Norms with affect: Young children and adults show higher arousal to moral than conventional transgressions

• In Event: 2-197 - The emergence of and mechanisms underlying the development of moral norms

Integrative Statement

Human group living and cooperation rely heavily on norms, or guidelines that direct how one ought to behave (Boyd & Richerson, 2009; Killen & Smetana, 2015). However, not all norms are perceived similarly or treated the same. In particular, people robustly distinguish between moral norms, which are aimed at preserving the rights and welfare of others (e.g., not causing unprovoked harm or not stealing from others), and conventional norms, which serve to ensure coordination and smooth running of social groups or institutions (e.g., wearing uniforms to school or following certain rules when playing a game) (Davidson, Turiel, & Black, 1983; Smetana, 1984; 1985; Weston & Turiel, 1980). Indeed, even children as young as 3 years of age judge moral norm violations as more serious, moral transgressors as more deserving of punishment, and moral rules as more generalizable across contexts (Smetana, Ball, Jambon, & Yoo, 2018).

However, far less is known about the mechanisms driving this differentiation. One proposal argues that the basis for this differentiation is affect: whereas moral norm violations elicit affect, conventional norm violations do not (Nichols, 2002). Though this proposal has found some support in research with adults (Nichols, 2002), prior work has not examined it in young children. The present study tested this idea in development. Specifically, we asked whether children show greater physiological arousal (measured via changes in pupil dilation) during moral transgressions. We also asked whether children attend differently to moral versus conventional transgressions.

In a between-subjects design, 3-year-olds (n = 32), 4-year-olds (n = 34), and undergraduate students (n = 64) watched a video of either a moral norm violation (e.g., destroying another person’s artwork) or a conventional norm violation (e.g., playing a game wrong). Crucially, the final scene of both videos was identical, but based on what had previously transpired, this final scene represented either a conventional or a moral transgression.

Participants of all age groups attended significantly more to the victim of the moral transgression than the bystander in the conventional transgression, even though both scenes were identical and thus the victim/bystander behaved identically in both, F(1, 124) = 6.19, p = .014. With regard to our central question concerning physiological arousal, we measured participants’ pupil dilation during the first 2 seconds of each transgression. As predicted, we found that across all age groups, participants in the moral condition (M = .10, SD = .15) showed greater pupil dilation than participants in the conventional condition (M = .01, SD = .14), F(1,112) = 11.50, p = .001 (Figure 1). We also found a main effect of age, such that adults showed less change in pupil size than 3- and 4-year-olds, F(2,112) = 3.36, p = .038. This is the first evidence that differences in affective arousal contribute to the distinction that even young children draw between moral and conventional rules.

Authors

• Meltem Yucel, University of Virginia
  Presenting Author

• Robert Hepach, Leipzig University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Amrisha Vaish, The University of Virginia
  Non-Presenting Author