Social Exclusion

Pervasive experiences of exclusion in childhood are negatively related to children's healthy social development. Children who are rejected from others are at risk for loneliness, anxiety, and maladjustment in school (Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 1998). This is also true for adolescents and adults. Adults who have been excluded from social groups are at risk for depression. Most of the research on social exclusion in childhood has focused on why a child excludes others, with an examination of the individual social deficits that contribute to exclusion and rejection (Graham & Juvonen, 1998). These deficits include [Page 1014]wariness and fearfulness on the part of the victim as well as a lack of social competence and social skills on the part of the perpetrator.

When individuals exclude others for reasons based on group membership, such as gender, race, or ethnicity, however, the source of this type of exclusion is different. This form of exclusion stems from negative intergroup attitudes rather than individual social deficits of the “victim” or the “perpetrator” (Killen, Lee-Kim, McGlothlin, & Stangor, 2002). Negative intergroup attitudes include stereotypes, prejudice, and implicit biases about others. A perpetrator may be very socially competent with same-group members (e.g., resolving conflicts in a constructive manner with one's own group members) but may rely on negative social expectations to justify intergroup exclusion. In fact, many individuals are unaware of their own negative judgments about others, referred to as implicit intergroup biases (Dovidio, Kawakami, & Gaertner, 2000). Research has shown that children who are victims of intergroup exclusion experience stress that manifests in both school and home settings (Fisher, Jackson, & Villarruel, 1998).

Children evaluate decisions to exclude peers on the basis of gender and race as wrong using moral reasons, such as unfairness, particularly in straightforward situations, such as when a team or club refuses to allow someone to join who is different from the group (such as an all-boy club excluding a girl or an all-White team excluding a Black child). In more complex situations, such as children having to decide whom to pick for a team or club, decisions often involve stereotypic expectations and norms (Killen et al., 2002). These findings parallel findings in the social psychology literature that have demonstrated that adults rely on stereotypic judgments in ambiguous, but not in straightforward, situations (Dovidio et al., 2000).

Individuals' reasons for exclusion based on gender and race vary. Children and adolescents evaluate racial exclusion as wrong in most contexts, but judge that gender exclusion is legitimate in certain contexts. The reasons for justifying exclusion include group functioning (“The group works best when everyone is the same”), group identity (“They want to have a sense of their own group”), cultural traditions (“It's always been done this way in the past”), cultural norms (“It's just how it's done here”), and stereotypic expectations (“Girls aren't good at baseball”).

Gender stereotypes emerge during the preschool period. Stereotypes typically have to do with activities and appearance. During elementary school, racial, cultural, and religious stereotypes emerge. By adolescence, social groups and cliques form, which often perpetuate stereotypic expectations. As stereotypes are acquired, information in the culture is often assimilated in ways that reinforce the stereotypes. This is because individuals have better memory and better recall for information that is stereotypic-consistent rather than stereotypic-inconsistent. By adulthood, stereotypes are deeply entrenched and difficult to change.

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