Social Exclusion: The Interplay of Group Goals and Individual Characteristics

Past research has shown that adolescents justify social exclusion based on concerns for group functioning, and yet, to date, no study has evaluated whether group functioning justifications shift or remain stable across different exclusion contexts. In this study, we systematically manipulated exclusion context (i.e., competitive or noncompetitive soccer groups) and individual characteristics of the target of exclusion to test the nature of the interaction between these factors during exclusion judgments. Adolescents’ (N = 201; 61 % Female) exclusion judgments differed across contexts only when an individual’s ability was under consideration. Intergroup (i.e., gender, nationality) and interpersonal (i.e., aggression, shyness) characteristics overwhelmed contextual considerations. Results indicate the complexity of factors weighed by adolescents when making exclusion judgments, and suggest the need for extension of the present findings to understand more fully the interaction between the context of exclusion and individual characteristics in exclusion judgments.     

Procedural Justice in Family Conflict Resolution and Deviant Peer Group Involvement Among Adolescents: The Mediating Influence of Peer Conflict

The involvement of adolescents with deviant peer groups is one of the strongest proximal correlates to juvenile delinquency and stems from a variety of causes. Past research has linked ineffective parenting with peer variables, including deviant peer group involvement and peer conflict during adolescence. In this study, adolescents’ appraisals of procedural justice within the family (adolescents’ appraisals of how fairly they are treated by parents in the process of resolving family conflict) were examined as one aspect of effective parenting that may relate to deviant peer group involvement in early adolescence. Data from 1660 middle school students (ages 11–14, mean = 12.6) indicated that higher appraisals by adolescents of procedural justice during family conflict resolution were related to lower levels of both peer conflict and deviant peer group involvement. A structural model was tested in which the relationship between adolescents’ appraisals of procedural justice in the family and deviant peer group involvement was partially mediated by measures of peer conflict. This model was found to have adequate fit to the data, indicating that part of the relationship between procedural justice appraisals and deviant peer group involvement can be explained by levels of peer conflict. Implications of these findings are discussed.

How Managers Can Reduce Household Water Use Through Communication: A Field Experiment

As populations increase and droughts intensify, water providers are using tools such as persuasive messaging to decrease residential water use. However, district-led messaging campaigns are rarely informed by psychological science, evaluated for effectiveness, or strategically disseminated. In collaboration with a water district, we report a field experiment among single-family households using persuasive messaging based on the information-motivation-behavioral skills model (IMB). We randomly assigned 10,000 households to receive different mailings and measured household water use. All messaging reduced water consumption relative to the control. On average, water use dropped 0.68 hundred cubic feet (HCF) (509 gallons) per household in the first month. Had all 10,000 single-family, occupied, non-agricultural residences been mailed the IMB messaging, more than five million gallons would have been saved in the first month. The effects declined but persisted for approximately three months and were three to six times greater in households with high water use (75th to 90th percentiles) relative to average water use. These findings suggest that combining message elements from the IMB model can reduce residential water use and that targeting high-use households is particularly cost-effective.     

Media Motivation and Elite Rhetoric in Comparative Perspective

The exchange of diverse points of view in elite deliberation is considered a cornerstone of democracy. This study presents evidence that variations in political motivation for media use predict the tendency of politicians to present deliberative rhetoric that considers multiple points of view regarding issues and sees those views as related to one another. We surveyed 111 incumbent Members of Parliament in Belgium, Canada, and Israel and analyzed a large sample of their parliamentary speeches. The findings demonstrate that motivation to attain media coverage and act upon information from the news media leads politicians to strategically display simple and unidimensional rhetoric due to newsworthiness considerations, but only in countries where the media constitute important resources for reelection. The results contribute to extant literature by demonstrating a media effect on elite deliberation and by emphasizing the moderating role of political systems on the nature of elite rhetoric.