Child Development, November/December 2002, Volume 73, Number 6, Pages 1788–1802 Japanese and American Children’s Evaluations of Peer Exclusion, Tolerance of Differences, and Prescriptions for Conformity Melanie Killen, David S. Crystal, and Hirozumi Watanabe Children and adolescents (N = 1,057), divided by gender, at fourth, seventh, and tenth grades, from two mid- sized cities in the United States and in Japan, were surveyed regarding their evaluations of peer group exclu- sion of atypical peers. Six reasons for atypicality were being aggressive, having an unconventional appearance, acting like a clown, demonstrating cross-gender behavior, being a slow runner, and having a sad personality. Analyses revealed significant effects for age, gender, country membership, and the context of exclusion. With age, children demonstrated context sensitivity, and believed that the excluded child should not change him- or herself to be accepted by the group. Across contexts, girls were less willing to exclude than were boys, and were more tolerant of differences. The context of exclusion had an effect on all forms of judgments about exclu- sion, and there were very few overall effects for culture. Most children disagreed with the decision to exclude, believed that they were different from the atypical child, and believed that the excluded child should change him- or herself to be accepted by the group. The results support a theory of developmental social cognition in which multiple sources of influence have a significant effect on social decision making involving the exclusion of others. INTRODUCTION Understanding how children and adolescents reason about exclusion reveals the ways in which youth con- ceptualize the relationship between the individual and the group (see Killen, McGlothlin, & Lee-Kim, 2002). The legitimacy or wrongfulness of exclusion depends on the nature of this conceptualization. In some situations, for example, exclusion may be viewed as legitimate in order to preserve social group func- tioning (such as excluding a poor athlete from a sports team); in other situations, exclusion may be viewed as wrong when individual rights are violated (such as excluding a club member because of ethnic background). Although social psychologists have long viewed exclusion solely in moral terms (see Opotow, 1990), our research has indicated that exclusion from groups is a multifaceted phenomenon (Killen, Pisa- cane, Lee-Kim, & Ardila-Rey, 2001; Killen & Stangor, 2001; Theimer, Killen, & Stangor, 2001). Different forms of reasoning are brought to bear on decisions about exclusion. In a similar manner, Wainryb and colleagues (Wainryb, Shaw, Laupa, & Smith, 2001; Wainryb, Shaw, & Maianu, 1998), also using a social–cognitive framework, have found that tolerance is a multifac- eted construct; tolerance depends on the content and context of the message or value under consideration. This view is also distinct from prior research that identified tolerance as an absolute moral value. Fur- ther, our view stands in contrast to theories that conceive of exclusionary attitudes as a personality trait, one that transcends context (Adorno, Frenkel- Brunswick, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950; Pratto, Sida- nius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994). In the present study, the approach to the issue of ex- clusion was based, in large part, on social–cognitive domain theory (Helwig, 1995; Killen, 1991; Smetana, 1995; Tisak, 1995; Turiel, 1998), which suggests that social reasoning about complex moral and social problems requires detailed analyses of context, and that different forms of reasoning are brought to bear on such issues. The current investigation was de- signed to expand the domain-specific understanding of children’s and adolescents’ attitudes toward exclu- sion in two ways: first, by adding a cross-cultural component; and second, by using individual-level at- tributes of behavior or personality as criteria for ex- clusion rather than race or gender, which we have used in prior studies (see Killen, McGlothlin, & Lee- Kim, 2002). If, as we have stated, decisions about ex- clusion necessarily involve judgments about the rela- tionship between the individual and the group, it is reasonable to expect that such decisions would vary widely by culture. Cultures, such as the United States and Japan, for example, are considered to have dis- parate orientations toward the individual–group rela- tionship. Theorists such as Markus and Kitayama (1991) and Triandis (1989, 1995) have characterized the United States as an individualistic or independent culture, whose members are seen as giving priority to © 2002 by the Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. All rights reserved. 0009-3920/2002/7306-0012