ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Dev. Psychol.

Sec. Adolescent Psychological Development

Volume 3 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fdpys.2025.1554122

This article is part of the Research TopicContemporary Issues in the Study of Adolescent Gender DevelopmentView all articles

Who Should I Listen To? Gender and Age Effects in How Group Norms Relate to Adolescents' Intergroup Relations and Prejudiced Attitudes

Provisionally accepted
Sydney  KleinSydney Klein1*Alaina  BrenickAlaina Brenick1Megan  Clark KellyMegan Clark Kelly2Hla  MohamedHla Mohamed1Kaila  ScallyKaila Scally1Sophia  AndradeSophia Andrade1
  • 1University of Connecticut, Storrs, United States
  • 2Siena College, Colonie, New York, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

When thinking about intergroup exclusion, adolescents weigh prosociality and fairness with the influences of their families and peers. However, research has yet to address whether these group norms influence youth similarly across gender and age. This study assessed whether gender and age moderate the influence of parent and peer outgroup attitudes on 241 Jewish American 9 th graders' (MAge9thGrade=14.18; SD=0.42) and 12 th (MAge12thGrade=17.21; SD=0.43) acceptance and reasoning about intergroup exclusion toward Arab American peers. Results revealed that gender was associated with the malleability to influence of 9 th graders' attitudes, whereas their 12 th grade counterparts were unaffected. Furthermore, positive peer groups served as a buffer against the detrimental effects of parents' prejudiced attitudes. These findings contribute to the understanding of the development of prosocial reasoning and behaviors in adolescence.

Keywords: intergroup relations, social exclusion, societal reasoning, Jewish American, Arab American, Prejudice, age, gender

Received: 01 Jan 2025; Accepted: 04 Apr 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Klein, Brenick, Kelly, Mohamed, Scally and Andrade. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Sydney Klein, University of Connecticut, Storrs, United States

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.