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Young Children Respond to Moral Dilemmas Like Their Mothers
There is a large scientific interest in human moral judgments. However, little is known about the developmental origins and the specific role of the primary caregivers in the early development of inter-individual differences in human morality. Here, we assess the moral intuitions of 3- to 6-year-old...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6909973/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31866898 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02683 |
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author | Dworazik, Niklas Kärtner, Joscha Lange, Leon Köster, Moritz |
author_facet | Dworazik, Niklas Kärtner, Joscha Lange, Leon Köster, Moritz |
author_sort | Dworazik, Niklas |
collection | PubMed |
description | There is a large scientific interest in human moral judgments. However, little is known about the developmental origins and the specific role of the primary caregivers in the early development of inter-individual differences in human morality. Here, we assess the moral intuitions of 3- to 6-year-old children and their mothers (N = 56), using child-friendly versions of five trolley dilemmas and two control scenarios. We found that children responded to moral dilemmas similar to their mothers, revealed by correlations between the responses of mothers and their children in all five moral dilemmas and a highly similar overall response pattern between mother and child across all judgments. This was revealed by a high agreement in the response pattern of children and their mothers. Furthermore, children’s overall response tendencies were similar to the response tendencies of adults. Thus, similar moral principles (e.g., the Doctrine of the Double Effect) which have been identified in adults, and describes as a universal moral grammar, may guide the moral intuitions in early childhood already. Taken together, the present findings provide the first evidence that children’s moral intuitions are closely associated with the moral intuitions of their mother. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6909973 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-69099732019-12-20 Young Children Respond to Moral Dilemmas Like Their Mothers Dworazik, Niklas Kärtner, Joscha Lange, Leon Köster, Moritz Front Psychol Psychology There is a large scientific interest in human moral judgments. However, little is known about the developmental origins and the specific role of the primary caregivers in the early development of inter-individual differences in human morality. Here, we assess the moral intuitions of 3- to 6-year-old children and their mothers (N = 56), using child-friendly versions of five trolley dilemmas and two control scenarios. We found that children responded to moral dilemmas similar to their mothers, revealed by correlations between the responses of mothers and their children in all five moral dilemmas and a highly similar overall response pattern between mother and child across all judgments. This was revealed by a high agreement in the response pattern of children and their mothers. Furthermore, children’s overall response tendencies were similar to the response tendencies of adults. Thus, similar moral principles (e.g., the Doctrine of the Double Effect) which have been identified in adults, and describes as a universal moral grammar, may guide the moral intuitions in early childhood already. Taken together, the present findings provide the first evidence that children’s moral intuitions are closely associated with the moral intuitions of their mother. Frontiers Media S.A. 2019-12-06 /pmc/articles/PMC6909973/ /pubmed/31866898 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02683 Text en Copyright © 2019 Dworazik, Kärtner, Lange and Köster. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Psychology Dworazik, Niklas Kärtner, Joscha Lange, Leon Köster, Moritz Young Children Respond to Moral Dilemmas Like Their Mothers |
title | Young Children Respond to Moral Dilemmas Like Their Mothers |
title_full | Young Children Respond to Moral Dilemmas Like Their Mothers |
title_fullStr | Young Children Respond to Moral Dilemmas Like Their Mothers |
title_full_unstemmed | Young Children Respond to Moral Dilemmas Like Their Mothers |
title_short | Young Children Respond to Moral Dilemmas Like Their Mothers |
title_sort | young children respond to moral dilemmas like their mothers |
topic | Psychology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6909973/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31866898 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02683 |
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