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Author | Emily Reynolds
Translate | Caroline
Review | Cool brain
Read aloud | Hoon
Artwork | Jenny
Edit | YJ
Recently, researchers have found that children as young as three not only have their own understanding of what is right or wrong, but also become more lenient in their judgments of violations after certain behaviors are given special meanings.
While this may be very different from what you might think, the truth is that even young children have complex moral understanding. They are surprisingly prosocial: for example, children who have just walked tend to be happy to share and help others.
Recently, researchers have found that children as young as three not only have their own understanding of what is right or wrong, but also become more lenient in their judgments of violations after certain behaviors are given special meanings. As adults, we generally understand that breaking a promise in order to help others is not considered selfish. But Leon Lee and colleagues at Duke University wondered if young children understood this too. To test this, the team recruited two groups of children with an average age of 3.5 and 5.5 years. The ratio of boys to women is fairly average in both groups. On Zoom, children are introduced to a squirrel puppet that the children know is a "puppet master" operated by an off-screen experimenter. The children were then presented with a slide showing the 12 puppets that would appear in the study, and the "puppet chief" asked the children to report any bad behavior shown by these characters.
The children then watched a series of pre-recorded videos, each featuring a different pair of animal puppets. Each pair introduced themselves, promised to show the child a cool toy, and then left the screen for 15 seconds. In two of the trials, the puppets came back showing the child interesting toys, but in the remaining three trials, the puppet did not bring anything back to the child.
In these later experiments, the puppets all made an excuse for not fulfilling their promises. Some are "good", "prosocial" excuses (e.g.: "I didn't bring toys because I have to help my mom, she really needs my help"), while others are "bad", "selfish" excuses ("I didn't bring toys because I want to watch TV"). Sometimes, the puppets don't give any excuses ("I didn't bring my toys, goodbye!"). "）。
At the end of each video, the "puppet chief" returns and asks the child if he has anything to report. The children's responses are then analyzed to determine if they are honest; Children also need to point out if they think it's wrong for the puppets not to show them anything and explain why they think it's wrong. The children also answered questions about which of each pair of puppets they preferred and who they preferred to invite to play.
The children rated negatively about all the puppets who broke their promises, no matter what excuses they offered. However, children rated puppets with good excuses less negatively than those who gave bad excuses or no excuses. This is true for both three- and five-year-olds.
However, only five-year-olds differed in the types of statements they used to prove their judgment about each puppet. When the puppets have a good excuse, these older children are more likely to refer to social norms, such as saying that the puppets did something wrong because they were obligated to behave in a prosocial way. However, regardless of the excuses the puppets used, there was no significant difference in how likely children were to expose, like, or invite any of the three types of puppets.
This study shows that children as young as three and a half years old have come to realize that prosocial behavior is a better defense of delinquency than personal desire. However, these results also suggest that children may not be aware of the social impact of certain infractions – in other words, they may not understand that breaking promises or social rules can make someone less likable. Future research could further explore when and how this understanding emerges in development.
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