Does group membership affect children’s judgments of social transgressions?

Abstract

Children judge moral transgressions as more serious and more punish-worthy than conventional transgressions (Slomkowski & Killen, 1992; Smetana, 1981). Children also judge the actions of in-group members more favorably than those of out-group members (Aboud, 2003; Zak & Knack, 2001). The current study asked whether children would judge moral and conventional transgressions committed by an in-group member differently when compared to the same acts committed by an out-group member (i.e., act judgments). Additionally, it asked whether children would judge the transgressors themselves differently based on their group status (i.e., in-group, out-group, neutral, and self). Results show that preschool children reliably judge moral and conventional transgressions differently. Compared to children's judgments of out-group members, their judgments of in-group members were more lenient. Results suggest that group membership does indeed affect how serious or punish-worthy a violation and a violator are judged to be. iii DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to everyone who encouraged me and guided me through the trials and tribulations of writing this manuscript. In particular, my family, co-workers, and close friends who stood by my side throughout the entire process. iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS df Degrees of freedom: number of values free to vary after certain restrictions have been placed on the data F Fisher's F ratio: A ration of two variances M Mean: the sum of a set of measurements divided by the number of measurements in the set M S Multiple Means p Probability associated with the occurrence under the null hypothesis of a value as extreme as or more extreme than the observed value r Pearson product-moment correlation < Less than = Equal to v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am excited to have this opportunity to thank the family, friends, and faculty members who have helped me with this research project. I would also like to thank all of my committee members, Jason Scofield, Deborah Casper, and Stephen Thoma for their support of this thesis, their input, and their encouragement. Thank you to, Jason Scofield, the chairman of this thesis, for your inspiring words and constant support throughout this entire process. I would like to thank Grace Albright and Sarah Cagle for their assistance in collecting data. A huge thank you to the parents, children, preschools, and teachers who participated in this study. You made this thesis possible, and I am grateful for each of you. This research would not have been possible without the support of my friends and my family who always encouraged me to keep on working. Thank you for supporting me.

Decisions and mechanisms of intergroup bias in children's third‐party punishment

“…Yudkin et al (2019) have also found this effect in young children when they are in an authority position to decide on others' transgressions. On the contrary, other studies in adults (Bernhard et al, 2006;Baumgartner et al, 2012;Hewstone et al, 2002;Tajfel & Turner, 1979; and children (Buttelmann & Böhm, 2014;Chapman et al, 2020;Fehr et al, 2008;Gonzalez-Gadea et al, 2020;Jordan et al, 2014) have…”

“…al., (2019) have also found this effect in young children when they are in an authority position to decide on others' transgressions. On the contrary, other studies in adults (Bernhard, Fehr, & Fischbacher, 2006;Baumgartner, Götte, Gügler, & Fehr, 2012;Hewstone, Rubin, & Willis, 2002;Tajfel & Turner, 1979;Yudkin, Rothmund, Twardawski, Thalla, & Van Bavel, 2016) and children (Buttelmann & Böhm, 2014;Chapman et al, 2020;Fehr et al, 2008;Gonzalez-Gadea et al, 2020;Jordan et al, 2014) have shown that selfish outgroup members are punished more than ingroup selfish members which has been interpreted as a manifestation of ingroup favoritism bias.…”

“…Lastly, by exploring the mechanisms that underlie intergroup bias in TPP, different developmental hypotheses emerge about how these processes change over development. Thus, we expected that intergroup bias associated with more automatic and faster decisions would remain stable over development, while we expected that intergroup bias associated with more deliberative/conflictive decisions would decrease with age, as in the transition from middle childhood to adolescence children acquired a more norm‐centered fairness (Blake et al., 2015; Callaghan & Corbit, 2018; House et al., 2013; Ibbotson, 2014), as well as they learn how to coordinate multiple perspectives, including moral, group, and personal concerns (Killen, 2018; Rutland et al., 2010; Rutland & Killen, 2017).…”

‘The Boat is full!’: predictors of perceived migrant group size and perceived right to stay for immigrants (‘¡El barco está lleno!’: predictores del tamaño percibido de los grupos migrantes y de su derecho a residir en el país)

“…Similar evidence has been found in the realm of group perception, i.e., affect towards outgroup targets can taint judgements about them (Bodenhausen & Moreno, 2000). For example, transgressions committed by disliked outgroup members tend to be judged more harshly than transgressions by ingroup members (Chapman, May, Scofield, DeCoster, & Bui, 2020). Hence, because affect impacts judgements of and psychological privileged granted to others, one might assume that positive affect towards immigrants is positively associated with their perceived right to be in the UK.…”

“…En el ámbito de la percepción grupal se ha obtenido evidencia similar, esto es, el afecto hacia los exogrupos objetivos pueden sesgar los juicios sobre estos (Bodenhausen & Moreno, 2000). Por ejemplo, las transgresiones cometidas por miembros de exogrupos no deseados tienden a ser juzgadas con mayor dureza que las cometidas por miembros del endogrupo (Chapman, May, Scofield, DeCoster, & Bui, 2020). Por tanto, dado que el afecto influye en los juicios y en los privilegios psicológicos que se conceden a los demás, podríamos asumir que el afecto positivo hacia los inmigrantes tiene una relación positiva con el derecho percibido a que permanezcan en el Reino Unido.…”