Why step in? Shifting justifications for bystander behaviors through interventions with youth in the Middle East.

Research shows positive bystander intervention effectively mitigates bullying experiences. Yet, more evidence regarding bystander responses to bias-based social exclusion (BSE) is needed in intergroup contexts, especially in the majority world and in areas of intractable conflict. This study assessed the effectiveness of skills and skills + contact-based interventions for BSE among 148 Palestinian Citizens of Israel (Mage = 10.55) and 154 Jewish-Israeli (Mage = 10.54) early adolescents (Girls = 52.32%) in Tel Aviv-Yafo. Bystander responses were assessed by participants' reactions to hypothetical BSE scenarios over three time points. Repeated measures ANOVAs revealed both interventions significantly increased positive and decreased negative bystander responses, with changes maintained at the follow-up. The opposite result pattern emerged for the control group. Findings suggest that both interventions can effectively encourage youth to publicly challenge BSE, even amidst intractable conflict.

The Role of Participant Immigrant Background and Gender in Middle School Youth's Responses to Actual and Hypothetical Experiences of Bias-Based Bullying.

The present study draws on socio-cultural theories and socio-cognitive theories as guiding frameworks to examine responses to bias-based bullying among 481 middle school youth (49% female; 15% immigrant; 36% minoritized ethnicity). Based on student self-report data, we examined: (1) whether middle-schoolers response strategies' from the perspective of the victim being excluded or bullied varied across three hypothetical bias-based bullying scenarios based on participant's immigrant background and gender and by target victim's ethnic im/migrant background (e.g. Arab, Latinx, Black); and (2) whether youth disclosure of actual bullying experiences (i.e. to whom they disclosed their bullying experience) differed by their immigrant background and gender. Findings revealed that none of the immigrant girls reported that they would hit the excluder from the perspective of the Latina hypothetical victim compared to when the hypothetical victim was Black and Arab. In response to their actual experiences, immigrant girls were least likely to tell anyone (e.g. peer, teacher, or parent) if they were bullied at school. Results highlight the importance of fostering family and school administration awareness of bullying victimization and the creation of culturally sensitive school interventions and policies for reporting and preventing the bullying victimization of immigrant children, particularly for immigrant girls.

Black-White Racial Context and U.S. American Youths' Moral Judgments of and Responses to Social Exclusion Bullying.

Bullied adolescents experience myriad poor outcomes, yet certain responses can have significant mitigatory effects. However, research has yet to examine how the racial context of these interactions affects adolescents' evaluations of and beliefs about responding to social-exclusionary bullying (SEB). The sample comprised 219 ninth-grade Black (N = 84; females = 46) and White (N = 135; females = 81) students (Mage = 14.84, SD = 0.68; Nfemales= 92) recruited from 5 schools in a large, racially diverse, middle-class Mid-Atlantic metropolitan area of the United States. Participants judged the wrongfulness of 4 scenarios of same- and cross-race SEB and selected how the victims should respond to the victimization. Responses were coded as aggressive, assertive, adult assistance-seeking, or avoidant. Gender, scenario, and response strategy main and interaction effects emerged. The Black-excluder and White-victim scenario was rated least wrong. Assertive responses were selected more often in scenarios with White-excluders; avoidant responses were selected more often in scenarios with Black-excluders. Results suggest that racial context relates significantly to adolescents' evaluations of and responses to SEB scenarios.

Family cohesion and school belongingness: Protective factors for immigrant youth against bias-based bullying.

This study explores the protective effects of family cohesion and school belongingness against the negative consequences of bullying. 481 immigrant and nonimmigrant US middle-school students (Mage = 13.28(0.87), 49% female; 36% ethnic minority) self-reported their experiences being bullied, school belongingness, family cohesion, and socioemotional well-being measured as externalizing, internalizing, and prosocial behaviors. First- or second-generation immigrant youth (n = 72) came from 30 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, and the Caribbean. Family cohesion served as a protective factor for both immigrant and nonimmigrant youth, but for different outcomes of bullying experiences. For immigrant youth who experienced more bullying, having a more cohesive family was associated with decreased levels of internalizing problems. Additionally, stronger school belongingness and especially family cohesion related to more prosocial behaviors among more frequently bullied immigrant youth. Nonimmigrant youth who experienced bullying, however, reported fewer externalizing problems when they had stronger family cohesion and especially school belongingness. The findings highlight the importance of considering the interacting systems in which immigrant youth are embedded and suggest that family cohesion as a protective factor may work differently for immigrant than for nonimmigrant youth experiencing bias-based bullying.

Teaching tolerance or acting tolerant? Evaluating skills- and contact-based prejudice reduction interventions among Palestinian-Israeli and Jewish-Israeli youth.

Although contact-based interventions are the cornerstone of prejudice reduction, in high-conflict environments, incendiary contact with outgroups can instead exacerbate negative attitudes. Supplementing contact interventions with social-cognitive/emotional approaches may, instead, help facilitate positive contact. This study evaluated the effectiveness of two prejudice reduction interventions among 148 Palestinian-Israeli and 154 Jewish-Israeli 5th grade students (Mage.years = 10.55, SD = 0.26) in a high conflict area. Schools in Jaffa, Israel were assigned to a social-cognitive/emotional skills-based intervention, a skills- and contact-based intervention (i.e., skills, skills+contact), or the control group-all delivered as part of the curriculum. Prejudice was assessed through participants' judgments of and justifications about hypothetical scenarios of intergroup exclusion in peer and home contexts at pre-test, post-test, and 6-month follow-up. Repeated measures ANOVAs showed various main effects including gender, ethnicity, and context in which the exclusion occurred (peer/home). Significant higher level interactions with group by time demonstrated the positive influence of both treatment groups on prejudice reduction. The skills and skills+contact groups became more rejecting while the control group became more accepting of exclusion across time. Additionally, the skills and skills+contact groups increased in moral and empathic reasoning over time, whereas the control group increased in social conventional and stereotyped prejudiced reasoning. These findings illustrate the effectiveness of in-school social-cognitive/emotional skills and combined skills+contact approaches in reducing the prejudiced attitudes of Palestinian- and Jewish-Israeli pre-adolescents, especially in areas with protracted conflict.

Brief note: Applying developmental intergroup perspectives to the social ecologies of bullying: Lessons from developmental social psychology.

Over the past decades, the field of bullying research has seen dramatic growth, notably with the integration of the social-ecological approach to understanding bullying. Recently, researchers (Hymel et al., 2015; Hawley & Williford, 2015) have called for further extension of the field by incorporating constructs of group processes into our investigation of the social ecologies of bullying. This brief note details the critical connections between power, social identity, group norms, social and moral reasoning about discrimination and victimization, and experiences of, evaluations of, and responses to bullying. The authors highlight a parallel development in the bridging of developmental social-ecological and social psychological perspectives utilized in the field of social exclusion that provides a roadmap for extending the larger field of bullying research. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled [VSI: Bullying] IG000050.

Understanding the Influence of Stigma and Medical Mistrust on Engagement in Routine Healthcare Among Black Women Who Have Sex with Women.

PURPOSE: For Black women who have sex with women (BWSW), obtaining routine healthcare can be obstructed by a number of psychosocial barriers, including experiences of stigma, related to both sexual orientation and race, and medical mistrust, both race-based and global. Previous research demonstrates that sexual orientation and race-based stigma, as well as global and race-based medical mistrust, each have a negative impact on health outcomes and engagement in care (EIC) independently. This study addresses gaps in the literature by examining the impact of these psychosocial barriers and their interactions among BWSW, an understudied population. METHODS: Participants (256 BWSW) were surveyed at a Black Gay Pride festival. Separate generalized linear models assessed the independent and multiplicative effects of participants' self-reported sexual orientation stigma, race-based stigma, race-based medical mistrust, and global medical mistrust related to their engagement in routine physical exams and blood pressure screenings. RESULTS: Prevalence rates of both stigma measures were low, but prevalence rates of global and race-based medical mistrust were high. The results show that experiencing sexual orientation stigma or having race-based medical mistrust predicts significantly lower EIC. Furthermore, the frequencies of obtaining recent physical examinations and blood pressure screenings were significantly related to three- and two-way interactions between stigma and medical mistrust, respectively. CONCLUSION: There is an urgent need to address the intersectionality of these psychosocial barriers in an effort to increase BWSW's EIC.

Perceived Peer and Parent Out-Group Norms, Cultural Identity, and Adolescents' Reasoning About Peer Intergroup Exclusion.

Cultural group identity and group norms are significantly related to social exclusion evaluations (Bennett, ). This study examined 241 Jewish-American mid (M = 14.18 years, SD = 0.42) to late (M = 17.21 years, SD = 0.43; MageTOTAL  = 15.54 years, SD = 1.57) adolescents' cultural identities and contextually salient perceived group norms in relation to their evaluations of Arab-American inclusion and exclusion across two contexts (peers vs. family at home). Results suggest that perceived group norms are related to the context in which they are applied: parents in the home and peers in the peer context. Peers remained a significant source of perceived group norms in the home context. Significant interactions emerged between perceived parent group norms and cultural identity. Findings highlight the need to address group-specific norms by context to ensure maximum effectiveness for intergroup interventions.

Friendships fighting prejudice: a longitudinal perspective on adolescents' cross-group friendships with immigrants.

Increasingly, adolescents are growing up in multiethnic multicultural societies. While intergroup prejudice can threaten the multicultural societal cohesion, intergroup friendships are strong predictors of reduced prejudice. Thus, more research is needed to fully understand the development of intergroup friendships and their relations to less prejudicial attitudes. This study addressed two major developmental research questions: first, whether longitudinal patterns of intergroup friendships of native adolescents (i.e., whether or not a native German adolescent has a friendship with an immigrant at different points in time) relate to changes in rates of prejudice about immigrants. Second, whether these friendship patterns that unfold over time can be predicted by contact opportunities, attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control assessed at the beginning of the study. The sample included 372 native German adolescents (14.7 years of age at first assessment, 62.3% girls) who showed one of four friendship trajectories over the three annual assessments: they either maintained, gained, never had, or lost a friendship with an outgroup peer. In particular, results showed that adolescents who gained an intergroup friendship over the three time points showed a significant decrease in negative prejudice over the study. All four theorized predictors contributed to explain friendship trajectory membership. Generally, adolescents with many opportunities for contact, positive attitudes about contact, perceived positive social norms for contact, and high levels of behavioral control (self-efficacy) were more likely to maintain a friendship with an outgroup member than to follow any of the three other friendship trajectories (gain, lost, or never had). The pattern of predictions differed, however, depending on the specific pairs of friendship trajectories compared.

Moral judgments about Jewish-Arab intergroup exclusion: the role of cultural identity and contact.

Prejudice and discrimination as justifications for social exclusion are often viewed as violations of the moral principles of welfare, justice, and equality, but intergroup exclusion can also often be viewed as a necessary and legitimate means to maintain group identity and cohesion (Rutland, Killen, & Abrams, 2010). The current study was guided by the social reasoning developmental perspective (Killen & Rutland, 2011) to examine the moral judgments of social exclusion encounters, and the degree to which cultural identity and actual contact with members of other cultural groups is related to social evaluations. Surprisingly, no research has examined how intergroup contact bears on moral judgments about Jewish-Arab encounters in the United States. The current study surveyed 241 Jewish and 249 non-Arab/non-Jewish (comparison group) 14- and 17-year-olds to assess their cultural identification, intergroup contact, and moral judgments regarding intergroup peer social exclusion situations between Jewish and Arab youth in peer, home, and community contexts. Participants overwhelmingly rejected exclusion of an outgroup member explicitly because of their group membership. Context effects emerged, and exclusion was rated as most acceptable in the community context and least acceptable in the peer context. Three factors of identity (i.e., exploration, commitment, and concern for relationships) were explored. Generally, higher identity commitment and lower identity concern for relationships were related to more inclusive evaluations. Interactions between the identity factors and intergroup contact and cultural group, however, differentially predicted evaluations of intergroup exclusion.

Social Understanding in Israeli-Jewish, Israeli-Palestinian, Palestinian, and Jordanian 5-year-old Children: Moral Judgments and Stereotypes.

An empirical investigation was conducted of young Palestinian, Jordanian, Israeli-Palestinian, and Israeli-Jewish children's (N = 433; M = 5.7 years of age) cultural stereotypes and their evaluations of peer intergroup exclusion based upon a number of different factors, including being from a different country and speaking a different language. Children in this study live in a geographical region that has a history of cultural and religious tension, violence, and extreme intergroup conflict. Our findings revealed that the negative consequences of living with intergroup tension are related to the use of stereotypes. At the same time, the results for moral judgments and evaluations about excluding peers provided positive results about the young children's inclusive views regarding peer interactions.

Displaced and non-displaced Colombian children's evaluations of moral transgressions, retaliation, and reconciliation.

In order to assess the effects of displacement and exposure to violence on children's moral reasoning, Colombian children exposed to minimal violence (non-displaced or low-risk) (N = 99) and to extreme violence (displaced or high-risk) (N = 94), evenly divided by gender, at 6-, 9-, and 12 - years of age, were interviewed regarding their evaluation of peer-oriented moral transgressions (hitting and not sharing toys). The vast majority of children evaluated moral transgressions as wrong. Group and age differences were revealed, however, regarding provocation and retaliation. Children who were exposed to violence, in contrast to those with minimum exposure, judged it more legitimate to inflict harm or deny resources when provoked and judged it more okay to retaliate for reasons of retribution. Surprisingly, and somewhat hopefully, all children viewed reconciliation as feasible. The results are informative regarding theories of morality, culture, and the effects of violence on children's social development.

Do Stereotypic Images in Video Games Affect Attitudes and Behavior? Adolescents' Perspectives.

This study examined adolescents' attitudes about video games along with their self-reported play frequency. Ninth and eleventh grade students (N = 361), approximately evenly divided by grade and gender, were surveyed about whether video games have stereotypic images, involve harmful consequences or affect one's attitudes, whether game playing should be regulated by parents or the government, and whether game playing is a personal choice. Adolescents who played video games frequently showed decreased concern about the effects that games with negatively stereotyped images may have on the players' attitudes compared to adolescents who played games infrequently or not at all. With age, adolescents were more likely to view images as negative, but were also less likely to recognize stereotypic images of females as harmful and more likely to judge video-game playing as a personal choice. The paper discusses other findings in relation to research on adolescents' social cognitive judgments.

Social Evaluations of Stereotypic Images in Video Games: Unfair, Legitimate, or "Just Entertainment"?

The aim of this study was to assess adolescents' evaluations of, and reasoning about, gender stereotypes in video games. Female (N = 46) and male (N = 41), predominantly European-American, mean age = 19 years, were interviewed about their knowledge of game usage, awareness and evaluation of stereotypes, beliefs about the influences of games on the players, and authority jurisdiction over 3 different types of games: games with negative male stereotypes, and games with negative female stereotypes, and gender-neutral games. Gender differences were found for how participants evaluated these games. Males were more likely than females to find stereotypes acceptable. Results are discussed in terms of social reasoning, video game playing, and gender differences.