The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth - Alexandra Robbins [133]
During the second stage of Horn’s study, she provided a new detail about the low-status student to make the situation less ambiguous; for example, the dirtie was involved with high school activities. This descriptive variable led students to say they believed the exclusion was more wrong than before they knew anything about the boy besides his label. Ninth graders were more likely than eleventh graders to use stereotypes, rather than moral reasoning, to justify the exclusion. But a number of students still thought that it was fair to exclude someone just because of his label. Horn concluded that stereotyped group labels “function as social categories by which adolescents can judge their peers without having actual information about them.” Thus many students are excluded only because classmates don’t get to know them. It’s easier on the brain to lump outsiders into a general category.
In a follow-up experiment, Horn wanted to see how far teenagers would go to rely on stereotypes over morality when making judgments about someone. She and her colleagues asked high school freshmen to judge whether it was all right to punish a particular group of students for wrongdoing even when there was no evidence that they were to blame. The result? A significant number of the freshmen said that it was okay to punish the group—if the group’s stereotypes fit the crime. They agreed that it was more acceptable to penalize football players for damaging property at a school dance than to punish them for hacking into the school computer system, even if there was no proof they committed either transgression. In scenarios consistent with group stereotypes, the freshmen were more likely to judge based on those stereotypes than on issues of fairness or rights.
Does it matter if a dirtie isn’t on the student council? Or if a Goth doesn’t make the cheerleading squad? Some kids, and even adults, may view this type of exclusion as relatively harmless because it seems reflective of a school’s natural order. At many schools, like Whitney’s, class officers are usually preps.
But what if the peer group categories were more incendiary? What if a student was excluded from the student council not because she was a dirtie but because she was a girl? What if students were punished, without evidence, for destroying school property because they were black? Horn’s mentor, University of Maryland professor Melanie Killen, interviewed diverse nine-, twelve-, and fifteen-year-olds about hypothetical situations in which a child was excluded from friendship, school, or a music club based on gender or race. Almost all of the students said that excluding a child from school because of race or gender was wrong. Their opinions changed, however, when it came to friendship and club membership. In those cases, the students said, exclusion was more acceptable because they should be able to choose their own friends. They rationalized that the club would function better if the club members were more alike.
Similarly Killen told first, fourth, and seventh graders that they hypothetically had to choose either a black or white student for a basketball team or a math club. The seventh graders were more likely than the younger students to use stereotypes when making their decision, choosing the black student for the basketball team and the white student for the math club. The seventh graders also tended to justify their choice by explaining that their selection would make the group work better.
In situations in which little personal information is available, teens often rely on stereotypes when drawing conclusions about a person. Even if, as they age, adolescents become more aware of discrimination issues, their stereotypic expectations also tend to increase. This confusing combination of changes can make it even more challenging for them to evaluate people—and can cause them to de-prioritize fairness and morality when they decide to exclude. Exclusion