Preschoolers’ Evaluations of Rules: Moral and Pragmatic Constraints

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

Integrative Statement

Preschoolers view many rules about dressing, eating, and playing as alterable by adults, for instance rules about which clothes to wear in school (see Smetana, 2013). Yet, young children do not unconditionally accept the rules conveyed to them, but sometimes reject or protest adult rules (Kuczynski & Grusec, 1990; Weston & Turiel, 1980). One hypothesis is that children view rules about dressing, eating, and playing as alterable within constraints. According to the constraint hypothesis, children think that adults can change rules as long as the rule changes do not violate the rights and welfare of others (moral considerations) and cause no disorder or inconvenience to agents (pragmatic considerations) (Miller & Bersoff, 1988; Turiel, 1989). The present research investigated such moral and pragmatic constraints on children’s evaluations of rules regarding dressing, eating, and playing.

Fifty-six preschoolers (M = 4.3 years) and 60 adults were interviewed about situations in which a protagonist followed teacher rules. For each situation, there were four rule variants. In the default variant, teachers prohibited a way of dressing, eating, or playing (e.g. saying that children should not wear bathing suits to school). In the alternative variant, the rule prescribed the very behavior that was prohibited in the default variant (children should wear bathing suits). In the unpragmatic variant, following the rule caused disorder or discomfort to the agent (children should wear bathing suits on a really cold day). In the immoral variant, the rule required children to violate the rights or welfare of others (children should take and wear other kids’ bathing suits). Participants were asked to evaluate the protagonist’s action and the teachers’ rule.

Children’s judgments about protagonists rule following differed significantly by variant, likelihood ratio test: D(2) = 190.20, p<.001. Most said it was okay to follow the alternative rule (62%), but almost never thought it was okay to follow the unpragmatic rule (19%) and the immoral rule (8%). Children’s evaluations of the rules also varied with situation type, D(3) = 166.95, p<.002 (Figure 1). Children more often said the rule was okay in the default and alternative variants than in the unpragmatic and immoral variants. There was also a significant interaction between rule variant and child age, D(3) = 15.07, p=.002. When explaining why the unpragmatic and immoral rules were not okay, children typically referenced concerns with welfare, goals, and rights of the persons involved. Adult responses showed similar patterns of judgment. They were more likely to say it was okay to follow the alternative rule (97%) than to follow the unpragmatic (58%) and immoral (9%) rule, D(2) = 538.46, p<.001. Adults also evaluated teacher rules more positively in the default and alternative variants than in the unpragmatic and immoral variants, D(3) = 399.67, p<.001 (Figure 1).

The findings show that preschoolers, like adults, critically evaluate authority commands about dressing, eating, and playing. Participants typically negatively evaluated rules, and rule-following, with negative moral and pragmatic ramifications. The findings highlight how children scrutinize authority rules, imposing constraints based on moral and pragmatic considerations.

Authors

• Charles Baxley, University of California, Santa Cruz
  Presenting Author

• Audun Dahl, University of California Santa Cruz
  Non-Presenting Author