥在劳动力中表现出来时，生产力以及积极的社会关系就会面临紧张和破坏的风险。成年后，偏见和刻板印象根深蒂固，难以改变。因此，当以包容和排斥的形式对内部群体和外部群体的态度正在形成时，必须在儿童和青少年时期实施成功的干预。将向教育和媒体机构以及教育工作者、心理学家、社会科学家和从事儿童和青少年工作的专业人员分发从这个项目中获得的基础研究成果。该项目的一个预期结果是，通过在儿童和青少年群体动态和同伴互动的背景下，促进基于公平的包容性观点，帮助解决社会对偏见的关注。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Research has shown that being excluded from social groups is endemic to peer interactions, relationships, and groups from early childhood through adulthood. In fact, exclusion constitutes a basic feature of group dynamics that derives from the processes underlying the development and maintenance of social groups. To preserve one's group identity, however, individuals will often exclude others who do not fit the group expectations. While developing a group identity is adaptive, exclusion based on expectations about group norms can lead to prejudicial and discriminatory outcomes. How does this process emerge in childhood? While prior research on moral reasoning has demonstrated that children evaluate exclusion from groups as wrong and unfair, other findings indicate that children display ingroup favoritism and outgroup bias in intergroup dyadic contexts. These discrepant perspectives on group inclusion and exclusion will be investigated by drawing on two complementary theoretical models in developmental social cognition. First, social cognitive domain research has generated findings regarding children's social and moral norms, and has documented the norms children use to include and exclude others and evaluate the 'act' of exclusion. Second, developmental subjective group dynamics research has documented relationships between group identity, group loyalty, and deviant norms used in group interactions, measuring judgments regarding children's evaluations of the 'target' of exclusion. The current research project will investigate how acts and targets of exclusion are evaluated in the context of intragroup and intergroup peer dynamics. Do children prefer an outgroup member (likeability of the target) who espouses a moral norm (evaluation of the act) over an ingroup member who rejects a moral norm? How do judgments about act/target relationships vary as a function of the type of norm, the age of the child, the target of exclusion, and other variables? These questions will be addressed by conducting three empirical studies in which children and adolescents at 9 and 13 years of age will be interviewed and surveyed. Three targets will serve as the focus for each study: gender, race/ethnicity, and school affiliation. A set of measures to be implemented includes children's evaluations of the act of exclusion and inclusion, favorability of the deviant target, evaluation of ingroup/outgroup relationships, and use of social and moral reasoning. These measures will be analyzed with respect to the group identity, age, gender, and ethnicity of the participants as well as to the type of social norms and group loyalty norms presented to participants for their evaluations.The broader impact of this research lies with understanding the origins of inclusion and exclusion, which reflect the foundations of moral reasoning as well as prejudice and stereotypes. When exclusion based on prejudice and stereotypes manifests in the workforce, productivity as well as positive social relationships are at risk for tension and disruption. By adulthood, biases and stereotypes are deeply entrenched and difficult to change. Thus, successful intervention must be implemented in childhood and adolescence when attitudes about ingroups and outgroups in the form of inclusion and exclusion are emerging. The basic research to be derived from this project will be disseminated to educational and media outlets as well as to educators, psychologists, social scientists, and professionals working with children and adolescents. One anticipated outcome of this project is to help address societal concerns regarding prejudice through facilitating inclusive perspectives based on fairness in the context of group dynamics and peer interactions in childhood and adolescence.