1
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Gautam S, Owen Hall R, Suddendorf T, Redshaw J. Counterfactual choices and moral judgments in children. Child Dev 2023; 94:e296-e307. [PMID: 37226682 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13943] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/02/2021] [Revised: 03/06/2023] [Accepted: 03/23/2023] [Indexed: 05/26/2023]
Abstract
When making moral judgments of past actions, adults often think counterfactually about what could have been done differently. Considerable evidence suggests that counterfactual thinking emerges around age 6, but it remains unknown how this development influences children's moral judgments. Across two studies, Australian children aged 4-9 (N = 236, 142 Females) were told stories about two characters who had a choice that led to a good or bad outcome, and two characters who had no choice over a good or bad outcome. Results showed that 4- and 5-year-olds' moral judgments were influenced only by the actual outcome. From age 6, children's moral judgments were also influenced by the counterfactual choices that had been available to the characters.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shalini Gautam
- School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Saint Lucia, Queensland, Australia
- School of Psychology and Neuroscience, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Ruby Owen Hall
- School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Saint Lucia, Queensland, Australia
| | - Thomas Suddendorf
- School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Saint Lucia, Queensland, Australia
| | - Jonathan Redshaw
- School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Saint Lucia, Queensland, Australia
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2
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Margoni F, Cho I, Gutchess A. Intent-Based Moral Judgment in Old Age. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 2023; 78:1136-1141. [PMID: 35973063 PMCID: PMC10292836 DOI: 10.1093/geronb/gbac114] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/28/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
OBJECTIVES Recent studies support the idea of an intent-to-outcome shift in moral judgments with age. We further assessed whether a reduced reliance on intentions is associated with aging in a preregistered study with 73 younger (20-41 years) and 79 older (70-84 years) adults, group-matched on education level. METHOD Participants were presented with a set of moral cases to evaluate, created by varying orthogonally the valence (neutral, negative) of the information regarding the agent's intentions and the action's outcomes. RESULTS The two age groups did not differ in the extent they relied on intentions in moral judgment. DISCUSSION These results suggest that an intent-to-outcome shift might not be found in all aging populations, challenging prevailing theories suggesting that aging is necessarily associated with a reduced reliance on intentions.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Isu Cho
- Department of Psychology, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, USA
| | - Angela Gutchess
- Department of Psychology, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, USA
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3
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Nobes G, Panagiotaki G, Martin JW. Moral luck and the roles of outcome and negligence in moral judgments. JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 2023. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2023.104456] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/12/2023]
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4
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Waddington O, Proft M, Jensen K, Köymen B. Five-year-old children value reasons in apologies for belief-based accidents. Child Dev 2023; 94:e143-e153. [PMID: 36692288 PMCID: PMC10952182 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13893] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/25/2023]
Abstract
Accidents can be intent-based (unintended action-unintended outcome) or belief-based (intended action-unintended outcome). As compared to intent-based accidents, giving reasons is more crucial for belief-based accidents because the transgressor appears to have intentionally transgressed. In Study 1, UK-based preschoolers who were native English speakers (N = 96, 53 girls, collected 2020-2021) witnessed two intent-based or belief-based accidents; one transgressor apologized, the other apologized with a reason. Five-year-olds, but not 4-year-olds, favored the reason-giving transgressor following a belief-based accident but not an intent-based accident (where an apology sufficed). In Study 2, 5-year-olds (N = 48, 25 girls, collected 2021) distinguished between "good" and "bad" reasons for the harm caused. Thus, 5-year-old children recognize when reasons should accompany apologies and account for the quality of these reasons.
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Affiliation(s)
- Owen Waddington
- Division of Psychology, Communication and Human Neuroscience, School of Health SciencesUniversity of ManchesterManchesterUK
| | - Marina Proft
- Georg‐Elias‐Müller‐Institute for PsychologyGeorg‐August‐University GöttingenGöttingenGermany
| | - Keith Jensen
- Division of Psychology, Communication and Human Neuroscience, School of Health SciencesUniversity of ManchesterManchesterUK
| | - Bahar Köymen
- Division of Psychology, Communication and Human Neuroscience, School of Health SciencesUniversity of ManchesterManchesterUK
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5
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The effect of moral character on children’s judgements of transgressions. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2022.101221] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
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6
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Zamoscik V, Schmidt SNL, Bravo R, Ugartemendia L, Plieger T, Rodríguez AB, Reuter M, Kirsch P. Tryptophan-enriched diet or 5-hydroxytryptophan supplementation given in a randomized controlled trial impacts social cognition on a neural and behavioral level. Sci Rep 2021; 11:21637. [PMID: 34737364 PMCID: PMC8568973 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-01164-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/05/2021] [Accepted: 10/22/2021] [Indexed: 02/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Understanding of emotions and intentions are key processes in social cognition at which serotonin is an important neuromodulator. Its precursor is the essential amino acid tryptophan (TRP). Reduced TRP availability leads to weaker impulse control ability and higher aggression, while TRP supplementation promotes confidence. In a double-blind placebo-controlled fMRI study with 77 healthy adults, we investigated the influence of a 4 week TRP enriched diet and an acute 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP) intake on two social-cognitive tasks, a moral evaluation and an emotion recognition task. With 5-HTP, immoral behavior without negative consequences was rated as more reprehensible. Additionally, during story reading, activation in insula and supramarginal gyrus was increased after TRP intake. No significant effects of TRP on emotion recognition were identified for the whole sample. Importantly, emotion recognition ability decreased with age which was for positive emotions compensated by TRP. Since the supramarginal gyrus is associated with empathy, pain and related information integration results could be interpreted as reflecting stricter evaluation of negative behavior due to better integration of information. Improved recognition of positive emotions with TRP in older participants supports the use of a TRP-rich diet to compensate for age related decline in social-cognitive processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- V Zamoscik
- Department of Clinical Psychology, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, J 5, 68159, Mannheim, Germany. .,Department of Psychology, Laboratory of Neurogenetics, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.
| | - S N L Schmidt
- Research Group of Clinical Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - R Bravo
- Chrononutrition Laboratory, Neuroimmunephysiology and Chrononutrition Research Group, Faculty of Science, University of Extremadura, Badajoz, Spain
| | - L Ugartemendia
- Chrononutrition Laboratory, Neuroimmunephysiology and Chrononutrition Research Group, Faculty of Science, University of Extremadura, Badajoz, Spain
| | - T Plieger
- Department of Psychology, Laboratory of Neurogenetics, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
| | - A B Rodríguez
- Chrononutrition Laboratory, Neuroimmunephysiology and Chrononutrition Research Group, Faculty of Science, University of Extremadura, Badajoz, Spain
| | - M Reuter
- Department of Psychology, Laboratory of Neurogenetics, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
| | - P Kirsch
- Department of Clinical Psychology, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, J 5, 68159, Mannheim, Germany
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7
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Gönültaş S, Richardson CB, Mulvey KL. But they weren't being careful! Role of theory of mind in moral judgments about victim and transgressor negligence. J Exp Child Psychol 2021; 212:105234. [PMID: 34325352 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105234] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/08/2021] [Revised: 06/25/2021] [Accepted: 06/26/2021] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Previous research showed that children are influenced not only by intentions and outcomes but also by transgressor negligence in their moral judgments. The current study investigated the role of transgressor and victim negligence on children's moral judgments. Children's false-belief theory of mind understanding (FBU ToM) was examined as a possible factor that might shape moral judgments in contexts involving negligence. Children (N = 117, Mage = 5.41 years, range = 3-8) were presented with two stories involving property damage and physical harm where negligence was manipulated and with a series of questions assessing moral judgments regarding act acceptability of the transgressor and victim, punishment, and assessments of alternative actions. FBU ToM was measured with a false-content task. Children with higher FBU ToM were more likely to consider both transgressor and victim negligence in their moral judgments across different transgressions. The findings have implications for how social cognitive abilities interact with transgressor and victim negligence in moral decisions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Seçil Gönültaş
- Department of Psychology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA.
| | - Cameron B Richardson
- Clearinghouse for Military Family Readiness, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
| | - Kelly Lynn Mulvey
- Department of Psychology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA
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8
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Martin JW, Buon M, Cushman F. The Effect of Cognitive Load on Intent-Based Moral Judgment. Cogn Sci 2021; 45:e12965. [PMID: 33873240 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12965] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/14/2020] [Revised: 02/12/2021] [Accepted: 02/22/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
When making a moral judgment, people largely care about two factors: Who did it (causal responsibility), and did they intend to (intention)? Since Piaget's seminal studies, we have known that as children mature, they gradually place greater emphasis on intention, and less on mere bad outcomes, when making moral judgments. Today, we know that this developmental shift has several signature properties. Recently, it has been shown that when adults make moral judgments under cognitive load, they exhibit a pattern similar to young children; that is, their judgments become notably more outcome based. Here, we show that all of the same signature properties that accompany the outcome-to-intent shift in childhood characterize the "intent-to-outcome" shift obtained under cognitive load in adults. These findings hold important implications for current theories of moral judgment.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Marine Buon
- Department of Psychology, Paul Valéry University
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9
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Margoni F, Surian L. Question framing effects and the processing of the moral–conventional distinction. PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY 2020. [DOI: 10.1080/09515089.2020.1845311] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Francesco Margoni
- Department of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
| | - Luca Surian
- Department of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
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10
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Bernhard RM, Martin JW, Warneken F. Why do children punish? Fair outcomes matter more than intent in children's second- and third-party punishment. J Exp Child Psychol 2020; 200:104909. [PMID: 32866656 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104909] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/18/2019] [Revised: 01/13/2020] [Accepted: 05/13/2020] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Abstract
Humans punish fairness violations both as victims and as impartial third parties, which can maintain cooperative behavior. However, it is unknown whether similar motivations underlie punishment of unfairness in these two contexts. Here we approached this question by focusing on how both types of punishment develop in children, asking the question: What motivates young children to punish in response to fairness norm violations? We explored two potential factors: the direct experience of unfair outcomes and a partner's fair versus unfair intentions. The participants, 5- and 7-year-olds, were given the chance to engage in both second- and third-party punishment in response to either intended or unintended fairness norm violations in a single paradigm. In both age-groups, children were more likely to punish when they were directly affected by the allocation (second-party punishment) than when they were an uninvolved third party (third-party punishment). Reliable third-party punishment was shown only in the older age-group. Moreover, children's punishment was driven by outcome rather than intent, with equal rates of punishment when unequal outcomes were either the result of chance or the intentional act of another child. These findings suggest that younger children may be mainly motivated to create equal outcomes between themselves and others, whereas older children are motivated to enforce fairness norms as a general principle.
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Affiliation(s)
- Regan M Bernhard
- Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 01238, USA.
| | - Justin W Martin
- Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 01238, USA
| | - Felix Warneken
- Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 01238, USA
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11
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Corbit J. Collaboration increases children's normative concern for fairness. J Exp Child Psychol 2020; 198:104887. [PMID: 32619888 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104887] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/25/2020] [Revised: 04/29/2020] [Accepted: 04/30/2020] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
Collaboration increases equity in young children, but whether this precocious equity has a normative foundation or is primarily an interpersonal concern between collaborators remains an open question. Participants in this study were 3- to 7-year-old children (N = 104) from a rural community in Canada. In a novel third-party intervention game, children could intervene against inequitable sharing between third parties who earned resources collaboratively or individually. When resources were earned collaboratively, children intervened against inequity more often at an earlier age compared with when resources were earned individually. Children referenced equity or fairness to justify their decisions at a similar rate across the two resource acquisition contexts. These findings contribute to a growing body of evidence supporting the foundational role of collaboration in the development of fairness, providing novel evidence that this concern for fairness is indeed normative.
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Affiliation(s)
- John Corbit
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4J1, Canada.
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12
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Conceptual continuity in the development of intent-based moral judgment. J Exp Child Psychol 2020; 194:104812. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104812] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/02/2019] [Revised: 01/16/2020] [Accepted: 01/17/2020] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
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13
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Mulvey KL, Gönültaş S, Richardson CB. Who Is to Blame? Children's and Adults' Moral Judgments Regarding Victim and Transgressor Negligence. Cogn Sci 2020; 44:e12833. [DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12833] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/16/2019] [Revised: 02/10/2020] [Accepted: 02/28/2020] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Affiliation(s)
| | - Seçil Gönültaş
- Department of Psychology North Carolina State University
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14
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Yin J, He X, Yang Y, Wu X. Outcome-Based Evaluations of Social Interaction Valence in a Contingent Response Context. Front Psychol 2019; 10:2557. [PMID: 31824373 PMCID: PMC6879419 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02557] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/13/2019] [Accepted: 10/29/2019] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
Previous studies have indicated that social evaluations rely heavily on the outcome of an actor's behavior toward a recipient. These studies focused on interactions in which two agents are connected by an external goal (i.e., object-mediated social interaction) and revealed that the intent behind an action has a privileged role in evaluating the valence of a social interaction. The current study investigated whether the intent behind an action influences evaluation of contingent social interactions wherein one agent responds to another without referring to a specific target. To clarify this, we operationalized intent as harmful or harmless when one agent hit another (i.e., recipient), and manipulated the action's outcome by determining to what extent it changed the recipient's state (i.e., falling down or moving slightly). Results showed that in contingent interactions with both direct launching (i.e., the actor directly caused the change) and extended launching (i.e., the actor caused the change through a mediated block), when the action significantly affected the recipient, the agents were evaluated as having a more negative social interaction than when the influence was small; this effect was independent of the intent behind the action. Such findings demonstrated that evaluations of contingent social interactions are primarily influenced by an actor's causal role in the outcome, not the intent behind an action. This null effect of intent when evaluating social interaction contrasts with findings on object-mediated social interaction, which is consistent with human social evaluations relying on two dissociable systems: causal and intentional components.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jun Yin
- Department of Psychology, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China
- Center of Group Behavior and Social Psychological Service, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China
| | - Xiaoyan He
- Department of Psychology, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China
- Center of Group Behavior and Social Psychological Service, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China
| | - Yisong Yang
- Department of Psychology, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China
- Center of Group Behavior and Social Psychological Service, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China
| | - Xiaoying Wu
- Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
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15
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Detailing the understanding of moral judgements in autism. A study with Spanish-speaking children. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2019. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2019.100815] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
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16
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Zhang Z, Grocke P, Tomasello M. The influence of intention and outcome on young children's reciprocal sharing. J Exp Child Psychol 2019; 187:104645. [PMID: 31323596 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2019.05.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/08/2018] [Revised: 04/14/2019] [Accepted: 05/27/2019] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
Abstract
This study investigated the influence of underlying intentions and outcomes of a partner's sharing behavior on young children's reciprocity. We provided 3- and 5-year-old children with the opportunity to share with a partner following different treatments of a partner's intention (to share or not to share) that led to different outcomes (children got or did not get stickers from their partner). For the 3-year-olds, we found that the outcome of the previous interaction influenced how much they shared, whereas the intention of their partner affected how readily they initiated sharing in response to social cues. For the 5-year-olds, we found that both outcome and intention affected how much they shared as well as how readily they initiated sharing. This suggests that already 3-year-olds are able to take into account outcome and intention information separately in reciprocal sharing. However, only 5-year-olds can combine both to flexibly maintain social interactions without running the risk of being exploited by others.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhen Zhang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany; Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
| | - Patricia Grocke
- Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Michael Tomasello
- Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany; Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
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17
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Garcia-Molina I, Clemente-Estevan RA. Moral reasoning in autistic individuals: a theoretical review / El razonamiento moral en personas con Trastorno del Espectro Autista: una revisión teórica. STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY 2019. [DOI: 10.1080/02109395.2019.1589083] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/27/2022] Open
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18
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Hilton BC, Kuhlmeier VA. Intention Attribution and the Development of Moral Evaluation. Front Psychol 2019; 9:2663. [PMID: 30666225 PMCID: PMC6330285 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02663] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/06/2018] [Accepted: 12/11/2018] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Research with infants and toddlers suggests that even early in development, humans evaluate others by considering the outcome of an action in relation to the intention underlying it. When someone tries but fails to do a good deed, for example, it seems that it is "the thought that counts." However, research with slightly older children in the preschool years has produced mixed results: in some cases, children are solely considering the positive or negative outcome of an action when evaluating others, while in others, intention attributions are integrated. Such contradictory findings have prompted debate about the development of moral reasoning. Here, we examine extant research on early moral evaluation and propose that differences in the way that task procedures present intention and outcome information can (1) support or preclude young children's intention attribution and (2) alter the relative saliency or predominance of each kind of information. In turn, these differences would influence the frequency and degree to which young children generate intention-oriented moral evaluations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brooke C. Hilton
- Department of Psychology, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada
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19
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Margoni F, Geipel J, Hadjichristidis C, Surian L. The influence of agents’ negligence in shaping younger and older adults’ moral judgment. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2019. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2018.12.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
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20
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Rizzo MT, Li L, Burkholder AR, Killen M. Lying, negligence, or lack of knowledge? Children's intention-based moral reasoning about resource claims. Dev Psychol 2018; 55:274-285. [PMID: 30474997 DOI: 10.1037/dev0000635] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
In a hidden inequality context, resource allocators and resource recipients are unaware that an unknowingly advantaged recipient possesses resources. The present study presented children aged 3-13 years (N = 121) with a hidden inequality vignette involving an accidental transgression in which one resource claimant, who unknowingly possessed more resources than another claimant, made an "unintentional false claim" to resources. This unintentional false claim resulted in depriving another recipient of needed resources. Results revealed that children's ability to accurately identify the claimant's intentions was related to how they evaluated and reasoned about resource claims, a previously understudied aspect of resource allocation contexts. Children's attributions of intentions to the accidental transgressor mediated the relationship between age and evaluations of the accidental transgression and the relationship between age and assignment of punishment to the accidental transgressor. With age, children who negatively evaluated the unintentional false claim shifted from reasoning about lying to a focus on negligence on the part of the unintentional false claimant. This shift reflects an increasing understanding of the accidental transgressor's benign intentions. These findings highlight how mental state knowledge and moral reasoning inform children's comprehension of resource allocation contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Leon Li
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University
| | - Amanda R Burkholder
- Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland
| | - Melanie Killen
- Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland
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21
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Fedra E, Schmidt MFH. Preschoolers Understand the Moral Dimension of Factual Claims. Front Psychol 2018; 9:1841. [PMID: 30323783 PMCID: PMC6173213 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01841] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/21/2018] [Accepted: 09/10/2018] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Research on children’s developing moral cognition has mostly focused on their evaluation of, and reasoning about, others’ intrinsically harmful (non-)verbal actions (e.g., hitting, lying). But assertions may have morally relevant (intended or unintended) consequences, too. For instance, if someone wrongly claims that “This water is clean!,” such an incorrect representation of reality may have harmful consequences to others. In two experiments, we investigated preschoolers’ evaluation of others’ morally relevant factual claims. In Experiment 1, children witnessed a puppet making incorrect assertions that would lead to harm or to no harm. In Experiment 2, incorrect assertions would always lead to harm, but the puppet either intended the harm to occur or not. Children evaluated the puppet’s factual claim more negatively when they anticipated harmful versus harmless consequences (Experiment 1) and when the puppet’s intention was bad versus good over and above harmful consequences (Experiment 2). These findings suggest that preschoolers’ normative understanding is not limited to evaluating others’ intrinsically harmful transgressions but also entails an appreciation of the morally relevant consequences of, and intentions underlying, others’ factual claims.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emmily Fedra
- International Junior Research Group Developmental Origins of Human Normativity, Department of Psychology, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Marco F H Schmidt
- International Junior Research Group Developmental Origins of Human Normativity, Department of Psychology, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany.,Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany
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22
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Van de Vondervoort JW, Hamlin JK. Preschoolers Focus on Others' Intentions When Forming Sociomoral Judgments. Front Psychol 2018; 9:1851. [PMID: 30333776 PMCID: PMC6176058 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01851] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/04/2018] [Accepted: 09/10/2018] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Many studies suggest that preschoolers initially privilege outcome over intention in their moral judgments. The present findings reveal that, in contrast, even younger preschoolers can privilege intentions when evaluating characters who successfully or unsuccessfully help or hinder a third party in achieving its goal. Following a live-action puppet show originally created for infant populations, children made a forced-choice social judgment (which puppet was liked) and two forced-choice moral judgments (which puppet was nicer, which puppet should be punished), and were asked to explain their punishment allocations. In two experiments (N = 195), 3- and 4-year-olds evaluated characters with distinct intentions to help or to hinder who were associated with either positive or negative outcomes. Both ages judged characters with more positive intentions as nicer, and allocated punishment to characters with more negative intentions; neither of these tendencies depended on the outcomes the characters were associated with. Three-year-olds’ responses were somewhat less consistent than were 4-year-olds’, in that 3-year-olds’ judgments were disrupted by ambiguous harmful intent. Notably, children’s social judgments were less consistent than their moral judgments. In a third and final experiment (N = 100), children evaluated characters with the same intention but who were associated with different outcomes. Children showed inconsistent responding across age and outcome valence, but only 4-year-olds evaluating two characters with positive intentions reliably responded based on outcome. When providing informative responses in all three studies, children most frequently explained their punishment allocations by appealing to the puppet’s (attempted) hindering action or failure to help. These findings raise questions as to what underlies different patterns of response across studies in the literature, and suggests that observing live interactions may facilitate young children’s intention-based moral judgments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Julia W Van de Vondervoort
- Centre for Infant Cognition, Department of Psychology, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
| | - J Kiley Hamlin
- Centre for Infant Cognition, Department of Psychology, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
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Garrigan B, Adlam AL, Langdon PE. Moral decision-making and moral development: Toward an integrative framework. DEVELOPMENTAL REVIEW 2018. [DOI: 10.1016/j.dr.2018.06.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 46] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/22/2022]
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Abstract
Abstract. Younger (21–39 years) and older (63–90 years) adults were presented with scenarios illustrating either harmful or helpful actions. Each scenario provided information about the agent’s intention, either neutral or valenced (harmful/helpful), and the outcome of his or her action, either neutral or valenced. Participants were asked to rate how morally good or bad the agent’s action was. In judging harmful actions, older participants relied less on intentions and more on outcomes compared to younger participants. This age-related difference was associated with a decline in older adults’ theory of mind abilities. However, we did not find evidence of any significant age-related difference in the evaluations of helpful actions. We argue that the selective association of aging with changes in the evaluation of harmful but not helpful actions may be due also to motivational factors and highlight some implications of the present findings for judicial systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Francesco Margoni
- Department of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, University of Trento, Italy
| | - Janet Geipel
- Department of Psychology, The University of Chicago, IL, USA
| | - Constantinos Hadjichristidis
- Department of Economics and Management, University of Trento, Italy
- Centre for Decision Research, Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds, UK
| | - Luca Surian
- Department of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, University of Trento, Italy
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Wu X, Hua R, Yang Z, Yin J. The influence of intention and outcome on evaluations of social interaction. Acta Psychol (Amst) 2018; 182:75-81. [PMID: 29149691 DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2017.11.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/12/2017] [Revised: 09/27/2017] [Accepted: 11/06/2017] [Indexed: 01/10/2023] Open
Abstract
Reading and making sense of social interactions between individuals is an important part of our daily social lives. Given that actions tend to be interpreted in terms of intent within the observed outcome, we investigated how intent and outcome interactively influence evaluations of social interactions. Through visual animations, intent was operationalized as an agent's (i.e., actor's) act intentionally or unintentionally having an influence on another agent (i.e., affectee). In Experiment 1, the act was helpful and the consequences brought small or great benefits to the affectee. In Experiment 2, the act was harmful and brought small or great losses to the affectee. We found that for both helpful and harmful contexts, social interaction evaluations were influenced by an interaction between the intent and outcome of the act. Specifically, great help/harm (i.e., the great-benefits or great-losses condition) was rated as a stronger social interaction than small help/harm, and the difference was larger in the intentional condition than in the unintentional condition. Furthermore, regardless of the interaction valence, the effect of the intent was larger than the effect of the outcome when evaluating social interaction. This result suggests that observers consider the intent and outcome jointly when evaluating a given social interaction, and the intent has a privileged role in this process. These findings are consistent with the idea that the intent is often deemed to be the cause driving the effect of outcome, and they help us to understand how social interactions are constructed within the action understanding system.
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Patil I, Calò M, Fornasier F, Young L, Silani G. Neuroanatomical correlates of forgiving unintentional harms. Sci Rep 2017; 7:45967. [PMID: 28382935 PMCID: PMC5382676 DOI: 10.1038/srep45967] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/07/2016] [Accepted: 03/10/2017] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Mature moral judgments rely on the consideration of a perpetrator’s mental state as well as harmfulness of the outcomes produced. Prior work has focused primarily on the functional correlates of how intent information is neurally represented for moral judgments, but few studies have investigated whether individual differences in neuroanatomy can also explain variation in moral judgments. In the current study, we conducted voxel-based morphometry analyses to address this question. We found that local grey matter volume in the left anterior superior temporal sulcus, a region in the functionally defined theory of mind or mentalizing network, was associated with the degree to which participants relied on information about innocent intentions to forgive accidental harms. Our findings provide further support for the key role of mentalizing in the forgiveness of accidental harms and contribute preliminary evidence for the neuroanatomical basis of individual differences in moral judgments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Indrajeet Patil
- Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati, Neuroscience Sector, Trieste, Italy.,Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | | | | | - Liane Young
- Department of Psychology, Boston College, Boston, USA
| | - Giorgia Silani
- Department of Applied Psychology: Health, Development, Enhancement and Intervention, University of Vienna, Austria
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