Poster #123 - Do Children Respond Differently to In-group and Out-group Need Based on age and gender?

• In Event: 3-206 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Section - Moral Development

Integrative Statement

Prior research regarding child social development has shown that when given the choice between an in-group member and an out-group member, children are more likely to approve helping an in-group member yet are still willing to extend help to an out-group member when they need it (Sierksma, Thijs, and Verkuyten, 2015). Feelings of competitiveness towards out-groups have been shown to grow as children age, with boys tending to more competitive than girls (Abrams, Van de Vyver, Pelletier, and Cameron, 2015; Niederle & Versterlund, 2007). Our study aimed to look at the ways in which age and gender might interact with children’s helpfulness towards their in-group and out-group.

The current study examined 128 children’s and adolescents’ responses to both in-group and out-group’s need for a necessary resource (water). The subject pool was divided into age groups of 57 fourth graders and 71 eighth graders. All participants were given three scenarios in which their in-group and out-group needed water when camping, but the level of need varied in each scenario: 1) in-group and out-group need was equal; 2) out-group need was high, and 3) in-group need was high. They were then told that an in-group member found water and decided to distribute the water in a way such that he/she was: 1) helping each group equally, 2) helping the in-group more, or 3) helping the out-group more (varied between subject). Participants were asked how important they thought it was to give water to their in-group and out-group in each scenario (1=Really Not Important, 6=Really Important). Two repeated measures ANOVAs were conducted; one for importance of helping the in-group and one for importance of helping the out-group. The Level of group need was a within-subject factor, while age, gender, and type of distribution were between-subject factors.

There was a main effect for level of need for both in-group and out-group evaluations respectively, (F(2,232)=45.275, p<.05, n²=.281); F(2,232)=36.857, p<.05, n²=.241). These effects indicated that participants thought it was most important to help the in-group and out-group when they each had higher need (ps<.001) There were no differences found between older and younger participants in their responses to the importance of helping the in-group, in all need and distribution scenarios. However, younger participants reported higher importance in helping the out-group than older children (F(1,116)=5.729, p<.05, n²=047). As shown in Figure 1, this was especially the case when the out-group needed more help (p <.05). No significance was found in relation to gender.

Results indicated that younger children (4th graders) more frequently viewed helping the out-group as more important than the older children (8th graders). Furthermore, when the out-group had higher need children were more likely to view sharing as more important than keeping resources within the in-group. These findings provide novel perspectives on children’s prosocial orientations in an intergroup context and will be discussed from a moral development framework.

Authors

• Makeda Mayes, University of San Francisco
  Presenting Author

• Lily Samiee, University of San Francisco
  Non-Presenting Author

• Santiago Gonzalez, University of San Francisco
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ariel Kasoff, University of San Francisco
  Non-Presenting Author

• Aline Hitti, University of San Francisco
  Non-Presenting Author