Children disassociate from antisocial in-group members

Abstract

Extensive research has demonstrated that children show a robust in-group bias and, concurrently, are highly attuned to the prosocial and antisocial behavior of others. The limited research investigating the capacity for antisocial behavior to attenuate children’s in-group bias has, however, returned mixed findings. Moreover, no research has examined how this might interact with perceived group permeability. Thus, the current study aimed to provide a more complete understanding of the relationship between in-group bias and antisocial behavior, how this interacts with perceptions of out-group behavior, and how group context (permeability) influences these responses. Children at age 4 and 5years and age 7 and 8years were assigned to a group randomly or based on their performance of a task. They then watched videos of in-groups and out-groups behaving prosocially and antisocially, in differing combinations, with the key experimental conditions focusing on an antisocial in-group paired with either a prosocial or antisocial out-group. In-group preference was then determined using liking ratings, resource allocation, and perceived similarity to the in-group. For older children, but not younger children, antisocial behavior, but not group permeability, was found to attenuate in-group bias for measures of liking and association. Interestingly, no effect was identified for children’s own resource allocation behavior. This indicates that although there is a robust effect of antisocial behavior on in-group judgments, it does not extend so far as to influence children to behave antisocially themselves.