The Consequences of Helping Outgroups

• In Event: Intergroup Helping during Childhood and Adolescence: Antecedents, Motivations, and Consequences

Abstract

While prosocial behavior is generally praised and condoned by others, in some instances it can be viewed negatively. For example, helping an outgroup when it conflicts with ingroup interests. Research has established that children often intend to help outgroups especially in situations when the outgroup is viewed as needing the help (Sierksma, Thjis, & Verkuyten , 2015). However, little is known about how children and adolescents react to ingroup members helping outgroups. In the current study, we explored children’s and adolescents’ perceptions of the consequences of outgroup helping. Children and adolescents were therefore asked to rate and reason about how acceptable it was to exclude an ingroup member who helped an outgroup. The type of helping and the level of threat to each group were varied to capture the nuances in children’s thinking about outgroup helping (Sierksma, Thijs, Verkuyten, et al., 2014).
The sample included 126 children and adolescents (9 and 13 year olds) who chose to be in either a green group (e.g, wear green shirts) of friends who hang out after school or a yellow group of friends. Then they responded to three within-subject stories in which each group had varying levels of need for water (i.e., Equal Need, Higher Outgroup Need, Higher Ingroup Need) when out camping. Amount of helping was a between-subject factor. Participants were randomly assigned to two conditions: 1) an ingroup member found water and helped both groups equally by giving each group the same amount of water and 2) the ingroup member helped the outgroup more and gave them more water than the ingroup. Participants judged the acceptability of excluding the ingroup member who helped (Likert Scale: 1 = Really not Okay, to 6 = Really Okay) and reason about their exclusion judgments (“Why?”). Additionally, participants’ perceptions of ingroup interest, social identification, and evaluations of the helping act were measured as potential predictors of exclusion judgments.
Overall, excluding the helpful ingroup member was viewed as unacceptable. It was least acceptable when the outgroup needed the help and was given more help. Exclusion was judged to be most acceptable when both groups needed the same amount of help, or the ingroup needed more help, but more help was given to the outgroup (see Figure 1), and these findings were driven by 9-year-olds. Participants’ perceptions of ingroup interest, social identification, and approval of the helping act predicted their acceptability of excluding the helping member (see Table 1). Concerns for group loyalty were used to justify exclusion, but appeals to the psychological harm of exclusion, generosity, and the low salience of the act of helping were used to reject exclusion.
These findings indicate that as early as 9 years of age children prefer appropriate forms of helping (i.e., giving more resources to the group that needs it). Age-related patterns will be discussed in light of adolescents’ growing concerns for group processes. The findings add to the growing literature on children’s moral development in intergroup contexts.

Authors

• Aline Hitti, University of San Francisco
  Presenting Author

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