Poster #121 - Correlates of Different Types of Bystander Responses to Gender-based Social Exclusion

• In Event: 1-061 - Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Section - Moral Development

Integrative Statement

Although the past few decades have shown huge advancements in gender equality across many domains (Nelson & Brammer, 2010), gender-based exclusion still exists and occur throughout the lifespan (Ceci et al., 2014). Research suggests that social-cognitive competencies are important to challenge gender stereotypic norms and exclusion (Mulvey, Rizzo, Killen, 2016). Further, bystander responses to social exclusion have an important influence in reducing instances of negative peer interactions (Salmivalli, Voeten, & Poskiparta, 2011). However, bystanders can also support or condone social exclusion instead of challenging perpetrators. So far, less is known how different social-cognitive factors act in concert to shape bystander responses to gender-based exclusion.
To address this gap, we examined whether young adults’ (Mage = 19.55 years, SD = 1.63; range = 18-25, N = 75, 42 Male) bystander responses to gender exclusion vary as a function of their theory of mind abilities (i.e. the ability to ascribe mental states to others and to oneself), their mind reading motivation (i.e. individuals’ willingness to effortfully engage with other people’s perspectives and mental states), and their levels of critical consciousness (i.e. people’s critical evaluation of their social conditions and individual or collective action taken to change perceived inequities).
Participants were randomly presented with either Female Exclusion (from a Physics class activity) or Male Exclusion (from an English class activity) story. After the story, participants indicated how likely they would be to intervene if they observed gender-based social exclusion. We grouped participants’ responses into two categories: ‘direct intervention’ (e.g., say something to your group, get help from the professor) and ‘no or indirect responses’ (e.g., not get involved and stay there, quit the group). We measured participants’ theory of mind abilities by using the Strange Stories task (White et al., 2009), which consisted of eight mindreading stories including double bluff, white lie, persuasion, and misunderstanding. Participants were also presented with the Mindreading Motivation Scale (Carpenter et al, 2016) and the Critical Consciousness Scale ( Diemer et al., 2017).
Two separate hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to examine possible predictors of active and inactive bystander intervention. Results showed that participants’ theory of mind abilities (B = .11, β = .28, p = .039) and egalitarian beliefs (B = .40, β = .33, p = .013) were related to a greater likelihood of active bystander intervention accounting for participants’ age, gender, ethnicity and major. In terms of the likelihood of inactive responses to the social exclusion, on the other hand, participants who reported higher rates of mind reading motivation (B = -.43, β = -.34, p = .014) were less likely to engage in ‘no or indirect’ responses. The results indicate that ability and motivation might be separate mechanisms that shape distinct bystanders’ responses in different ways.
Taken together, this study contributes to the growing body of literature investigating the correlates of different bystander responses to gender-based social exclusion and sets the stage for further investigation of how social socio-cognitive factors may influence bystander responses to social exclusion based on group membership.

Authors

• Secil Gonultas, North Carolina State University
  Presenting Author

• Kelly Lynn Mulvey, North Carolina State University
  Non-Presenting Author