New Beginnings: An Interactionist and Constructivist Approach to Early Moral Development

Executive function as a mechanism for the emergence and expression of moral knowledge

We outline two accounts by which executive function (EF) supports children's moral reasoning: an emergence and an expression account. The emergence account postulates that EF supports the development of moral concepts because it relates to how children navigate their early social environments and how well they can internalize moral messages. The expression account postulates that EF supports children's in-the-moment moral reasoning for complex moral situations. We present data from two studies with preschool children to assess each account. In support of the emergence account, EF longitudinally and positively predicted moral reasoning, but only for children who have experienced moderate forms of peer conflict. In support of the expression account, EF was only correlated with judgments that required the coordination of multiple pieces of information (i.e., retaliation and criterion judgments). We conclude that EF is an important cognitive mechanism of moral development and discuss various implications of these findings for both moral development and EF theory.

Exploring Linkages Between Mother-Child and Sibling Relationship Quality and Prosocial Behavior Between School-Aged and Adolescent Siblings

The present study investigated the degree to which the quality of sibling relationships interacted with the quality of mother-child relationships to concurrently predict prosocial behavior between school-aged siblings while taking age spacing into account. Forty-five families with two school-aged siblings were recruited from the community. Prosocial behavior was coded from unstructured laboratory observation of sibling interaction. Both children reported on the quality of their sibling relationships; the quality of mother-child relationships was assessed by coding laboratory observation of mother-child interaction, conducted separately with each sibling. A compensatory pattern was found; higher warmth between widely spaced siblings was associated with greater sibling prosocial behavior when maternal positivity was low, and also when maternal negativity was high. These compensatory patterns did not occur for siblings closer in age. Findings suggested that sibling dynamics and relational roles play an important function in children's prosocial development. Results were discussed within family systems frameworks.

Predicting child aggression: The role of parent and child endorsement of reactive aggression across 13 cultural groups in 9 nations

Parent and child endorsement of reactive aggression both predict the emergence of child aggression, but they are rarely studied together and in longitudinal contexts. The present study does so by examining the unique predictive effects of parent and child endorsement of reactive aggression at age 8 on child aggression at age 9 in 1456 children from 13 cultural groups in 9 nations. Multiple group structural equation models explored whether age 8 child and parent endorsement of reactive aggression predicted subsequent age 9 child endorsement of reactive aggression and child aggression, after accounting for prior child aggression and parent education. Results revealed that greater parent endorsement of reactive aggression at age 8 predicted greater child endorsement of aggression at age 9, that greater parent endorsement of reactive aggression at age 8 uniquely predicted greater aggression at age 9 in girls, and that greater child endorsement of reactive aggression at age 8 uniquely predicted greater aggression at age 9 in boys. All three of these associations emerged across cultures. Implications of, and explanations for, study findings are discussed.

Children's Navigation of Contextual Cues in Peer Transgressions: The Role of Aggression Form, Transgressor Gender, and Transgressor Intention

When faced with transgressions in their peer groups, children must navigate a series of situational cues (e.g., type of transgression, transgressor gender, transgressor intentionality) to evaluate the moral status of transgressions and to inform their subsequent behavior toward the transgressors. There is little research on which cues children prioritize when presented together, how reliance on these cues may be affected by certain biases (e.g., gender norms), or how the prioritization of these cues may change with age. To explore these questions, 138 5- to 7-year-olds (younger children) and 8- to 10-year-olds (older children) evaluated a series of boy and girl characters who partook in physical or relational aggression with ambiguous or purposeful intent. Children were asked to provide sociomoral evaluations (i.e., acceptability, punishment, and intention attribution judgments) and social preferences. Transgressor gender only impacted children’s social preferences. Conversely, aggression form and transgressor intent shifted children’s sociomoral judgments: they were harsher toward physical transgressors with purposeful intent over those with ambiguous intent but made similar evaluations for relational transgressors regardless of intentionality. The present results suggest that gender is perhaps not uniformly relevant to children across all contexts, as other cues were prioritized for children’s sociomoral judgments. Since children likely have less familiarity with relational aggression compared to physical aggression, it follows that intent would only shift judgments about physical transgressors. This research provides insight about how children simultaneously navigate multiple cues in aggression contexts, which is likely reflective of their real-world experiences.

Neural computations in children's third-party interventions are modulated by their parents' moral values

One means by which humans maintain social cooperation is through intervention in third-party transgressions, a behaviour observable from the early years of development. While it has been argued that pre-school age children's intervention behaviour is driven by normative understandings, there is scepticism regarding this claim. There is also little consensus regarding the underlying mechanisms and motives that initially drive intervention behaviours in pre-school children. To elucidate the neural computations of moral norm violation associated with young children's intervention into third-party transgression, forty-seven preschoolers (average age 53.92 months) participated in a study comprising of electroencephalographic (EEG) measurements, a live interaction experiment, and a parent survey about moral values. This study provides data indicating that early implicit evaluations, rather than late deliberative processes, are implicated in a child's spontaneous intervention into third-party harm. Moreover, our findings suggest that parents' values about justice influence their children's early neural responses to third-party harm and their overt costly intervention behaviour.

Why do preschoolers perpetuate inequalities? Theoretical perspectives on inequity preferences in the face of emerging concerns for equality

Recent research has shown that preschool children tend to preferentially allocate resources to rich than to poor others. The findings that young children tend to perpetuate inequalities are puzzling given classical developmental theories that largely focused on the emergence of equality and equity in childhood. In this review, we first sketch the early ontogeny of fairness concerns before providing an overview on studies reporting perpetuation of inequality in young children. We review four classical theories (Piaget, Kohlberg, Damon, Social Domain Theory) and discuss how they would account for this phenomenon. We then introduce four recent theoretical models that directly speak to the underlying psychological processes; the affective preference model, the reciprocity-based strategic model, the numerical matching model, and the normative model. We highlight the key tenets of each model, their relation to other developmental processes, and the strength of the empirical evidence. From each model, we derive specific hypotheses. Finally, in an integrative section we discuss how the models might relate to each other, highlight connections to other research areas, and present avenues for future research.

Normative Social Role Concepts in Early Childhood

The current studies (N = 255, children ages 4-5 and adults) explore patterns of age-related continuity and change in conceptual representations of social role categories (e.g., "scientist"). In Study 1, young children's judgments of category membership were shaped by both category labels and category-normative traits, and the two were dissociable, indicating that even young children's conceptual representations for some social categories have a "dual character." In Study 2, when labels and traits were contrasted, adults and children based their category-based induction decisions on category-normative traits rather than labels. Study 3 confirmed that children reason based on category-normative traits because they view them as an obligatory part of category membership. In contrast, adults in this study viewed the category-normative traits as informative on their own (not only as a cue to obligations). Implications for continuity and change in representations of social role categories will be discussed.