Adolescents’ and emerging adults’ judgments and justifications for social inclusion or exclusion of language-outgroup members: Language is just part of the story

Abstract

Language becomes an important intergroup category for children from early on in their lives; however, few studies have examined the role language plays in social inclusion and exclusion. This study examines how adolescents and emerging adults in China make inclusion judgments of language-outgroup members and what reasons they use to justify their inclusion judgments. High school and university students ( N = 376, 63.3% female) were recruited to complete a survey designed to examine their inclusion judgments and justifications. Our findings indicate that participants made different inclusion judgments toward speakers of different languages, and language was the most frequently used justification. They also used group identity, personal choice, and autonomy, group functioning, nationality, moral, and political/historical reasons as justifications. Adolescents were found to be more exclusive than emerging adults and used group identity and political/historical reasons more often to justify their inclusion judgments. The findings add to our understanding of the sophisticated ways in which adolescents and emerging adults make social decisions.

Inclusion of Refugee Peers – Differences Between Own Preferences and Expectations of the Peer Group

“…This research explored adolescents' reasoning, but we were not able to deeply examine developmental changes in adolescents' evaluations. However, prior research in China documents that adolescents are often more exclusive than are young adults when considering inclusion of language out-group members (Zheng et al, 2021). We were also unable to examine the impact of intergroup contact with refugees, although prior research does demonstrate the importance of positive intergroup contact (Gönültaş and Mulvey, 2019).…”

When fairness and group loyalty conflict: Social exclusion, prejudice, and bias in adolescence and early adulthood.

“…Adolescents' and early adults' evaluations of exclusion have also been tested with attention to exclusion based on the language one speaks. In particular, a recent study explored Chinese adolescents' and college students' judgments and reasoning about exclusion of Japanese-, Korean-, and English-speaking peers from a group recreational activity (soccer game; Zheng et al, 2021). In general, adolescents were more exclusive than were early adults and relied more heavily on reasoning about group functioning than did early adults.…”

“…Further, participants were more inclusive of the English speaker than the Japanese and Korean speakers and at times also expressed greater inclusion of the Japanese than the Korean speaker. Participants provided complex reasoning for their inclusion decisions, citing a desire to practice their English skills with the English speaker and citing the history of political tension with Korea and Japan as a justification for exclusion of these targets (Zheng et al, 2021).…”