Children perpetuate competence-based inequality when they help peers

Exchanges of help between children are common and often have positive consequences. But not all help is equally beneficial, for example because some help does not provide an opportunity to practice and develop skills. Here I examine whether young children might perpetuate competence-based inequality by providing incompetent peers with less opportunity to practice and improve their skills compared to competent peers. Study 1 (N = 253, 6-9 years) shows that young children understand not all help is equally beneficial: Children think that peers who receive empowerment (hints) vs. non-empowerment (correct answers) help can learn more. Study 2 (N = 80) and 3 (N = 41) then assessed children's (7-9 years) actual helping behavior in a lab-based experiment. Through a cover story, participants were introduced to two unknown, same-age children whom they later overheard were either good or not good at solving puzzles (Study 2) or math (Study 3). Subsequently, participants got to help both of them with a puzzle-quiz (Study 2) or a math-quiz (Study 3) by providing either empowerment or non-empowerment when they asked for help. Across both studies, children were more likely to provide empowerment help to competent peers, and non-empowerment help to incompetent peers. This work suggests that when young children perceive differences in competence (e.g., based on stereotypes), they contribute to maintaining the status quo by providing the most vulnerable students, that would profit the most from improving their skills, less opportunity to do so.

Antecedents and Outcomes of Social Capital: Evidence from a Professional Baseball Franchise

Purpose

The empirical paper aimed to develop a theoretical model of social capital in professional spectating sports by investigating the antecedents and outcomes related to social capital from the spectator’s viewpoint.

Participant and Method

Brothers Elephants, a professional baseball franchise in the Chinese Professional Baseball League, provided the research setting. The study’s participants consisted of 422 spectators of a Brothers Elephants game at its home field, Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Field. Around half of the participants were male; 46.4% of them aged between 30 and 39 years old. Data analysis was conducted through structural equation modeling.

Results

Results revealed that social interactions positively correlated with social capital, prosocial behavior, and spectator intention to re-attend the sporting event. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) also positively predicted intention to re-attend the sporting event, social capital, and prosocial behavior. Social capital significantly correlated with prosocial behavior and subjective well-being, and prosocial behavior significantly correlated with subjective well-being and intention to re-attend the sporting event.

Conclusion

The results suggest that social capital can be developed through social interactions and perceived CSR in the context of professional spectator sporting events, with such social capital increasing, in turn, prosocial behavior, subjective well-being, and intention to re-attend the sporting event. From perspective of practical implication, professional sports franchise can develop more campaigns that boost sports spectators’ perceived social interactions and CSR, which can increase their social capital, prosocial behavior, subjective well-being, and their intention to re-attend the sporting event.

Developmental Prevention of Prejudice: Conceptual Issues, Evidence-Based Designing, and Outcome Results

This article reviews conceptual and empirical issues on the developmental prevention of prejudice in childhood and adolescence. Developmental prejudice prevention is defined as interventions that intentionally change and promote intergroup attitudes and behavior by systematically recognizing theories and empirical results on the development of prejudice in young people. After presenting a general conception of designing evidence-based interventions, we will discuss the application of this model in the field of developmental prejudice prevention. This includes the legitimation, a developmental concept of change, and the derivation of intervention content and implementation. Finally, we summarized recent evaluations results by reviewing meta-analytical evidence of programs and discuss important issues of future research and practice.

Does parochial cooperation exist in childhood and adolescence? A meta-analysis

Although previous meta-analytic evidence supports the existence of parochialism in cooperation among adults, the extent to which children and adolescents are more willing to incur a personal cost to benefit ingroups, compared to outgroups, is not yet clear. We provide the first meta-analysis on the existence and magnitude of parochialism in cooperation among pre-adults. Based on 20 experimental economics studies (k = 69, N = 5268, age = 3-19, 12 countries, published 2008-2019), a multilevel meta-analytic model revealed a small overall effect size indicating that children and adolescents were more cooperative towards ingroups (d = 0.22, 95% CI [0.07, 0.38]). A series of single-moderator analyses tested for the following conditions: participant age and sex; game type ([mini-]dictator game, prisoner's dilemma, public goods dilemma, trust game, ultimatum game); outcome interdependence; membership manipulation (between- vs. within-subjects); group type (natural vs. experimental); reward type (monetary vs. non-monetary); and country of the participant. Parochial cooperation did not vary with participants' age. Parochialism was larger in non-interdependent (dictator-type) compared to interdependent (bargaining and social dilemma) games. There were no moderating effects of group type, membership manipulation or reward type. To provide more data on how parochialism develops, primary studies should report age ranges more precisely and use more restricted age groups.

Lebanese adolescents' expectations about social inclusion of peers in intergroup contexts

This study examined the role of group norms, group identity, age, contact, and stereotypes on youths' decisions to include a peer in an intergroup context portraying Lebanese and American adolescents. Lebanese participants (N = 275), ages 12 and 16 years, were surveyed about expectations for inclusion of an out-group target with similar interests or an in-group target with different interests into their own Lebanese group or another American group. Findings indicated participants focused on shared interests, rather than national identity, when making inclusion decisions for either group and group norms mattered. Older participants expected American peers to be less inclusive towards an out-group peer. Direct contact predicted inclusivity of out-group American peers into one's own Lebanese group, and indirect media-based contact predicted expectations for inclusivity into an American out-group. Findings have implications for interventions aimed at improving cross-national friendships which, in turn, have the potential to reduce prejudicial attitudes.

Young children's willingness to deceive shows in-group bias only in specific social contexts

The ability to deceive others is an early-emerging and socially complex skill, but relatively little is known about when and how a social partner's identity affects young children's willingness to lie. To understand how group membership affects children's lying, we used a minimal group paradigm to examine children's willingness to deceive in-group and out-group members across varied contexts that systematically varied in their costs and benefits. A total of 69 children aged 4 to 7 years played three versions of a sticker-hiding game: a Self-Benefit scenario (child could lie for personal gain), an Other-Benefit scenario (child could lie to help someone else), and a No-Benefit scenario (child could lie to spite someone else). Children lied the most in the Self-Benefit scenario, lying equally to in-group and out-group members in this context. When the potential for self-gain disappeared, however, in-group bias emerged. In the Other-Benefit scenario, children lied more to out-group members in order to help in-group members. Even when the potential to help another was removed (the No-Benefit scenario), children still engaged in more lie telling to out-group members. Results suggest that children's lying is sensitive to group membership, but only in certain social situations, as children's desire to benefit themselves may outweigh in-group bias. Future research should examine alternate contexts, such as lying to avoid punishment, to determine when group membership is most salient. Overall, results indicate that young children are able to flexibly apply a complex social cognitive skill based on group membership and contextual demands, with implications for social behavior and intergroup relations throughout development.

Secondary transfer effect among children: The role of social dominance orientation and outgroup attitudes

Research has provided evidence that the effects of intergroup contact on prejudice reduction are not limited to the outgroup one has contact with (primary outgroup). Rather, they extend to secondary outgroups uninvolved in the contact situation (secondary transfer effect; Pettigrew, 2009, Social Psychology, 40, 55). We aimed to provide the first empirical evidence for the emergence of the secondary transfer effect among children. Majority (Italian) and minority (with an immigrant background) elementary schoolchildren were administered a questionnaire including measures of contact with the primary outgroup (minority children for the majority, majority children for the minority), prejudice towards the primary outgroup and towards a dissimilar secondary outgroup (disabled children), and social dominance orientation. Results revealed that among the majority group, contact with the primary outgroup had indirect associations with reduced prejudice towards the secondary outgroup. Specifically, we found evidence for sequential mediation by social dominance orientation and prejudice towards the primary outgroup. No secondary transfer effects emerged among minority group members. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of the findings, arguing for the importance of identifying the core processes driving the secondary transfer effect.