The Judgments and Emotion Attributions in Peer Exclusion Situations among Fourth, Sixth, and Eighth Graders in Japan

Abstract

This study examined the judgments and emotion attributions in peer exclusion situations among Japanese middle-childhood children (fourth graders and sixth graders) and adolescents (eighth graders). In total, 371 participants were presented with one of three bystander conditions—no bystander, passive bystander, or active bystander—and asked to judge the excluders’ behavior and attribute emotions toward excluders. Here, excluders are children who physically or emotionally separate other children from social groups. All scenarios involved a child wishing to join a peer group but was rejected (that is, excluded from the group), and there were three types of situations: one in which there were no bystanders, one in which the bystanders did not respond, and one in which the bystanders allowed the excluded child into their group. The excluded target was presented as either violent or shy. Furthermore, the participants assessed their own bullying and bystander behaviors in their daily lives. Adolescents judged excluders as less immoral and as having positive emotions more often than did children. Both children and adolescents judged the exclusion of violent targets to be less serious than the exclusion of shy targets. There were no differences in judgments and attributions according to bystander types. There was weak evidence of a relationship between self-reported bullying/bystander behavior, and judgment in fictitious settings was obtained.