This study investigated the role of refugee status and language skills for adolescents’ inclusion or exclusion decisions in hypothetical intergroup scenarios. 100 German adolescents (Mage = 13.65 years, SD = 1.93) were presented three scenarios in which groups of adolescents are planning leisure time activities, and peers from their own country (Germany) versus another country (Syrian refugees) with either good or bad German skills want to join them. Whereas adolescents’ inclusion decisions did not differ between the German protagonist and the Syrian one with good German skills, the Syrian protagonist with bad German skills was less likely to be included than either of the other two. These findings have implications for understanding the role of language in adolescents’ inclusion decisions.

This study investigated pre-service teachers' evaluations, reactions, and interventions with regard to interethnic exclusion scenarios in Germany. More specifically, we focused on pre-service teachers (N = 145, 99 female, Mage= 21.34) in the role of observers of exclusion among students. Using hypothetical scenarios in which either a German or a Turkish boy was excluded by other children of his class, we assessed teachers' evaluations of this exclusion behavior. This included evaluating how likely teachers were to intervene in the situation and what they would specifically do. The aim of this research was to examine whether the origin of an excluded student represents a relevant category for teachers' evaluations of and reactions to social exclusion. In addition, we aimed to determine whether teachers include aspects related to group functioning in their considerations. The analyses demonstrated that teachers generally reject social exclusion, with female participants rejecting exclusion even more than male participants. Further, participants evaluated the exclusion of a Turkish protagonist as more reprehensible than the exclusion of a German protagonist. Regarding the likelihood of intervention, the origin of the excluded person was only relevant for male participants; i.e., they were less likely to intervene when the excluded person was German than when the excluded person was Turkish. Analyses of teachers' reasoning revealed their strong focus on inclusion as a social norm, especially in cases of interethnic exclusion. That is, when participants reasoned about the exclusion of the Turkish protagonist, they referred to the social norm of inclusion much more than when talking about the German protagonist. In contrast, aspects related to group functioning were scarcely of importance. In terms of the specific actions that participants would undertake as a reaction to the exclusion situation, no differences related to the origin of the excluded person were found. Hence, the origin of the excluded person factored into both the evaluation of the exclusion and the likelihood of intervention, but once the decision to intervene was made, there were no differences in the specific actions. The results are discussed in light of practical implications and teacher training as well as in terms of implications for future research.

Zusammenfassung. Die vorliegende Arbeit dient der Entwicklung einer Kurzskala zur Messung von Need for Cognition (NFC). Neben traditionellen Verfahren der Itemreduktion auf Basis von Itemkennwerten der klassischen Testtheorie wurde in Studie 1 ( N = 282) ein neues, computergestütztes Verfahren des „full information approach“ vorgestellt. Mithilfe der beiden Verfahren wurden 3 mögliche Skalen mit jeweils 5 Items selektiert, welche in einem unabhängigen Datensatz in Studie 2 ( N = 530) Validierungskriterien unterzogen wurden. Aus den 3 Skalen mit ähnlichen Ergebnissen bezüglich der Gütekriterien wurde eine anhand der „full information approach“ erstellten Skalen als finale Kurzskala NFC-K ausgewählt. Diese NFC-K weist ein Cronbachs α von .69 auf, eine Korrelation mit der Langskala von .81 und keinen signifikanten Zusammenhang mit sozialer Erwünschtheit. Neben der systematischen und objektiven Selektion und Validierung der Kurzskala NFC-K stellt die vorliegende Arbeit auch eine Fallstudie zu den Herausforderungen der Kurzskalenentwicklung auf Basis klassischer und computergestützter Selektionsverfahren dar.

This study investigates the relationship between intelligence and individual differences in children’s moral development across a range of different moral transgressions. Taking up prior research that showed morality and intelligence to be related in adolescents and adults, the current study wants to test if these findings can be extended to younger children. The study was designed to address some of the shortcomings in prior research by examining young children aged between 6 years; 4 months and 8 years; 10 months, using a broad concept of moral development including emotional aspects and applying an approach that is closely connected to children’s daily lives. Participants (N = 129) completed a standardized intelligence test and were presented four moral transgression stories to assess moral development. Results demonstrated that findings from prior research with adolescents or adults cannot simply be extended to younger participants. No significant correlations of moral development and intelligence were found for any of the presented stories. This provides first evidence that – at least in middle childhood – moral developmental status seems to be independent from children’s general intelligence assessed by figural inductive reasoning tests.

The current study investigated pre- and in-service teachers' reactions to interethnic exclusion in Germany. Using hypothetical scenarios, we examined a sample of 482 teachers (84 males, 398 females; 59% pre-service teachers, 41% in-service teachers) as observers of exclusion among students. In these scenarios, we varied the ethnic origin of the excluded student (German vs. Turkish) and the background information, providing participants either with no additional background information or with information specifying that the excluded student had shown prior norm-violating behavior (insult of another student). We assessed the teachers’ evaluations of the scenarios and their anticipated reactions. The aim of the study was to replicate and extend previous research on teachers’ reactions to social exclusion. As expected, the analyses revealed a strong effect of the background information on teachers’ evaluations and reactions. The teachers evaluated exclusion as much more acceptable and were less likely to intervene in the scenarios with negative background information compared to those without additional information. Teachers seem to view exclusion in these situations as an understandable consequence of norm-violating behavior. However, in contrast to our expectations, the ethnic origin of the excluded student in the scenarios had no impact on teachers’ reactions. That is, situational information seems to be much more important for teachers’ reactions to social exclusion than the ethnic origin of an excluded student.