Moral reasoning about gang violence in context: A comparative study with children and adolescents exposed to maras in Honduras and not exposed in Nicaragua

Abstract

This study examined how youth morally deliberate about conditions of gang violence shaping their communities. Participants (N = 80; 10–11 and 14–15 years; 50% female) exposed to gangs (maras) in Honduras and not exposed to maras in Nicaragua evaluated hypothetical situations of physical harm in contexts of chronic gang violence. Results indicated that mara-exposed youth were more likely to endorse harming a rival gang member in some contexts, but not others. Moreover, in some contexts, males were more likely to endorse harming others as necessary. Few age differences emerged, suggesting comparability among children and adolescents. Discussion focuses on how children and adolescents coordinate different moral and social concepts and concerns pertaining to acts of physical harm in situations involving gangs.

Abbreviations

ETV

exposure to violence

The Central American country of Honduras has had one of the highest levels of violence, especially homicide in the region, as well as the widespread presence of gangs known as maras for over a decade (Insight Crime, 2016; Prado Pérez, 2018; Zinecker, 2013). Maras, such as MS-13, pose a number of risks for children, adolescents, and their communities in Honduras due to the violence they enact (Tiusabá Gómez & Rodríguez Pastrana, 2017). By contrast, the neighboring country of Nicaragua has had one of the lowest levels of reported homicide for over decade (Sánchez et al., 2015), and where maras have not been established (Portillo, 2012).Given children's and adolescents' exposure to mara violence in Honduras, some researchers and policymakers conclude that this exposure leads to its normalization and perpetuation (Ransford et al., 2016; United States Agency for International Development, 2016).

There are a variety of aspects to consider in assessing whether or not exposure to chronic violence is normalized among youth. For instance, what does normalization actually refer to? Does the term suggest that youth morally accept the violence they are exposed to? Or does it mean that youth expect the violence to occur yet believe it is wrong for the violence to happen? While some studies have examined adults' perceptions of the violence in Honduras (Hansen-Nord et al., 2014; Instituto Universitario en Democracia, Paz y Seguridad, 2016, 2018), and numerous youth violence prevention programs have been implemented (Moestue et al., 2013; Ransford et al., 2016), little is known of how youth reason about and make sense of the violence. The present study sought to address this gap in the research by examining the following question: How do children and adolescents exposed to mara violence in Honduras and youth not exposed to mara violence in Nicaragua morally judge and reason about acts of physical harm within the context of mara-related violence?

The conditions of gang violence in Honduras and in Nicaragua

Conditions in Honduras

The high levels of violence in the Central American countries of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador—countries known as the Northern Triangle—have compelled policymakers and practitioners to seek multidisciplinary research to support prevention efforts (Berk-Seligson et al., 2014; Korthuis, 2014; Moestue et al., 2013; USAID, 2016). The chronic conditions of violence in Honduras have contributed to an array of social instability and insecurity among the population. According to the Interinstitutional Commission for the Protection of Persons Displaced by Violence in Honduras, estimated 174,000 people were displaced in 20 municipalities because of violence between the years 2004 and 2014 (Tiusabá Gómez & Rodríguez Pastrana, 2017). These conditions have led to internal and external migration (“Unos 250 mil hondureños,” 2019) and disruption in schooling for children (Tiusabá Gómez & Rodríguez Pastrana, 2017).

Often discussed contributing factors include various forms of organized crime and gangs known as maras (Frank, 2018; Sánchez et al., 2015; Seelke, 2016) with networks that extend throughout both rural and urban areas of the country (“Inside an MS13 clique's campaign of terror,” 2020). Maras, the two main groups being MS-13 and Barrio 18, are dominant in the Northern Triangle and have been a source of insecurity, especially for residents in Honduras since the late 1990s and early 2000s (Insight Crime, 2019a; Portillo, 2012). The forms of documented violence associated with maras include homicide, drug trade, sexual assaults, extortion, and territory disputes, and are best understood as having complex social, spatial, and temporal dimensions that serve multiple functions (Insight Crime, 2019b; Moreno, 2020; Portillo, 2012; Ruiz, 2020a; Seelke, 2014; Shifter, 2012). In the city of San Pedro Sula, Honduras, mara territory borders constrain rival gangs from entering neighborhoods and have also functioned as constraints on non-mara affiliated community residents and outsiders such as extended family, public transportation providers, and taxi drivers who enter and leave the territories. “War taxes” (i.e., extortion) is a widespread form of violence perpetrated by maras directed at local and large businesses, as well as public transportation providers and taxi drivers, under the threat of extreme bodily harm to them or their family (“Extorsión: el mal que tiene de rodillas a medio Honduras,” 2017; Ruiz, 2020b). Consider that in 2015, an estimated $200 million was generated from extortion fees in the entire country (Bastién Olvera, 2020). And between January and July of 2019, “some 50 public transport workers [were] murdered in Honduras” for refusing to pay extortion fees (InSight Crime, 2019b). Extortions have greatly contributed to the insecurity, fear, and displacement of individuals and communities (Ruiz, 2020b).

Conditions in Nicaragua

By contrast, Nicaragua has been described as a “counterintuitive” example of the Northern Triangle (Sánchez et al., 2015; Zinecker, 2013). As conditions of violence and insecurity worsened both nationally in Honduras and citywide in San Pedro Sula, Nicaragua—a country that shares a border with Honduras—maintained one of the lowest levels of violence in the region and citywide in the capital of Managua (Sánchez, 2010; Zinecker, 2013). For instance, between the years 2008 and 2017 (the year data were collected), citywide homicide rates in San Pedro Sula ranged from 95 per 100,000 to 107 per 100,000—peaking at 193 per 100,000 in 2013. In contrast, for the same duration of time, Managua's homicide rate ranged from 25 per 100,000 in 2008 to 8 per 100,000 in 2017—peaking at 27 per 100,000 in 2010 (Homicide Monitor, n.d.).

In addition, local youth gangs in Nicaragua, known as pandillas, have not transformed into more organized groups associated with intense violence and extortion as the maras in Honduras (Portillo, 2012; Rodgers, 2017). Pandillas have existed in Managua for decades, having undergone ideological transformations, years of pacification and revival, as well as variations in the types of violence perpetuated at different moments in time (Rodgers & Rocha, 2013). Yet, as noted by Rodgers (2017), “Pandillas are only significantly visible in Nicaragua, having been almost completely supplanted by maras in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala during the Cold War period; this is one reason why Nicaragua suffers less violence than the latter three countries” (p. 649). Compared to pandillas, maras are characterized as organized transnational groups with ties to narcotrafficking (“Combating Transnational Gangs,” 2018; Zinecker, 2013). Furthermore, although extortions do occur in Nicaragua, they occur more frequently in rural communities compared to urban areas and are associated with primarily interpersonal conflicts compared to organized crime and maras in Honduras (Sánchez et al., 2015).

Youth exposure to mara violence in Honduras, including extortions and conflicts over territory, does necessitate the question asked by others: Do youth normalize the violence they are exposed to (Ransford et al., 2016)? These concerns echo what developmental scholars have sought to understand more broadly, whether or not “violence breeds violence” (Punamäki, 2010; Qouta et al., 2008), as some suggest it does (Huesmann, 2018). The current study focuses on the question: Does exposure to mara-related violence result in youth morally accepting the violence?

Exposure to violence and moral development

Research on social–moral cognitions and aggression or violent transgression has been approached from a variety of perspectives, including social information theory (Crick & Dodge, 1996). Less research, however, has examined associations between exposure to violence (ETV) and moral thinking. Studies on moral development and ETV have been conducted from a number of perspectives, including studies with perpetrators of harm regarding the moral agency of youth (Pasupathi & Wainryb, 2010; Wainryb, 2011) and moral injury of adults (Litz & Kerig, 2019). One view that has influenced policy perspectives in Honduras has been the social contagion model (Moreno, 2020). The social contagion view maintains that violence is socially transmitted, within and across types of violence, like a disease (Huesmann & Kirwil, 2007). This contagion model is fastened to the social cognitive learning paradigm that individuals internalize aggressive norms and behaviors primarily from their ETV via observational learning mechanisms (Huesmann & Kirwil, 2007). Research from a social cognitive learning approach has examined normative beliefs and moral disengagement strategies in relation to exposure to community-level violence (Guerra et al., 2003; Hyde et al., 2010; Musher-Eizenman et al., 2004; Orue et al., 2011), and ethnic-political violence (Dubow et al., 2009; Huesmann et al., 2017). The underlying principles of morality (i.e., normative beliefs) guiding this body of work are that (a) moral values and standards are determined by one's authorities, social groups, and/or broader society, and (b) children internalize these values and standards as normative beliefs (i.e., beliefs about what is acceptable behavior) through observational learning mechanisms (Bandura et al., 1996; Huesmann, 2018). Moral disengagement refers to strategies individuals use to rationalize and justify harmful behaviors toward others as a mechanism for circumventing one's own morals and avoiding self-censure (Bandura, 2018; Dhingra et al., 2015).

In one study, older children exposed to severe violence (i.e., shootings and beatings) were more likely to accept harming others in general, while no associations were found with younger children (Guerra et al., 2003). In contrast, Huesmann et al. (2017) found that younger children exposed to ethnic-political violence were more likely to endorse harming others than older children; no differences were found between older children and adolescents. Normative beliefs about aggression have also been found to mediate exposure to community-level violence, either as a victim or witness, and subsequent aggression (Guerra et al., 2003; Orue et al., 2011). Research on moral disengagement and ETV has also yielded mixed results. For instance, moral disengagement among adolescents involved in gangs decreased with age in one study (Dhingra et al., 2015), while others found that adolescents were more likely than children to endorse moral disengagement strategies (Gini et al., 2015). However, in one study with youth exposed to interparental violence, children were more likely than adolescents to endorse moral disengagement (Hyde et al., 2010). Furthermore, some studies show that victimized youth were less likely to endorse strategies of moral disengagement (Dhingra et al., 2015; Pornari & Wood, 2010 cited in Dhingra et al., 2015). However, victimization has also been found to be associated with normative beliefs of endorsing retaliatory aggression, but not provoked aggression (Musher-Eizenman et al., 2004).

Yet, limitations exist on how best to interpret these findings. First, studies on normative beliefs only examine social judgments, excluding the participants' justification reasoning for the judgments made (Huesmann et al., 2017; Hyde et al., 2010; Musher-Eizenman et al., 2004). Secondly, in each of the studies, the conditions of violence the participants were exposed to were left unexamined as part of their social judgments or endorsement of moral disengagement strategies. One study did modify their normative belief measurement to include items of aggression directed at actual outgroup members in the ethnic-political conflict; however, the items did not involve situations of the ethnic-political conflict itself (Huesmann et al., 2017). As such, it is difficult to ascertain the underlying attitudes or beliefs children have of the violence they are exposed to so as to test how their normative beliefs may or may not correspond to the broader societal values they are proposed to have derived from.

Other research that has examined ETV and moral thinking comes from a social–moral domain approach, whereby morality and its development are not considered to be “determined by agreement, consensus, or institutional convention” (Turiel, 2015, p. 38). Moral thinking has to do with how individuals understand, deliberate, and examine the conditions and conflicts between a person's welfare, justice, or rights in relation to social rules and laws in a given set of circumstances. Accordingly, children's development involves organizing, constructing, and differentiating knowledge of the social world along three domains: the moral, the social-conventional, and the personal (Turiel, 1983). The moral domain refers to concepts of welfare, fairness, justice, and rights. The social-conventional domain refers to conventions of organizing and regulating social relationships in a given society or cultural group found in rules, laws, or a given authority figure. Finally, personal concepts refer to areas of personal choice outside of rule contingency or moral concerns (Nucci, 1981).

Studies on aggression with children and adolescents show that most, if not all, participants judge unprovoked acts of harm as wrong for moral reasons. However, in situations of provocation, judgments and justifications vary by provocation and context (Astor, 1994; Gasser et al., 2012; Jambon & Smetana, 2014; Nesdale et al., 2013; Smetana et al., 2003). For example, in one study with situations of physical retaliation for verbal provocation, nonviolent youth were more likely to judge the act as wrong due to the consequences of physical harm. Meanwhile, youth classified as violent focused on the psychological harm of the insult as to why the retaliation was acceptable (Astor, 1994). In another study, both younger and older children were less likely to accept physically hitting a person in response to teasing and were, instead, more likely to accept teasing as a response to teasing (Smetana et al., 2003).

The few studies on the effects of ETV conducted from a domain approach have yielded results regarding harm in general consistent with the overall research from a domain approach. For example, children and adolescents exposed to political armed conflict judged unprovoked acts of physical harm as wrong for moral reasons (Ardila-Rey et al., 2009; Posada & Wainryb, 2008). However, these studies also show moral reasoning varies by context of harm. For instance, in Posada and Wainryb's (2008) study, concerns for harm, welfare, and fear of punishment and rules were coordinated and applied differently in situations of revenge and survival. More specifically, in the situation of committing revenge for survival (i.e., stealing a bike for a job), almost a third of the children judged it all right for a person to steal or harm another person, while almost 40% of participants judged these actions as wrong for reasons other than moral concerns. Ardila-Rey et al. (2009) found that children exposed to violence endorsed physical harm under certain circumstances of provocation and that younger children were more likely to endorse harming others than older children. Yet no differences in social judgments and reasoning were found between males and females in both studies (Ardila-Rey et al., 2009; Posada & Wainryb, 2008), consistent with previous research with nonexposed populations (Smetana, 2006).

One limitation of the few studies on ETV from a domain approach is that the situational conditions presented to participants did not reflect the broader armed conflict in which the children grew up (Ardila-Rey et al., 2009; Posada & Wainryb, 2008). Second, and more broadly speaking, studies using hypothetical conditions typically present acts of interpersonal harm in situations that do not involve chronic or prolonged violence or broader social conflict; that is, they are momentary acts of interpersonal harm. Thus, it is necessary to examine how children and adolescents think about particular acts of interpersonal violence in relation to the perceived stable features of chronic violence impacting their communities. The following study examined children's and adolescents' social judgments and justifications about acts of physical harm in the chronic, violent contexts of gangs known as maras.

The current study includes considerations bearing on the forms of violence that have been documented by the author in field research—including focus groups—and by others (Insight Crime, 2016), violence that directly impacts the communities that the children and adolescents selected from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, grow up in. These forms of violence include gang rivalry, extortion, gang-enforced borders, and constrained personal movements of community members due to gang borders.

CURRENT STUDY

The main research question guiding the current study is: Do children's and adolescents' social judgments and justifications about acts of physical harm vary as a function of their exposure to mara-related violence? The first aim was to assess if there are differences in how children and adolescents from both exposure groups evaluate acts of unprovoked harm. Unprovoked harm in the current study included general questions about harming others and one baseline situation (i.e., not involving maras) of unprovoked harm. Previous studies on domains of social–moral knowledge show that children and adolescents judge acts of unprovoked harm as wrong for moral reasons, including children exposed to political violence (Ardila-Rey et al., 2009; Posada & Wainryb, 2008). Thus, it was expected that children and adolescents from both exposure groups would judge acts of unprovoked harm as wrong out of the moral concern for the welfare of others.

A second aim was to examine under what general circumstances children and adolescents would endorse acts of physical harm. Previous research shows that moral evaluations of physical aggression vary if the agents' intentions are selfish, hostile, prosocial (Rule et al., 1974; Sears et al., 1958), or are meant to prevent harm (Jambon & Smetana, 2014). It was expected that children and adolescents from both exposure groups would accept acts of physical harm for circumstances of defending oneself or others.

A third aim was to examine children's and adolescents' moral evaluations about acts of physical harm in the context of mara-related violence. For this, participants were presented with multifaceted situations with competing concerns of harm related to gang borders, extortion, and gang rivalry. Previous research shows that young people prioritize and coordinate social and moral concepts differently as a function of the competing concerns constituting each situation of harm (Astor, 1994; Helwig, 1995), with similar findings among children exposed to political violence (Ardila-Rey et al., 2009; Posada & Wainryb, 2008). Given the mixed findings from previous studies on moral evaluations and ETV (Ardila-Rey et al., 2009; Dhingra et al., 2015; Guerra et al., 2003; Huesmann et al., 2017; Hyde et al., 2010; Posada & Wainryb, 2008) it was expected that there would be differences in judgments and reasoning as a function of exposure and age. Yet, in addition to the mixed findings from the broader research, consistent with the studies on social–moral domain reasoning with children exposed to violence (Ardila-Rey et al., 2009; Posada & Wainryb, 2008), it was expected that there would be no differences by gender. However, it is difficult to predict which concerns children and adolescents would prioritize because of the complexity of the gang violence, as discussed above, making the analyses of judgments and justifications more of an exploratory examination.

METHODS

Sites and participants

The study included a total of 80 participants equally divided by males and females, with 40 children aged 10–11 years (M = 11.0; SD = 0.50) and 40 adolescents aged 14–15 years old (M = 14.79; SD = 0.66). Twenty children and 20 adolescents were recruited from San Pedro Sula, the second largest city in Honduras with an estimated 740,000 residents. According to violence prevention efforts in the neighborhoods of this study (GENESIS, 2015) and others (Insight Crime, 2016), male children as young as 10 years of age are at high risk for gang recruitment and violence. In addition, field research conducted in the neighborhoods of this study by the author found that by age 10, children are prohibited from crossing gang borders. Thus, local sociocultural contexts of the violence were a motivating factor for comparing older children of 10–11 years with adolescents of 14–15 years who already navigate these high risks associated with maras. With the guidance from staff of a Honduran foundation and local community leaders, participants were recruited from community outreach centers in neighborhoods marked by mara-membership, mara territory borders, and widespread extortion. The snowball recruiting method was used as a result of military imposed restrictions and curfews during nationwide social-political unrest. The number of years the children (M = 9.65) and adolescents (M = 12.95) have resided in their neighborhoods indicates that they have lived in conditions of mara-related violence for the majority of their lives. Estimated rates of homicide in San Pedro Sula have been one of the highest in the world for a country not at war for almost a decade (Ransford et al., 2016), and there are more estimated members of maras compared to any other city in the country (InSight Crime, 2016). Using the parameters of years in neighborhood, homicide rates, and mara activity, participants from San Pedro Sula were classified as exposed to mara violence.

The comparison group of participants was recruited from a community outreach center and a local school in Nicaragua's capital city, Managua, with an estimated 1,000,000 residents—also with the guidance from staff of a Nicaraguan foundation and local community leaders. The number of years the children (M = 10.30) and adolescents (M = 12.90) in Managua have resided in their neighborhoods is comparable to the youth in Honduras, as were the SES conditions of the neighborhoods. National and citywide estimates of homicide rates have been one of the lowest in the Central American region for over a decade (Homicide Monitor, n.d.) and gang membership has been extremely low (Zinecker, 2013). Participants from Managua were classified as not exposed to mara violence.

The dominant language in both Honduras and Nicaragua is Spanish, both countries share a national border, and both countries have ranked similarly high in multidimensional poverty indexes and low in educational indexes (United Nations Development Program, 2016). Moreover, participants from San Pedro Sula, children (M = 4.75) and adolescents (M = 7.80), shared similar formal education levels with those in Managua, children (M = 5.15) and adolescents (M = 7.55). Data were collected in 2017.

The process of recruiting a comparative group of youth from communities not exposed to maras in Honduras is challenging for a few key reasons. First, maras have extensive networks in both rural and urban areas of Honduras (Silva Ávalos, 2020). Second, comparing youth from rural areas with those from large cities requires additional socio-economic and cultural considerations, especially with Indigenous communities in rural areas that are not represented in San Pedro Sula. Thus, the decision was made to recruit participants from Managua, Nicaragua, because of the socioeconomic and cultural similarities outlined above.

Design and procedures

Children and adolescents were interviewed individually for approximately 35–50 min at local community centers and local schools. The interviews were conducted in Spanish and the responses were recorded, transcribed, and coded for analysis. Children and adolescents who assented to participate and whose parents/guardians gave consent to their participation were interviewed. Study protocols were approved by the University of California, Berkeley's Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects. Forty-six participants from San Pedro Sula agreed to participate where 13% (n = 6) of the interviews were omitted for either participants discontinuing or for incomplete interviews; 41 participants from Managua agreed to participate with 2% (n = 1) of the interviews omitted for being incomplete. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board from University of California, Berkeley.

Moral evaluations

Moral evaluations about inflicting harm to another person were assessed through a semistructured interview (see Appendix S1 for full questions). The interview consisted of general assessment and open-ended questions, as well as contextualized situations of physical harm. Situations of non-gang rivalry and gang rivalry are presented (see Table 1). The classification of each domain is based on previous research (Helwig, 1995; Turiel, 2015). The general assessment questions, open-ended questions, and situations were aimed at examining judgments and reasoning about concerns for avoiding physical harm, gang rivalry, retaliation, extortion, family welfare, gang borders, and endorsement of physical violence.

TABLE 1. Hypothetical situations.

Situations	Description
Baseline (Non-mara)	The protagonist punches a boy who is walking in his neighborhood
Rivalry: Territory dispute	The protagonist punches a rival gang member for crossing the gang border into his gang territory
Rivalry: Retaliation	The protagonist punches a rival gang member for hitting his friend who is in the same gang
Non-rivalry: Extortion	The protagonist (not affiliated with a gang) punches the extorting gang member to return the money back to his family for food
Non-rivalry: Personal movements	The protagonist (not affiliated with a gang) punches a gang member who is prohibiting him from crossing the gang border to visit his friend

Three general assessment questions are based on previous studies used to assess criterion judgments of harm absent of any specific context. The general assessment questions consisted of an abstract question about harming another person absent of any contextual information, the school rule, and another country questions consisted of an authority allowing the act of physical harm. Each question was followed by probing questions of “why or why not?” to assess their justifications. Three general assessment questions consisted of the following in a fixed order:

1. Is it alright or not alright for someone to hit and physically harm another person? (evaluation in the abstract);
2. Suppose that in your school, the principal and teachers decided not to have any rules that punish people who physically hit other people. Would it be alright or not alright for the school to decide that? (criterion of rule alterability);
3. Suppose another country has no laws to punish people when you physically hit another person. Is it alright or not alright for that country to not have any laws related to hitting? (criterion of generalizability).

Two additional opened-ended questions were asked to examine under what circumstances would children and adolescents endorse acts of physical harm. The purpose of these two open-ended questions was to assess under what circumstances children and adolescents would accept physically harming another person and for what reasons. These questions consisted of:

1. Do you think there are situations when it is alright to physically hit and harm another person?
2. Do you think there are situations when it is necessary to physically hit and harm another person?

The contextualized situations consisted of one baseline situation not involving maras and four situations involving maras (see Table 1). The baseline situation consisted of a single moment of interpersonal physical harm. The remaining four situations were embedded in the context of ongoing gang-related violence; that is, there were temporal and spatial features of the violence framing the mara-related situations. Two situations had to do with gang rivalry, and two situations were in the context of the gang directing violence toward community members. The selection of two rivalry and two non-rivalry gang situations was to assess how youth evaluate situations that reflect the actual living conditions and dynamics in the communities of San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Every mara situation used in the study is based on an initial study and fieldwork conducted in San Pedro Sula, as well as feedback provided by youth and violence prevention practitioners in the country.

The following situations were presented to participants. In the baseline situation, a male protagonist physically harms another boy he does not know walking in his neighborhood. This situation involves a straightforward consideration of harming another person without any direct provocation from the victim. The mara-related situations of inflicting physical harm involved varying conditions of gang conflict. In the territory dispute situation, the protagonist physically aggresses a rival gang member for crossing the gang border into the protagonist's own gang territory (gang territory violation/physical harm). In the retaliation situation, the protagonist physically harms a rival gang member in retaliation for harming his friend who is also a member of the same gang as him (retaliation/physical harm). In the extortion situation, a gang is extorting (i.e., charging “war taxes”) the protagonist's family for money the family needs to buy food with. The protagonist physically harms the gang member to return the money to his family (family welfare /physical harm). In the personal movement situation, a gang member is attempting to restrict the protagonist from crossing the gang territory border into another neighborhood to visit his friend. The protagonist physically harms the gang member to go see his friend (personal movement/ physical harm). For the two non-rivalry situations, the protagonist who was not affiliated with a gang perpetrated the physical harm in response to the gang's initial act of violence so as to assess whether or not physical violence would be an acceptable response to the gang violence.

Furthermore, each situation (i.e., baseline, territory dispute, extortion, personal movement) included additional questions to assess the influence of other situational features of the violent context on the youth's moral evaluations. These included asking if the act of physical violence was alright or not if: (a) the protagonist's parents directed him to, (b) the gang leader directed him to (only for the two gang rivalry situations), and (c) the law permitted the act of violence.

The act of physical violence was consistent for most situations, as was its immediate harmful consequence. The type of physical violence committed by the protagonist consisted of the protagonist punching, and the immediate harm consisted of breaking the nose of the victim. The only difference was for the extortion situation, where the protagonist punched and left unconscious the extorting gang member so that the gang member did not know who had physically hit him; this was to control for concerns of severe retaliation by the mara in situations of extortion, including death, that are consistent with the actual living conditions in Honduras. The age and gender of the protagonist and victim were controlled for by presenting them as both the same age and being male, and the ages of the protagonist and victim were presented as the same age as the participant.

The protocols were translated by the author from English to Spanish. The Spanish versions were subsequently reviewed individually by youth and staff members of a foundation in Honduras for grammatical and conceptual coherence, as well as for any colloquial linguistic modifications. See Appendix S1 for the full interview protocol.

Coding and plan of analyses

A between-group and within-subject design was used in the analyses of the current study. Exposure to mara violence, age, and gender were the independent between-group variables. For the analyses of the moral evaluations, the primary situations and additional questions (i.e., parent directives) were the within-subject independent variables, and the judgments and justifications were the dependent variables.

Social judgments were coded using a three-point ordinal scale, where positive responses of alright were given a score of “1,” mixed responses (both alright and not alright or do not know) a score of “2,” and negative responses of not alright a score of “3.” The justification categories were coded as defined in previous studies as moral, authority/social conventions, avoid punishment, and unelaborated/no response (Ardila-Rey et al., 2009; Helwig, 1995; Jambon & Smetana, 2014; Posada & Wainryb, 2008; Turiel, 1983). The category of self-defense/in defense of others was organized based on the specific responses in this study. For a description of each category, see Table 2. Intercoder reliability of the judgments and justification codes was attained by an independent coder blind to the study's hypotheses using Dedoose version 8.2.14. The independent coder was recruited from Honduras and 20% of the interviews (N = 16) were coded for reliability. Intercoder reliability was good (κ = .70). Justifications used were coded with a score of “1” for each category used and “0” for categories not used. If two categories were used, each one was coded “0.5”; if three categories were used, each category was coded “0.33” (Helwig, 1995; Posada & Wainryb, 2008).

TABLE 2. Justification category codes.

Codes	Description and examples
Moral	References to avoid harm due to physical or psychological harmful consequences to other people, well-being of others. Basic notions of justice and rights
Self-defense/in defense of others	References for the use of violence for self-defense or in defense of other people's well-being from harmful consequences when a threat is present or perceived, including protecting the subsistence of one's own or others (e.g., money needed for food)
Authority/social conventions	References to authority figures (e.g., parents, gang leaders, the government/laws) permitting or having rules allowing such behaviors; References to the social-conventional features of the conflict with gangs for why a violent behavior or act is alright (e.g., “the gangs have rules that you cannot break” or “he knew the gangs prohibit him from crossing into their territory”)
Avoid punishment	References to avoiding punishment, including avoiding punishment due to coercion by another person or authority figure
Unelaborated	Responses that do not clearly elaborate a reason for a social judgment made; no reasons were given

To test each research question, repeated-measures ANOVAs of social judgments and justification categories used were ran across each of the general questions and contextual situations (Midgette & Mulvey, 2022; Posada & Wainryb, 2008). Between-group main effects are reported. Post hoc analyses of judgments and justification categories were conducted using Bonferroni pairwise tests. Within-subject outcomes are reported for situations where between-group main effects were found.

RESULTS

Unprovoked harm

In order to assess the expectation that children and adolescents from both exposure groups would evaluate acts of unprovoked harm as wrong, repeated-measures ANOVAs were conducted with exposure group (nonexposed, exposed), age (children, adolescents), gender (female, male) as between-subject variables, and the general assessment questions (abstract, school rule, another country) and the baseline situation as a three-factor within-subjects variable (stranger, parent directive, law permits).

As expected, findings show that all participants from the exposed and non-exposed groups judged physically harming others absent of any context as wrong, regardless if school authorities or another country allowed it. Table 3 presents judgments and justifications as a function of exposure in means and standard deviations. As shown in Table 3, moral justifications were primarily used for why the act of harm was not alright. That is, harming others in general was judged negatively for concerns for the welfare of others. For the abstract question, 11% of all participants used avoid punishment justifications for why physically hitting someone is not alright—no differences were found by exposure. Likewise, no differences in use of avoid punishment justifications were found by age, F(1, 78) = 0.122, p = .728; children (M = 0.13; SD = 0.34), adolescents (M = 0.10; SD = 0.30), or gender F(1, 78) = 0.122, p = .728; females (M = 0.10; SD = 0.30), males (M = 0.13; SD = 0.34).

TABLE 3. Judgments and justification categories of abstract, school rule, another country general assessments as a function of exposure.

Conditions	Exposed M (SD)	Nonexposed M (SD)	F	df	p	${\eta }_p^2$
Abstract
Judgments	3.00 (0.00)	3.00 (0.00)	—	—	—	—
Moral	0.98 (0.16)	1.00 (0.00)	1.000	(1, 78)	.320	.01
Avoid punishment	0.15 (0.36)	0.08 (0.27)	1.114	(1, 78)	.294	.01
School rule
Judgments	3.00 (0.00)	3.00 (0.00)	—	—	—	—
Moral	1.00 (0.00)	1.00 (0.00)	—	—	—	—
Another country
Judgments	3.00 (0.00)	3.00 (0.00)	—	—	—	—
Moral	1.00 (0.00)	0.98 (0.16)	1.000	(1, 78)	.320	.01

• Note: Judgments coded as: 1 = alright; 2 = mixed; 3 = not alright. Justifications coded as: 0 = not used; 1 = one used; 0.5 = two used; 0.33 = three used.

For the baseline situation not involving maras, most—if not all—participants judged the act of physical harm as not alright, despite the parents or the law authorizing the behavior. That is, no main effects were found by exposure, F(1, 78) = 0.066, p = .799, age, F(1, 78) = 1.062, p = .306, or gender, F(1, 78) = 0.263, p = .610. Table 4 presents judgments and justifications as a function of exposure in means and standard deviations across conditions. As shown in Table 4, most participants used moral justifications for why the act of physical harm was not alright in the stranger, parent directive, and law permits questions, where no differences in the use of moral justifications were found by exposure. Likewise, no main effects in the use of moral justifications were found by age, F(1, 78) = 2.446, p = .122, or gender, F(1, 78) = 0.264, p = .609. In addition, if the law permitted the act of physical harm, 15% of all participants used authority/social conventions justifications for why the act of harm was alright; however, no differences were found by exposure. Similarly, no differences in the use of authority/social conventions justifications were found by age, F(1, 78) = 0.384, p = .537, or gender, F(1, 78) = 1.560, p = .215.

TABLE 4. Judgments and justification categories of baseline situation as a function of exposure.

Conditions	Exposed M (SD)	Nonexposed M (SD)	F	df	p	${\eta }_p^2$
Stranger
Judgments	3.00 (0.00)	3.00 (0.00)	—	—	—	—
Moral	1.00 (0.00)	1.00 (0.00)	—	—	—	—
Parent directive
Judgments	2.98 (0.16)	2.90 (0.38)	1.335	(1, 78)	.252	.02
Moral	1.00 (0.00)	0.97 (0.16)	1.000	(1, 78)	.320	.01
Law permits
Judgments	2.63 (0.77)	2.65 (0.77)	0.12	(1, 78)	.885	.00
Moral	0.83 (0.39)	0.80 (0.41)	0.080	(1, 78)	.778	.00
Authority/social convention	0.15 (0.36)	0.15 (0.36)	0.000	(1, 78)	1.00	.00

• Note: Judgments coded as: 1 = alright; 2 = mixed; 3 = not alright. Justifications coded as: 0 = not used; 1 = one used; 0.5 = two used; 0.33 = three used.

Necessary to harm

To assess under what general circumstances children and adolescents would endorse acts of physical harm, repeated-measures ANOVAs were conducted with exposure group (nonexposed, exposed), age (children, adolescents), gender (female, male) as between-subject variables, and the open-ended questions (alright to harm, necessary to harm) as the dependent variables. Preliminary analysis indicated similar responses by both exposure groups for the alright and necessary questions. For instance, a majority of the exposed group (80%), nonexposed group (59%), children (62%), adolescents (78%), females (58%), and males (83%) judged that there are situations when it is alright to physically hit and harm another person. Likewise, most of the exposed group (80%), nonexposed group (75%), children (68%), adolescents (88%), females (65%), and males (90%) judged that there are situations when it is necessary to physically hit and harm another person. Similarly, moral and self-defense/in-defense of others justifications were only used for both questions. Thus, the following analysis is based on the average of judgments and justification category use for both questions, retitled as necessary to harm.

Significant differences in judgments were found by gender. Table 5 presents judgments and justification categories as a function of gender. No differences were found by exposure, F(1, 78) = 1.706, p = .195; exposed (M = 1.40; SD = 0.74), nonexposed (M = 1.64; SD = 0.88); or by age F(1, 78) = 3.523, p = .064; children (M = 1.69; SD = 0.90), adolescents (M = 1.35; SD = 0.70).

TABLE 5. Judgments and justification categories of the necessity question as a function of gender.

	Females M (SD)	Males M (SD)	F value	df	p	${\eta }_p^2$
Judgments	1.78 (0.92)	1.26 (0.61)	5.253	(1, 78)	.004	.10
Moral	0.33 (0.45)	0.14 (0.30)	4.867	(1, 78)	.030	.06
Self-defense/In defense of others	0.60 (0.46)	0.84 (0.33)	7.158	(1, 78)	.009	.08

• Note: Judgments coded as: 1 = alright; 2 = mixed; 3 = not alright. Justifications coded as: 0 = not used; 1 = one used; 0.5 = two used; 0.33 = three used.

As shown in Table 5, males endorsed physically hitting another person significantly more than females. Differences in the use of the moral and self-defense/in defense of others categories were also found as a function of gender. Females used moral justifications significantly more than males, whereas males used the self-defense/in defense of others significantly more than females. Differences in the use of self-defense/in defense of others justifications were also found by age, F(1, 78) = 4.312, p = .041, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .05, where adolescents (M = 0.81; SD = 0.37) used the category more than children (M = 0.63; SD = 0.44). No other differences were found by age. And no differences in justifications were found by exposure.

Mara-related situations

To assess the expectation that children's and adolescents' moral evaluations of mara-related situations would vary as a function of exposure and age—but not for gender—repeated-measures ANOVAs were conducted with exposure group (nonexposed, exposed), age (children, adolescents), gender (female, male) as between-subject variables, with the territory dispute and retaliation situations consisting of a four-factor within-subjects variable (rival gang member, parent directive, gang leader directive, law permits), and the extortion and personal movements situations consisting of a three-factor within-subjects variable (gang member, parent directive, law permits). Within-subject outcomes are reported for study situations where between-group main effects were found.

Differences in judgments and justifications were found by exposure group for the contexts of gangs but were primarily limited to the territory dispute situation. That is also to say, contrary to expectations, no patterns of differences as a function of exposure were found in the situations of retaliation, extortion, and personal movement. Few differences were found by age, primarily in the territory dispute situation as well. However, contrary to expectations, differences in judgments and justifications were found by gender for the retaliation situation. The following results are organized by each mara-related situation: territory dispute, retaliation, extortion, and personal movements.

Gang rivalry: Territory dispute

The territory dispute situation yielded variations in judgments and justifications, with main effects found by exposure, F(1, 76) = 13.489, p = .001, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .15. For the rival gang member, parent directive, gang leader directive, and the law permits questions, the exposed group judged the acts of harm as alright significantly more than the nonexposed group. Table 6 presents judgments and justifications as a function of exposure in means and standard deviations. Differences in judgment by age were only found for the parent directive question, where children (M = 2.25; SD = 0.98) judged the act of harm as alright significantly more than adolescents (M = 2.67; SD = 0.70), F(1, 77) = 4.700, p = .033, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .06. Otherwise, no differences in judgments were found by age (for results by age, see Table A8 in Appendix S2). No differences were found by gender (for results by gender, see Table A9 in Appendix S2). Within-subject significant variations for judgments were found for the exposed group, F(3, 74) = 4.564, p = .005, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .16, where the act of violence was endorsed more for the gang leader condition than the parent directive condition. Figure 1 presents within-subject judgment outcomes by exposure group in means across conditions.

TABLE 6. Judgments and justifications of territory dispute as a function of exposure.

Conditions	Exposed M (SD)	Nonexposed M (SD)	F	df	p	${\eta }_p^2$
Rival gang member
Judgments	1.95 (1.00)	2.54 (0.82)	8.106	(1, 76)	.006	.10
Moral	0.42 (0.47)	0.76 (0.43)	10.830	(1, 76)	.002	.12
Self-Defense/In defense of others	0.15 (0.26)	0.05 (0.19)	3.871	(1, 76)	.053	.05
Authority/Social convention	0.34 (0.38)	0.17 (0.35)	4.448	(1, 76)	.038	.06
Avoid punishment	0.20 (0.41)	0.05 (0.22)	4.053	(1, 76)	.048	.05
Parent directive
Judgments	2.23 (0.96)	2.67 (0.74)	5.065	(1, 76)	.027	.06
Moral	0.60 (0.47)	0.77 (0.38)	2.938	(1, 76)	.091	.04
Self-defense/In defense of others	0.12 (0.29)	0.04 (0.13)	2.350	(1, 76)	.129	.03
Authority/Social convention	0.23 (0.41)	0.07 (0.24)	4.035	(1, 76)	.048	.05
Avoid punishment	0.08 (0.27)	0.15 (0.37)	1.204	(1, 76)	.276	.02
Gang leader directive
Judgments	1.77 (0.96)	2.51 (0.85)	13.076	(1, 76)	.001	.15
Moral	0.36 (0.47)	0.65 (0.46)	7.785	(1, 76)	.007	.09
Self-defense/In defense of others	0.15 (0.30)	0.03 (0.16)	5.280	(1, 76)	.024	.06
Authority/social convention	0.16 (0.30)	0.00 (0.00)	10.901	(1, 76)	.001	.13
Avoid punishment	0.35 (0.48)	0.31 (0.47)	.156	(1, 76)	.694	.00
Law permits
Judgments	1.87 (1.01)	2.51 (0.85)	9.213	(1, 76)	.003	.11
Moral	0.44 (0.50)	0.72 (0.44)	6.940	(1, 76)	.010	.08
Authority/Social convention	0.44 (0.50)	0.21 (0.39)	5.109	(1, 76)	.027	.06

• Note: Judgments coded as: 1 = alright; 2 = mixed; 3 = not alright. Justifications coded as: 0 = not used; 1 = one used; 0.5 = two used; 0.33 = three used.

FIGURE 1

Judgments in means as a function of exposure across conditions.

Differences in the use of moral justifications as a function of exposure group, F(1, 76) = 11.395, p = .001, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .13, where the nonexposed group used the justification category more for the rival gang member and gang leader directive questions (see Table 6). Main effects by exposure were found for the use of self-defense/in defense of others justification, F(1, 77) = 5.769, p = .019, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .07. The exposed group used self-defense/in defense of others justifications more than the nonexposed group for the rival gang member and gang leader directive questions (see Table 6). For the rival gang member question, children (M = 0.15; SD = 0.29) used the self-defense/in defense of others more than adolescents (M = 0.05; SD = 0.14), F(1, 76) = 4.612, p = .035, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .06. Main effects by exposure were found for the use of authority/social conventions, F(1, 76) = 11.450, p = .001, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .13. The exposed group used authority/social conventions justifications more than the nonexposed group for the rival gang member, parent directive, gang leader directive, and law permits questions. The use of avoid punishment justifications varied by exposure only for the rival gang member question, where the exposed group used the justification more than the nonexposed group.

Significant within-subject variations were found for justification use for both the exposed and nonexposed groups. Figures 2 and 3 present within-subject justification category outcomes for the exposed and nonexposed groups in means across conditions. For moral justifications, significant differences were found for the exposed group, F(3, 74) = 4.057, p = .010, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .14, where the moral category was used less for the gang leader condition than the parent directive condition. No significant within-group variations were found for the self-defense/in defense of others category for the exposed F(2, 76) = 0.687, p = .506, and nonexposed groups, F(2, 76) = 0.183, p = .833. For authority/social conventions justifications, significant differences were found for the exposed, F(3, 74) = 5.431, p = .002, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .18, and nonexposed groups, F(3, 74) = 3.409, p = .022, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .12. For the exposed group, authority/social conventions justifications were used less in the gang leader condition compared to both the rival gang member and law permits conditions. For the nonexposed group, authority/social conventions justifications were used less in the gang leader condition compared to the law permits condition. For the avoid punishment category, significant differences were found for the exposed, F(2, 75) = 7.693, p = .001, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .17, and nonexposed groups, F(2, 75) = 8.422, p = .001, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .18. For the exposed group, avoid punishment justifications were used significantly more in the gang leader condition compared to both the rival gang member and parent directive conditions. For the nonexposed group, avoid punishment justifications were used more in the gang leader condition and in the parent directive condition compared to the rival gang member condition.

FIGURE 2

Justification category use in means for exposed across conditions.

FIGURE 3

Justification category use in means for nonexposed across conditions.

Gang rivalry: Retaliation

The retaliation situation did yield variations in judgments and justifications. Differences in judgments as a function of exposure were only found for the gang leader directive question where the exposed group (M = 1.72; SD = 0.97) endorsed hitting the gang member more than the nonexposed group (M = 2.33; SD = 0.99), F(1, 72) = 7.988, p = .006, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .10. No other differences in judgments were found by exposure (for results by exposure, see Table A10 in Appendix S2). No differences by age were found (for results by age, see Table A11 in Appendix S2). Contrary to expectations, main effects were found by gender, F(1, 73) = 5.994, p = .017, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .08. Table 7 presents judgments and justifications for the retaliation situation as a function of gender. For the rival gang member and parent directive questions, males endorsed the physical harm significantly more than females.

TABLE 7. Judgments and justifications of retaliation as a function of gender.

Conditions	Females M (SD)	Males M (SD)	F	df	p	${\eta }_p^2$
Rival gang member
Judgments	2.32 (0.88)	1.87 (0.96)	4.555	(1, 73)	.025	.07
Moral	0.65 (0.44)	0.41 (0.47)	5.238	(1, 73)	.022	.07
Self-defense/In defense of others	0.32 (0.43)	0.54 (0.48)	4.293	(1, 73)	.042	.06
Authority/Social convention	0.00 (0.00)	0.03 (0.16)	.922	(1, 73)	.340	.01
Parent directive
Judgments	2.41 (0.87)	1.76 (0.97)	9.136	(1, 73)	.003	.11
Moral	0.68 (0.45)	0.40 (0.49)	6.776	(1, 73)	.011	.09
Self-defense/In defense of others	0.19 (0.34)	0.49 (0.47)	9.457	(1, 73)	.003	.12
Authority/Social convention	0.08 (0.25)	0.08 (0.18)	0.016	(1, 73)	.900	.00
Gang leader directive
Judgments	2.24 (0.96)	1.84 (0.97)	3.245	(1, 73)	.076	.04
Moral	0.58 (0.49)	0.41 (0.49)	2.382	(1, 73)	.127	.03
Self-defense/In defense of others	0.15 (0.31)	0.25 (0.36)	1.624	(1, 73)	.207	.02
Authority/Social convention	0.06 (0.20)	0.12 (0.27)	1.536	(1, 73)	.219	.02
Avoid punishment	0.24 (0.42)	0.24 (0.41)	.001	(1, 73)	.974	.00
Law permits
Judgments	2.27 (0.96)	1.95 (0.99)	2.062	(1, 73)	.155	.03
Moral	0.64 (0.47)	0.49 (0.49)	1.845	(1, 73)	.179	.03
Self-defense/In defense of others	0.13 (0.33)	0.22 (0.38)	1.300	(1, 73)	.258	.02
Authority/Social convention	0.19 (0.38)	0.22 (0.39)	0.068	(1, 73)	.794	.00

• Note: Judgments coded as: 1 = alright; 2 = mixed; 3 = not alright. Justifications coded as: 0 = not used; 1 = one used; 0.5 = two used; 0.33 = three used.

Within-subject significant variations for judgments were not found for females, F(3, 71) = 0.542, p = .655, and males, F(3, 71) = 1.097, p = .356. Figure 4 presents within-subject judgment outcomes by gender in means across conditions.

FIGURE 4

Judgments in means by gender across conditions.

For moral justifications, main effects were found by gender, F(1, 73) = 5.307, p = .024, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .07. As shown in Table 7, differences in the use of moral justifications were found by gender for the rival gang member and parent directive questions, where females used moral justifications significantly more than males. For self-defense/in defense of others justifications, main effects were found by gender, F(1, 73) = 5.549, p = .021, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .07, where males used the self-defense/in defense of others category significantly more than females for the rival gang member and parent directive questions. No other significant differences by gender were found. For the gang leader directive question, differences in the use of avoid punishment justifications were found by exposure, F(1, 73) = 5.139, p = .026, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .07, where exposed group (M = 0.35; SD = 0.46) used the justification more than nonexposed group (M = 13; SD = 46). No other differences by exposure or age were found.

Within-subject significant variations for justification use were found for between females and males. Figures 5 and 6 present within-subject justification category outcomes for females and males in means across conditions. No significant differences in the use of moral justifications were found for both females F(3, 71) = 0.503, p = .681, and males, F(3, 71) = 0.923, p = .434. For self-defense/in defense of others justifications, significant differences were found for females, F(3, 71) = 2.734, p = .050, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .10, and males, F(3, 71) = 9.010, p = .001, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .28. For females, self-defense/in defense of others justifications were used significantly more for the rival gang member condition compared to the law permits condition. For males, the justification category was used more in the rival gang member and parent directive conditions compared to the gang leader and law permits conditions. For the authority/social conventions category, significant differences were found for females, F(3, 71) = 3.915, p = .012, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .14, and males, F(3, 71) = 5.559, p = .002, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .19. Females used the category more in the law permits condition compared to the rival gang member condition, whereas males used the category more in the gang leader and law permits conditions compared to the rival gang member condition. For the avoid punishment category, significant differences were found for females, F(3, 71) = 4.065, p = .010, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .15, and males, F(3, 71) = 6.054, p = .001, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .20. Females used the category more in the gang leader condition compared to the rival gang member, parent directive, and law permits conditions. Males used the category more in the gang member condition compared to the rival gang member condition.

FIGURE 5

Justification category use in means for females across conditions.

FIGURE 6

Justification category use in means for males across conditions.

Gang non-rivalry: Extortion situation

The extortion situation yielded no significant differences in judgments as a function of exposure, age, or gender (for results by exposure, age, and gender, see Tables A12–A14 in Appendix S2). Notably, nearly half or more of participants from both exposure groups endorsed the act of physical harm across each question of the extortion situations. That is, the act of physical violence was endorsed by 55% of the exposed and 55% of the nonexposed for the gang member, 45% of the exposed and 45% of the nonexposed for the parent directive, 54% of the exposed and 68% of the nonexposed for the law permits questions.

No significant differences in justifications were found in the gang member and parent directive as a function of exposure, age, or gender. In the law permits situation, differences in the use of self-defense/in defense of others justifications were found as a function of exposure, where the nonexposed group (M = 0.53; SD = 0.42) used the category more than the exposed group (M = 0.33; SD = 0.38), F(1, 77) = 4.419, p = .039, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .05.

Gang non-rivalry: Personal movements situation

The personal movement situation yielded no significant differences in judgments across conditions as a function of exposure. That is, 70% of the exposed and 80% of the nonexposed group disapproved of the act of violence for the gang member condition, 65% of the exposed and 75% of the nonexposed group disapproved for the parent condition, and 55% of the exposed and 60% of the nonexposed group disapproved for the law permits condition. Differences by age were only found for the parent directive question, where children (M = 2.17; SD = 0.98) judged the act of harm alright more than adolescents (M = 2.68; SD = 0.73), F(1, 77) = 5.876, p = .018, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .07. And no differences were found by gender (for results by exposure, age, and gender, see Tables A15–A17 in Appendix S2). Similarly, no significant differences in use of justification categories were found as a function of exposure, age, or gender. Moral justifications were primarily used by participants for why the act of violence was not alright.

DISCUSSION

The current study contributes to the literature on moral development and ETV in a number of ways. First, this study examined the social–moral judgments and justifications made by children and adolescents about interpersonal acts of physical violence situated in broader contexts of chronic mara violence and conflict. Second, this study expanded on the previous research by comparing children and adolescents who have lived in community conditions of mara violence for most of their life with youth who have not lived in such conditions. Third, this study presented hypothetical situations of violence involving gang territory borders and extortion that reflected the living conditions involving maras and community dynamics of the participants in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Fourth, this study was conducted in a region that has been largely overlooked in child and adolescent moral developmental research: Central America.

The overall findings from the current study show that children's and adolescents' moral judgments and justifications varied across conditions of gang-related violence. Moreover, children and adolescents living in communities impacted by maras and youth not exposed to maras made similar judgments and used similar justification reasoning under particular circumstances of violence, with variations found in other contexts.

Harming others in general

As expected, children and adolescents from both exposure groups judged unprovoked acts of physical harm in general as wrong for moral reasons. This is the case even when participants from San Pedro Sula have been exposed to a good deal of community-level violence (Ransford et al., 2016). These findings correspond with previous studies on domains of moral knowledge (Ardila-Rey et al., 2009; Astor, 1994; Posada & Wainryb, 2008; Smetana et al., 2003), where most, if not all, children judge acts of unprovoked harm as wrong out of concerns for the welfare of others. However, when asked if there are situations when it is necessary to physically harm others, acts of physical harm were endorsed as a response to direct threats of physical harm to oneself or to others, prompting concerns for self-defense or defending others.

Differences by exposure

Support for the expectation of differences in judgments and justifications for mara-related situations as a function of exposure was limited to the territory dispute situation involving a rival gang member crossing the gang border into the territory of the protagonist's gang. This could suggest that youth exposed to the widespread risks associated with mara territory border disputes in San Pedro Sula attended to and coordinated salient risk and protective features differently than the nonexposed group. Supporting this interpretation is the difference in justifications used by the exposed group for their positive judgments, including notions of defending community members from rival gang members entering (in defense of others category) as well as the risks for violating the agreed upon territories between both gangs (social-conventional category). An example of in defense of others reasoning from a participant in San Pedro Sula includes:

Because if someone gets in [the territory], just like if the one from the rival mara enters here, they of 18th [gang] will search to kill him because he cannot enter here because he could disguise himself like one of us and come just to kill people. And meanwhile those of 18th [mara] take care of the people, [they] protect.

An example of social-conventional reasoning is:

Because my uncle was like a leader of all of that [mara]. And my uncle would tell me that if, for instance, I was from the rival mara and I would cross [the territory border] they would kill me for crossing because they have their territory, and the others have their territory too.

By contrast, the nonexposed group primarily used moral reasons of harm and welfare for their negative judgments.

The remaining situations of retaliation, extortion, and personal movements yielded no significant pattern of differences in judgments or moral reasoning by exposure. One possible reason could be that territory disputes between gangs are the most salient features of exposure given that they divide neighborhoods, public transportation routes, and community resources with the threat of violence (Moreno, 2020). Another reason could be that in contexts of retaliation, extortion, and personal movements, the salient concerns were relatable to both groups of youth. For instance, in the initial extortion condition, 55% of the exposed and 55% of the nonexposed groups endorsed the protagonist hitting the extorting gang member to return the money back to his family for reasons of protecting the welfare and subsistence of the protagonist's family. In contrast, in the initial personal movement condition, 80% of the exposed and 77% of the nonexposed groups did not endorse the protagonist hitting the gang member to cross the gang border to visit a friend for reasons of harm and welfare of the gang member—that is, participants did not think it was warranted to hit the gang member to visit a friend.

In addition, within-group results for the territory dispute situation demonstrate variation in justifications for the exposed and nonexposed groups across the conditions. Taken together, this suggests that multiple concerns of harm were considered by both exposure groups, depending on the context involving gangs.

The results in the current study correspond and contrast with previous research on ETV and moral thinking about violence. On the one hand, these results do not correspond with previous research that suggests that children exposed to violence simply accept violence (Guerra et al., 2003; Huesmann et al., 2017). Instead, only in a limited set of specific circumstances to the gang territory dispute situation were there differences in judgments and reasoning by exposure group. However, the current findings do support previous research demonstrating how the moral evaluations and justifications of youth who are exposed to violence vary as a function of the context of harm they are evaluating (Ardila-Rey et al., 2009; Posada & Wainryb, 2008).

Differences by age

Contrary to expectations, few significant differences were found by age. These findings suggest that the older children (ages 10–11) considered similar features of the violent contexts as the adolescents (ages 14–15) did in their moral evaluations. These results by exposure and age in the current study correspond and contrast with previous studies on moral evaluations and age. Studies that compared older children (age 11) to adolescents (age 14) also found no significant differences in accepting aggressive behaviors (Huesmann et al., 2017), as well as younger children (M = 7.7 years of age) and adolescents (M = 14.6 years of age; Posada & Wainryb, 2008). Other studies have yielded mixed results between younger children and older children. For instance, in one study, younger children (age 6) were more likely than older children to endorse physical harm for retaliation (Ardila-Rey et al., 2009), whereas in another study ETV predicted normative beliefs supporting aggression in older children (ages 9–12) but not with younger children (ages 5–8; Guerra et al., 2003). As Guerra et al. (2003) noted, “It may be that the effects of community violence exposure on cognition are related to a habituation process that requires more time than behavioral changes require” (p. 1573).

Differences by gender

Also contrary to expectations, some differences were found by gender with the necessary to harm question, as well as in the retaliation situation. In each instance, males were more likely than females to endorse physical violence for reasons of defending oneself or others. It must be noted, however, that for the extortion situation, most males and females endorsed the act of physical harm for reasons of defending others. In addition, within-group results for the retaliation situation demonstrate variation in justifications for females and males across the conditions. Taken together, these findings by gender suggest that, in general, males are more likely to accept physical violence if they serve a protective function from a potential threat of harm. Yet, under an extreme condition, such as with extortion involving the food subsistence of one's own family, females also view acts of physical violence as a protective measure. These findings correspond with some studies where males accept violent acts more than females (Huesmann et al., 2017; Musher-Eizenman et al., 2004) and contrast with others where no differences by gender were found (Ardila-Rey et al., 2009; Guerra et al., 2003; Jambon & Smetana, 2014; Posada & Wainryb, 2008; Rule et al., 1974).

Moral deliberations, violence, and context

The current study demonstrates that children and adolescents who are exposed to gang violence and not exposed to gang violence coordinate judgments, concerns, and moral concepts differently in relation to the contexts of harm they are evaluating. Results demonstrate how judgments and reasoning varied across the baseline, territory dispute, retaliation, extortion, and personal movement situations. What the variations in evaluations and concerns underlying their justifications suggest in this study is that children and adolescents infer different meanings to acts of violence based on their situational characteristics (Cairns & Dawes, 1996; Dubow et al., 2009; Freedman & Abazovic, 2006; Punamäki, 1996; Wainryb, 2011). Contrary to a contagion social cognitive learning view of ETV (Huesmann & Kirwil, 2007; Ransford et al., 2016), youth exposed to chronic gang violence in the current study did not endorse wholesale the mara-related violence presented to them in the hypothetical situations. In addition, acts of physical violence in the current study were endorsed for a variety of reasons, such as for protecting the subsistence of one's family being extorted and out of fear. These findings support the domain view (Turiel, 2015) that children and adolescents coordinate different moral, social, and personal concepts and concerns pertaining to acts of physical harm in the non-gang and gang-related contexts. As demonstrated, both exposure groups discriminated between gang-related conventions and rules, authority figures, and governmental laws with concerns of well-being of individuals, family, and community members in their moral deliberations; showing that youth construct a variety of meanings of the violence they are exposed to (Cairns & Dawes, 1996; Dubow et al., 2009; Freedman & Abazovic, 2006; Punamäki, 1996; Wainryb, 2011). To this point, it is worth highlighting one example. Notably, in both the territory dispute and retaliation situations, the gang leader directive to commit the violence elicited significantly more positive judgments from the exposed group than the nonexposed group. In fact, the gang leader directive elicited the most judgments of alright by the exposed group (58% for territory dispute and 59% for retaliation, respectively), as well as the highest percentage of use of the avoid punishment justification category (36% and 42%, respectively). As one participant noted in the retaliation situation:

Participant:

If the gang leader directs him to, he has to or else he [gang leader] will kill him [protagonist]. He [gang leader] could kill him [protagonist].

Interviewer:

Ok.

Participant:

Yes.

Interviewer:

And why would he kill him?

Participant:

Because he didn't obey him.

Here, the concern associated with the gang leader was that the protagonist's life was at risk; a risk not referenced by participants with regard to the authority of parent directives or the law permitting the act of harm in the same retaliation situation. Compared to other situations of endorsing harm for protecting others, physical harm was endorsed in this situation based out of fear for one's own life.

Furthermore, the findings from the necessary to harm and mara-related situations (e.g., extortion situation) also demonstrate that children and adolescents consider how physical violence may serve multiple functions, including what may be considered as prosocial acts. This highlights the need to examine how acts of violence may be evaluated as necessary “to attain prosocial outcomes” vis-à-vis other threats or social injustices and not simply treated as indicators of antisocial or criminal behavior (Davis, 2021; Moreno, 2020).

The mixed results from the current and previous studies on moral development and ETV highlight the need for better clarity on how different types of community-level violence are accounted for as exposure in relation to how moral thinking is examined. For instance, the multiple spatial–temporal dimensions of violence associated with risk and protective factors involving extortion and gang borders by maras in the current study are different than those corresponding to the community-level violence of shootings and beatings controlled for in Guerra et al. (2003) or compared to the ethnic-political violence between Palestinians and Israelis examined by Huesmann et al. (2017). Exposure to different contexts of violence could influence how youth understand the varying functions of physical harm in relation to risk and protective factors. As Cairns and Dawes' (1996) caution with regard to political violence, “Clearly, different forms of violence may have different forms of impact […] even if it [political violence] is happening in the same city, it does not mean that one can confidently say that its psychological meaning is identical at two different points in time” (p. 136). Relatedly, different social–moral measures could be assessing different meanings youth have of the different types of violence they are exposed to. For example, research examining normative beliefs has measured judgments (not reasoning) about interpersonal acts of verbal and physical aggression in general and acts of verbal and physical retaliatory aggression absent of any broader context of conflict or violence (Guerra et al., 2003; Huesmann et al., 2017; Huesmann & Guerra, 1997; Musher-Eizenman et al., 2004). In contrast, studies examining domains of social–moral knowledge assess evaluations of harm in general and of a variety of transgressions in different situational contexts (Ardila-Rey et al., 2009; Posada & Wainryb, 2008). Thus, it is imperative for researchers to avoid collapsing the various dynamics associated with violence into a singular, static notion and to diligently consider those dynamics in studies with youth as best we can (Daiute, 2006; Townsend et al., 2020). To this end, some scholars have now examined varying youth developmental outcomes associated with different types of exposure to community-level violence (i.e., political and nonpolitical) (Dubow et al., 2009; Merrilees et al., 2011). Studies on children's and adolescents' moral development would also benefit from differentiating between different types of violence occurring at the community level, involving different community members, in understanding how youth evaluate and make sense of the violence impacting their lives.

Lastly, the findings from this study have implications for violence prevention efforts, such as in Honduras (Ransford et al., 2016; USAID, 2016). Youth from both exposure groups expressed a variety of concerns in their moral evaluations in either approval or disapproval of physical violence. For instance, some forms of violence were judged as having protective factors in conditions of insecurity, while other acts of harm were endorsed out of fear. This suggests that improving conditions of community-level violence requires practitioners (and developmental researchers) to better understand the actual conditions of insecurity and security children are growing up in, and not to assume that children simply internalize the violence they are exposed to as morally acceptable.

CONCLUSIONS

The present study examined moral judgments and justifications of children and adolescents exposed to gangs known as maras (e.g., MS-13) in San Pedro Sula, Honduras with youth not exposed to maras in Managua, Nicaragua. Moral evaluations were assessed regarding situations of non-mara- and mara-related violence. Results support a domain view of moral development in which children and adolescents from both exposure groups in this study discriminated between conventional rules, authority dictates, and laws with concerns of well-being of individuals, family, and community members in their moral deliberations. These findings contrast with the proposition that youth passively morally accept violence as a function of their exposure to it (Huesmann, 2018; Ransford et al., 2016) or because they circumvent their moral beliefs (Bandura, 2018; Dhingra et al., 2015). Moreover, this study contributes to the literature by offering evidence that moral judgments and reasoning are forms of knowledge in which children and adolescents make sense of the violence impacting their lives and their communities.

LIMITATIONS

The sample size for participants in San Pedro Sula, Honduras and Managua, Nicaragua limits the generalizability of the findings, and possibly impacts nonsignificant effects in the study due to lack of power, suggesting future research should include a larger sample to assess whether these differences reach significance. However, the design of the study did include a comparison between one group exposed to mara-related violence and another not exposed that was matched by gender, age, SES, and certain cultural factors such as language. A second limitation is that the types of gang violence examined in this study are specific to community conditions in Honduras compared to Nicaragua; however, youth in the neighboring countries of Guatemala and El Salvador also face similar conditions by the same gangs (MS-13 and Barrio 18). A third limitation is that the participants' ETV was not assessed using an ETV survey as has been conducted in other research (Guerra et al., 2003; Posada & Wainryb, 2008). Rather, ETV was operationalized by recruiting participants in sectors of San Pedro Sula with a strong presence of maras. Future research should adopt an ETV survey to assess more clearly the variety of forms of violence and durations of such exposure of youth. However, adopting these methods should be done in tandem with factoring in the social-historical dimensions of the actual violence that is the subject of the research studies (i.e., mara-related violence). Future lines of inquiry would also benefit from examining ingroup and outgroup dynamics regarding acts of violence as a group norm between gangs. This could include examining variations of what loyalty means across contexts, such as demonstrating loyalty to a gang leader out of fear or to the gang to maintain control of vital resources in territory disputes and through extortions, as well as assess whether the consequences of being disloyal by a group member are severe enough that one maintains norms of violence toward non-ingroup members, such as with extorting community members or harming rival gang members.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank the community leaders and members in Honduras and Nicaragua for all their tremendous and crucial support.

FUNDING INFORMATION

The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues Grant-in-Aid, 2018. Doctoral Completion Fellowship, University of California, Berkeley, 2017–2018.

Open Research

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

The data necessary to reproduce the analyses presented here are not publicly accessible. The analytic code necessary to reproduce the analyses presented in this paper is not publicly accessible. The materials necessary to attempt to replicate the findings presented here are not publicly accessible. The analyses presented here were not preregistered.