Citation

Peplak J, Song JH, Colasante T, Malti T. J. Exp. Child Psychol. 2017; 162: 134-148.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Mississauga, Ontario L5L 1C6, Canada; Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Mississauga, Ontario L5L 1C6, Canada.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jecp.2017.04.019

PMID

28600924

Abstract

This study examined the development of children's decisions, reasoning, and emotions in contexts of peer inclusion/exclusion. We asked an ethnically diverse sample of 117 children aged 4years (n=59; 60% girls) and 8years (n=58; 49% girls) to choose between including hypothetical peers of the same or opposite gender and with or without attention deficit/hyperactivity problems and aggressive behavior. Children also provided justifications for, and emotions associated with, their inclusion decisions. Both 4- and 8-year-olds predominantly chose to include the in-group peer (i.e., the same-gender peer and peers without behavior problems), thereby demonstrating a normative in-group inclusive bias. Nevertheless, children included the out-group peer more in the gender context than in the behavior problem contexts. The majority of children reported group functioning-related, group identity-related, and stereotype-related reasoning after their in-group inclusion decisions, and they associated happy feelings with such decisions. Although most children attributed sadness to the excluded out-group peer, they attributed more anger to the excluded out-group peer in the aggression context compared with other contexts. We discuss the implications of our findings for current theorizing about children's social-cognitive and emotional development in contexts of peer inclusion and exclusion.

Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Emotions; Peer exclusion; Peer inclusion; Peer relations; Reasoning; Social decision making