Moral and Group-based Criteria in Children's Evaluation of Peers after Transgressions

✍ Scribed by Lisa Marie Atkin; Michaela Gummerum

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 93 KB
• Volume: 21
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1522-7227
• DOI: 10.1002/icd.744

✦ Synopsis

The present study investigated how group membership criteria and moral understanding can affect children's evaluations of peers after different types of transgressions. In all, the study included 47 participants attending a junior school in Cornwall. All participants were allocated to an in‐group and responded to a number of questions which tested intergroup bias and the differential evaluation of norm‐violating peers from the in‐group and the out‐group. Overall, moral transgressions (physical and relational aggression) were evaluated more negatively than a social‐conventional transgression. However, those who violated group norms by expressing positive attitudes towards the out‐group were viewed differently depending on both moral and group‐based criteria. These different criteria for evaluating peers were uncorrelated. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.