Research has documented that individuals consider outcomes, intentions, and transgressor negligence when making morally relevant judgments (Nobes, Panagiotaki, & Engelhardt, 2017). However, less is known about whether individuals attend to both victim and transgressor negligence in their evaluations. The current study measured 3‐ to 6‐year‐olds (N = 70), 7‐ to 12‐year‐olds (N = 54), and adults' (N = 97, ages 18–25 years) moral judgments about scenarios in which an accidental transgression occurred involving property damage or physical harm. Participants were either (...) assigned to conditions where the victim or the transgressor was negligent. Results revealed attention to negligence among all participants across a range of different moral judgment measures (including acceptability judgments, punishment judgments, and attributions of blame), with age‐related increases in attention to negligence evident. Results provide novel evidence that children and adults consider not just outcomes and intentions, but also the role of negligence in both victims and transgressors, when making social decisions. (shrink)

Interest in science and math plays an important role in encouraging STEM motivation and career aspirations. This interest decreases for girls between late childhood and adolescence. Relatedly, positive mentoring experiences with female teachers can protect girls against losing interest. The present study examines whether visitors to informal science learning sites differ in their expressed science and math interest, as well as their science and math stereotypes following an interaction with either a male or female educator. Participants were visitors to one (...) of four ISLS in the United States and United Kingdom. Following an interaction with a male or female educator, they reported their math and science interest and responded to math and science gender stereotype measures. Female participants reported greater interest in math following an interaction with a female educator, compared to when they interacted with a male educator. In turn, female participants who interacted with a female educator were less likely to report male-biased math gender stereotypes. Self-reported science interest did not differ as a function of educator gender. Together these findings suggest that, when aiming to encourage STEM interest and challenge gender stereotypes in informal settings, we must consider the importance of the gender of educators and learners. (shrink)

Schools may be one important context where adolescents learn and shape the behaviors necessary for promoting global inclusivity in adulthood. Given the importance of bystanders in halting bullying and peer aggression, the focus of this study is on both moral judgments regarding one type of bullying, social exclusion, and factors that are associated with bystander intervention. The study includes 896 adolescents, who were 6th, and 9th graders, approximately evenly divided by gender. Participants were primarily European–American. Results revealed that girls and (...) participants who perceived better relationships between students and teachers were more likely to judge exclusion to be wrong. Further, ethnic minority participants, those who were more anxious about being rejected by their teachers and reported more teacher discrimination were less likely to judge exclusion as wrong. Participants who reported more positive student–teacher relationships, perceptions of a more positive school social environment and more prior experiences of teacher discrimination were more likely to report that they would seek help for the victim. On the other hand, participants who reported being more angry about teacher rejection, experiencing either peer or teacher discrimination, and perceiving they are excluded from opportunities at school were less likely to intervene to come to the aid of a peer who is being excluded. The results document the complex interplay of school and teacher factors in shaping adolescents’ bystander responses to social exclusion. Our findings suggest that positive school climate can promote intentions to intervene. However, findings indicate that adolescents who are marginalized in their school environments, and who report experiences of rejection, exclusion or discrimination are not willing or likely to intervene to prevent others from experiencing exclusion. (shrink)

Given the high numbers of refugees from Syria entering Germany in the recent years, the social integration of refugee youth has become an increasingly important issue in Germany. Thus, the current study examines adolescents’ decisions and reasoning around the inclusion of Syrian peers in Germany. Using a hypothetical scenario, we assessed adolescents’ peer inclusion decisions and reasoning with attention to comparing inclusion of a Syrian refugee peer and a German peer. Given the importance of group norms for adolescents, we assessed (...) not only adolescents’ own inclusion decisions, but also what they would expect their peer group to decide and what they think their peer group should do. Moreover, adolescents’ underlying reasoning was assessed. The analyses revealed that adolescents thought they would be more inclusive of a Syrian peer than a German peer and that their peer group should be more inclusive of a Syrian peer than a German peer. These tendencies toward including refugees were justified with references to morality as well as social-conventions. In contrast to their own decisions and to what they think their peer group should, participants expected their group would be more inclusive toward a German peer than a Syrian peer. This was mainly justified by referencing aspects of group functioning and psychological information about the peers, whereas moral and prosocial reasoning was very rarely used for the expected group decision. In sum, these findings document that adolescents in Germany wish to be inclusive regarding refugee peers and that they balance attention to morality and other domains of social reasoning when thinking about inclusion decisions while they expect that their peers will not consider morally relevant information when making these decisions. These findings have important practical implications as they indicate the importance of interventions that focus on promoting inclusive peer group norms. (shrink)

The current study examined how ingroup and outgroup Theory of Mind predicts children’s and adolescents’ reasoning for their acceptability judgments of intergroup bullying of Syrian refugee peers and group support of intergroup bullying. Participants included 587 Turkish middle and high school students. Participants read a bias-based bullying story with a Syrian refugee peer targeted by an ingroup Turkish peer. Then, participants rated the acceptability of bullying and group support of bullying and were presented with a reasoning question after each acceptability (...) question. Reasoning codes included Fairness, Refugee Status/War, Prejudice and Discrimination, Harm, Prescriptive Norms, Group Functioning, and Relationship with the Bully. Participants’ ingroup and outgroup ToM abilities were evaluated as predictors of reasoning. Results documented that middle school students were more likely to attribute mental states to their ingroup members compared to outgroup members while high school students’ ToM performance did not differ across contexts. Further, the more unacceptable participants judged bullying to be, the more they reasoned about the bullying by referencing fairness, refugee status, discrimination, and harm. Results also documented that ingroup and outgroup ToM were positively related to attribution to fairness and participants’ usage of multiple reasoning judgments while only outgroup ToM was a significant predictor of reasoning around refugee status/war, discrimination, and prejudice. The findings provide implications for intervention programs that tackle intergroup bullying by examining bystanders’ social cognitive skills in a specific context. (shrink)

Informal science learning sites create opportunities for children to learn about science outside of the classroom. This study analyzed children’s learning behaviors in ISLS using video recordings of family visits to a zoo, children’s museum, or aquarium. Furthermore, parent behaviors, features of the exhibits and the presence of an educator were also examined in relation to children’s behaviors. Participants included 63 children and 44 parents in 31 family groups. Results showed that parents’ science questions and explanations were positively related to (...) children observing the exhibit. Parents’ science explanations were also negatively related to children’s science explanations. Furthermore, children were more likely to provide science explanations when the exhibit was not interactive. Lastly there were no differences in children’s behaviors based on whether an educator was present at the exhibit. This study provides further evidence that children’s interactions with others and their environment are important for children’s learning behaviors. (shrink)

Friendships have important influences on children's well-being and future adjustment, and interpersonal forgiveness has been suggested as a crucial means for children to maintain friendships. However, existing measures of preadolescent children's forgiveness are restricted by developmental limitations to reporting emotional responses via questionnaire and inconsistent interpretations of the term “forgive.” This paper describes development and testing of concurrent and discriminant validity of a pictorial measure of children's emotional forgiveness, the Children's Forgiveness Card Set. In Study 1, 148 Australian children aged (...) 8–13 years responded to a hypothetical transgression in which apology was manipulated and completed the CFCS and extant measures of forgiveness and socially desirable responding. Following an exploratory factor analysis to clarify the structure of the CFCS, the CFCS correlated moderately with other forgiveness measures and did not correlate with socially desirable responding. Apology predicted CFCS responding among older children. In Study 2 an exploratory factor analysis broadly replicated the structure of the CFCS among a sample of N = 198 North American children aged 5–14 years. We also fitted an exploratory bi-factor model to the Study 2 data which clarified which cards best measured general forgiveness, or positive or hostile aspects of responding to transgressions. Apology once again predicted the CFCS, this time regardless of age. The CFCS appears a potentially valid measure of children's emotional forgiveness. Potential applications and differences between explicit and latent forgiveness in children are discussed. (shrink)

Developmental perspectives on prejudice provide a fundamental and important key to the puzzle for determining how to address prejudice. Research with historically disadvantaged and advantaged groups in childhood and adolescence reveals the complexity of social cognitive and moral judgments about prejudice, discrimination, bias, and exclusion. Children are aware of status and hierarchies, and often reject the status quo. Intervention, to be effective, must happen early in development, before prejudice and stereotypes are deeply entrenched.