Influencing Factors And Their Motivation Forchildren Aged 5-8 Years To Severely Punishin-Group Violators

In-group Favoritism refers to an individual’s preference for his or her own group members in terms of attitudes and behaviors.In contrast,the Black Sheep Effect refers to the harshness of individuals’ attitudes and behaviors toward their own group members.Numerous previous studies have shown that when individuals are confronted with in-group members who violate ethical norms,there is both favoritism and preference for in-group members,as well as the possibility of punishing in-group members more severely(the Black Sheep Effect).At present,domestic and international research on In-group favoritism has been fruitful,but there is still a lack of research on the Black Sheep Effect,especially with children as the subject of investigation,and the investigation of the black sheep effect and its relationship with in-group favoritism is important for understanding how children’s moral judgment is influenced by group identity.Moreover,exploring children’s judgments of moral norms is significant in helping them form correct values in the future.Therefore,this study intends to explore the moral judgments of children aged 5-8 years about group members who violate moral norms.In addition,in terms of the context of moral violations,previous research has found that repeated violations by violators lead to a tendency for adults to punish violators more severely and that violations by members with representative group identities trigger harsher adult criticism,but no research has yet explored whether and how children’s moral judgments of group members are also influenced by these factors.According to subjective group dynamics development theory,children may show stronger disappointment and blame for in-group violations,with a black sheep effect.If this result holds true,what motivates children to engage in this behavior needs to be explored further.Through the above theoretical analysis and reflection,this study adopted the story-context approach,expecting to explore the moral judgment and punishment characteristics and motivations of children aged 5-8 years for in-group members’ violations of moral norms in specific contexts through three studies.Study 1 explored children’s moral judgments and punishment characteristics towards members’ repeated violations by setting different numbers of violations,and found that children showed stronger disappointment as well as imposed harsher punishments when repeated violations occurred in the in-group.Study 2 explored children’s moral judgments about members with representative and non-representative characteristics and the characteristics of punishment by setting up different representations,and found that children showed stronger disappointment and imposed harsher punishment when the offender was a representative member of the in-group.Building on Studies 1 and 2,Study 3 delved deeper into children’s motivations for punishing in/out-groups in order to be able to truly explore and understand the psychological motivations for the black sheep effect in children’s moral judgments.The results show that children’s punishment of in-group offenders is motivated mainly by consequentialist motives,i.e.,they want the offenders to become better.For both in-and out-groups,children were less likely to engage in punitive behavior because of retributivist motives.The results of this study help educators to carry out targeted education according to different age characteristics,better promote the internalization of children’s moral norms,facilitate children’s construction of a self-evaluation system of behavioral norms,and form better social habits.Avoid children being rejected by their peers for violating moral norms and avoiding negative effects in social adaptation due to children’s isolation from the group.