| The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence that adolescents' knowledge of adolescent social reference groups (crowds) has on moral and social reasoning, and the factors that influence when and how adolescents use their knowledge of groups to make decisions about their peers. Three hundred seventy-nine ninth and eleventh grade students were surveyed using hypothetical dilemmas regarding excluding or denying resources to an individual based solely on the targets' reference group membership in two conditions. In the first condition no individuating information about the target was given. In the second condition, either positive or negative traits were assigned to the target. Adolescents were asked to evaluate whether they thought exclusion or denial of resources was wrong (judgment), to provide a reason for the judgment (justification), as well as to choose between a high status and a low status group member to participate in the activity (choice).; The results of this study suggest that, overall, adolescents judged exclusion and denial of resources as wrong and used moral reasons such as fairness to the individual to justify their judgments. Despite the overall finding that adolescents did not give priority to their knowledge of social reference group categories in making decisions, the results also suggest that in certain contexts and under certain conditions, adolescents were more likely to use their group knowledge in making decisions. Adolescents were more likely to judge exclusion based on group membership as all right than denial of resources based on group membership, particularly when no individuating information was given about the target. Further, boys were more likely to judge both exclusion and denial of resources as less wrong than girls. Ninth graders were more likely to judge exclusion as less wrong than eleventh graders. Additionally, adolescents who were members of high status groups were more discriminatory in their judgments than adolescents in low status groups or no group. The results of the study suggest that while adolescents' knowledge of social reference groups influence their reasoning in some contexts, overall, adolescents did not give priority to group knowledge or stereotypes in making decisions in moral contexts. |
