When Children Treat Condemnation as a Signal: Inferring Moral Character From One’s Condemnation

• In Event: 2-141 - How do Children Intervene Against Moral Transgressions?: The Development of Third-party Interventions in Childhood

Integrative Statement

Adults and children frequently engage in moral condemnation (Turiel, 1998; Bloom, 2013) and scholars have debated the precise function of moral condemnation (Haidt, 2012). Adults treat moral condemnation as a costly signal: they think those who condemn are more moral (benefit of the signal), but also think that condemner should be punished more harshly than non-condemners if they transgress (cost to the signal) (Jordan, Sommers, Bloom, & Rand, 2017). It is unclear, however, when and if children use condemnation as a signal. The current studies explore this question.

In four studies, children were asked their intuitions about a condemner and a non-condemner of stealing. They were asked who they thought was more likely to steal between the two characters (prediction measure). After children made their predictions, they were then asked who should be punished more if both characters were caught stealing (punishment measure). We predicted that by age 7, children should be capable of treating moral condemnation as a costly signal. Children were broken down into “younger children” (4- to 6-years old) and “older children (7- to 9-years old) for analysis. We made this age prediction based on a large body of literature suggesting that children become more adept at understanding social signals of behavior between the ages of 7- to 8 (Heyman, Barner, Heumann, & Schenck, 2013; Shaw, Li, & Olson, 2013).

In Study 1 (n = 121, 4- to 9-years old) and Study 2 (n = 60, 4- to 9-years old) children were presented with a condemner and a non-condemner (i.e. someone who said broccoli is gross, Study 1) or someone who praised sharing (Study 2) and were then asked to the prediction and punishment measures. In line with the notion that older children would treat condemnation as a costly signal, we found that older children thought condemner was less likely to steal and also that she should be punished more harshly if she is caught stealing. Younger children gave more mixed responses that were consistent with merely matching the word stealing to the character in question. To extend our findings and explore this possibility, in Study 3 (n = 119, 4- to 9-year olds) children were asked to compare two people who made negative comments about stealing: a condemner and someone who denies ever stealing (“I never steal”). Here we again found that older children thought the condemner was less likely to steal than even someone who explicitly claims that they never steal. Younger children were at chance in their predictions. In Study 4 (n = 69, 4- to 9-year olds), we found that this is not merely because younger children cannot follow our paradigm, as they too can make predictions in this paradigm based on a character’s preference (thinking that someone who says “I like stealing” is more likely to steal). Thus, it seems that younger children can follow the methods, but have a specific difficulty in predicting behavior based on condemnation. We discuss the implications of this work on children’s concept of reputation and morality.

Authors

• Hannah Hok, University of Chicago
  Presenting Author

• Alia Martin, Victoria University of Wellington
  Non-Presenting Author

• Zachary Trail, University of Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author

• Alex Shaw, University of Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author