“He will help”: Children’s perceptions of wealthy and knowledgeable people

• In Event: Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Topic - Social Cognition

Abstract

Beginning in early childhood, children are sensitive to cues that indicate wealth (Ramsey, 1991) and knowledge (Kruglanski et al., 2005). Although children sometimes associate wealth with competence (Sigelman, 2012), they may discriminate between wealthy and knowledgeable people in specific contexts. For example, wealth and knowledge can be resources used to help others, but children may not view wealthy and knowledgeable people as equally obligated to help. This study will address the extent to which 5- to 8-year-olds perceive that it is appropriate for knowledgeable individuals and wealthy individuals to provide assistance in morally relevant settings.

Sixty 5- to 8-year-olds will hear stories about morally relevant situations that are witnessed by one wealthy bystander and one knowledgeable bystander. One story will focus on physical harm and one story will focus on a civil liberties violation toward a target. Participants will indicate which individual the target should ask for help (i.e., assistance question) and which individual should be in charge to resolve the situation (i.e., status question) in both stories. Participants will receive a score of “0” if they select the wealthy individual and “1” if they select the knowledgeable individual. Participants will be asked to provide a justification for these forced-choice selections.

Separate mixed logistic regressions will be conducted on the assistance and status questions with age as a continuous predictor and domain as a categorical within-subjects factor. We predict an effect of domain for the assistance question. Overall, children will be more likely to endorse the knowledgeable individual for assistance in the civil liberties domain as compared to the physical harm domain. We predict an effect of age for the status question such that older children will be more likely to endorse the knowledgeable individual than younger children. This will be qualified by an age x domain interaction: older children will be more likely to endorse the knowledgeable individual in the civil liberties domain relative to the physical harm domain. Younger children are not expected to differentiate which individual should be in charge by domain.

With regard to children’s justifications for these endorsements, we expect that with age, children will view knowledge-based strategies as more useful and may be sensitive to the potential moral implications of using wealth to resolve a situation. Two raters will code the open-ended justifications. A chi-square test of independence will be used to examine whether these justifications differ by age group. The total sample size consists of 60 children and data collection has already begun (n=16). Three experimenters will assist with data collection and at least two of these assistants will code open-ended responses. Testing sessions occur virtually to accommodate a wider variety of participants safely.

The results from this study will inform theoretical connections between moral development and children’s developing understanding of knowledge and status. Specifically, this study offers one way to examine who children judge to be accountable to help other people. In addition, this study may offer new insight into developmental differences in the characteristics that children associate with social status hierarchies.

Authors

• Kimberly Marble, Vanderbilt University
  Presenting Author

• Janet J Boseovski, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
  Non-Presenting Author

• M. Faith Latham, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ashleigh R. McCall, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
  Non-Presenting Author