scholarly journals An earlier role for intent in children’s partner choice versus punishment

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Martin ◽  
Kyleigh Leddy ◽  
Liane Young ◽  
Katherine McAuliffe
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Developmental Trajectories ◽  
Partner Choice ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Equal Weight ◽  
Behavioral Differences ◽  
The Many ◽  
Insight Into

Among the many factors that influence our moral judgments, two are especially important: whether the person caused a bad outcome and whether they intended for it to happen. Notably, the weight accorded to these factors in adulthood varies by the type of judgment being made. For punishment decisions, intentions and outcomes carry relatively equal weight; for partner choice decisions (i.e., deciding whether or not to interact with someone again), intentions are weighted much more heavily. These behavioral differences in punishment and partner choice judgments may also reflect more fundamental differences in the cognitive processes supporting these decisions. Exploring how punishment and partner choice emerge in development provides important and unique insight into these processes as they emerge and mature. Here, we explore the developmental emergence of punishment and partner choice decisions in 4- to 9-year-old children. Given the importance of intentions for partner choice decisions¬–from both theoretical and empirical perspectives–we targeted the sensitivity of these two responses to others’ intentions as well as outcomes caused. Our punishment results replicate past work: young children are more focused on outcomes caused and become increasingly sensitive to intentions with age. In contrast, partner choice judgments exhibit sensitivity to intentions at an earlier age than punishment judgments, manifesting as earlier partner choice in cases of attempted violations. These results reveal distinct developmental trajectories for punishment and partner choice judgments, with implications for our understanding of the processes underlying these two responses as well as the development of moral judgment more broadly.

scholarly journals False Belief Understanding and Moral Judgment in Young Children

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karlena Ochoa ◽  
Joseph Rodini ◽  
Louis J Moses
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Moral Development ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Study Design ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Age Group ◽  
False Belief Understanding

Although the influence of intent understanding on children’s moral development has been long studied, little research has examined the influence of belief understanding on that development. In two studies we presented children with morally-relevant belief vignettes to examine the extent to which they incorporate both intent and belief information in their moral judgments. In Study 1 (N = 64), 5-year-old false belief (FB) passers rated agents with false beliefs as more positively intentioned in good intent trials (even though the outcome was bad) than in bad intent trials (even though the outcome was good). In contrast, 4-year-old FB passers were generally unable to integrate their belief understanding with their moral evaluations, performing no better on intention questions than FB failers. Neither age group significantly differentiated rewards and punishments as a function of intent when a false belief was involved. In Study 2 (N = 109 children, N = 42 adults), we found that by simplifying our study design and reducing the task demands, 4-year-old FB passers’ were able to make appropriate intent judgments. Yet, as in Study 1, all children had difficulty assigning punishment/rewards based on intent. For both moral intentions and moral consequences, 4- and 5-year-old false belief passers’ moral judgments differed from those of adults in several respects, indicating that moral reasoning develops substantially beyond the preschool years.

scholarly journals Judging accidental harm: The interplay between harm severity and intention towards the victim

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Flora Schwartz ◽  
Hakim Djeriouat ◽  
Bastien Trémolière
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Outcome Severity ◽  
Life Context ◽  
Reasoning Style ◽  
Deliberative Reasoning

When judging a perpetrator who harmed someone accidentally, humans rely on distinct cognitive processes: one that focuses on the victim’s harm and condemns the perpetrator, and another one that examines the perpetrator’s intention and exculpates the perpetrator. The present study investigates how individuals (as third-parties) solve the cognitive tension generated by the judgment of accidental harm by simultaneously manipulating harm severity, the perpetrator’s intention, and by determining the effect of reasoning style. In two pre-registered experiments, participants recruited online completed a moral judgment task consisting of short narratives which depicted the interaction between a perpetrator and a victim in a daily life context. We assessed how participants perceived the perpetrator’s behavior as wrong, blameworthy, and punishment-deserving. In experiment 1 (N = 224), we manipulated the perpetrator’s intent to harm (accidental vs. intentional harm) and the severity of outcome for the victim (mild vs. severe harm). In experiment 2 (N = 210), we used accidental harm scenarios in which we manipulated the perpetrator’s intention towards the victim (positive vs. neutral) and outcome severity (mild vs. severe harm). We additionally assessed participants’ reasoning style in both experiments and explored its role in modulating moral judgment. As expected, participants’ judgment of wrongness and punishment were harsher following severe harm relative to mild harm (experiments 1 and 2), and following intentional as compared to accidental harm (experiment 1). Moreover, participants were more lenient with the perpetrator of accidental harm whose intention towards the victim was positive (experiment 2). Importantly, in both experiments, the perpetrator’s intent not only interacted with outcome severity but also polarized moral judgments in participants with a more deliberative reasoning style, especially following mild harm. These findings extend previous studies by showing that harm severity modulates moral judgment and interacts with intent and reasoning style to shape moral judgment of accidents.

scholarly journals The effect of cognitive load on intent-based moral judgment

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Martin ◽  
Marine Buon ◽  
Fiery Andrews Cushman
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Cognitive Load ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Causal Responsibility ◽  
Developmental Shift ◽  
Two Factors

When making a moral judgment, people largely care about two factors: Who did it (causal responsibility), and did they intend to (intention)? Since Piaget’s seminal studies we have known that as children mature they gradually place greater emphasis on intention, and less on mere bad outcomes, when making moral judgments. Today we know that this developmental shift has several signature properties. Recently, it has been shown that when adults make moral judgments under cognitive load they exhibit a pattern similar to young children; that is, their judgments become notably more outcome-based. Here, we show that all of the same signature properties that accompany the outcome-to-intent shift in childhood characterize the “intent-to-outcome” shift obtained under cognitive load in adults. These findings hold important implications for current theories of moral judgment.

Is Empathy Required for Making Moral Judgments?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Deigh
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Psychopathic Personality ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Psychological Profile ◽  
Main Thesis ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Additional Support

This essay is a study of the nature of moral judgment. Its main thesis is that moral judgment is a type of judgment defined by its content and not its psychological profile. The essay arrives at this thesis through a critical examination of Hume’s sentimentalism and the role of empathy in its account of moral judgment. The main objection to Hume’s account is its exclusion of people whom one can describe as making moral judgments though they have no motivation to act on them. Consideration of such people, particularly those with a psychopathic personality, argues for a distinction between different types of moral judgment in keeping with the essay’s main thesis. Additional support for the main thesis is then drawn from Piaget’s theory of moral judgment in children.

Effect of Power on Moral Judgment

1978 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 387-394
Author(s):  
Russell Hamby
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Low Power ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Factorial Design ◽  
High Power ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Need For Power ◽  
Experimenter Effects

Ambiguous effects of power on attributions of moral responsibility for an accident are interpreted to result from the intervening effects of need for power, which is aroused by the anticipation of exercising power over another. 160 subjects from introductory social psychology classes participated in a questionnaire-type experiment comparing effects of high/low carelessness, severe/minor consequences, and high/low power of the attributor in a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design. In a follow-up experiment 30 subjects were assigned to conditions of high or low power, and their needs for power and moral attributions were measured. High power seemed to arouse need for power, which was curvilinearly related to moral judgments. Those high and low in need for power attributed more moral responsibility to the perpetrator of an accident than those with moderate levels of need for power. The results suggest complicated models of both moral judgments and experimenter effects related to the level or arousal of motivations.

scholarly journals Changing landscapes: Gay men in the west and northwest of Ireland

Sexualities ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 136346072098169
Author(s):  
Aidan McKearney
Keyword(s):  
Gay Men ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Irish Society ◽  
Recent Past ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Lgbt People ◽  
The Many ◽  
Northwest Region ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Insight Into

This article focuses on the experiences of gay men in the rural west and northwest region of Ireland, during a period of transformational social and political change in Irish society. These changes have helped facilitate new forms of LGBTQI visibility, and local radicalism in the region. Same-sex weddings, establishment of rural LGBT groups and marching under an LGBT banner at St Patricks Day parades would have been unthinkable in the recent past; but they are now becoming a reality. The men report continuing challenges in their lives as gay men in the nonmetropolitan space, but the emergence of new visibility, voice and cultural acceptance of LGBT people is helping change their lived experiences. The study demonstrates the impact of local activist LGBT citizens. Through their testimonies we can gain an insight into the many, varied and interwoven factors that have interplayed to create the conditions necessary for the men to: increasingly define themselves as gay to greater numbers of people in their localities; to embrace greater visibility and eschew strategies of silence; and aspire to a host of legal, political, cultural and social rights including same-sex marriage. Organic forms of visibility and local radicalism have emerged in the region and through an analysis of their testimonies we can see how the men continue to be transformed by an ever-changing landscape.

Double, triple or quadruple hits? Exploring the impact of cybercrime on victims in the Netherlands

2021 ◽  
pp. 026975802110106
Author(s):  
Raoul Notté ◽  
E.R. Leukfeldt ◽  
Marijke Malsch
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Victim Blaming ◽  
High Prevalence ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Insight Into

This article explores the impact of online crime victimisation. A literature review and 41 interviews – 19 with victims and 22 with experts – were carried out to gain insight into this. The interviews show that most impacts of online offences correspond to the impacts of traditional offline offences. There are also differences with offline crime victimisation. Several forms of impact seem to be specific to victims of online crime: the substantial scale and visibility of victimhood, victimisation that does not stop in time, the interwovenness of online and offline, and victim blaming. Victims suffer from double, triple or even quadruple hits; it is the accumulation of different types of impact, enforced by the limitlessness in time and space, which makes online crime victimisation so extremely invasive. Furthermore, the characteristics of online crime victimisation greatly complicate the fight against and prevention of online crime. Finally, the high prevalence of cybercrime victimisation combined with the severe impact of these crimes seems contradictory with public opinion – and associated moral judgments – on victims. Further research into the dominant public discourse on victimisation and how this affects the functioning of the police and victim support would be valuable.

scholarly journals To sext or not to sext. The role of social-cognitive processes in the decision to engage in sexting

2021 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 1410-1429
Author(s):  
Claire Wilson ◽  
Tommy van Steen ◽  
Christabel Akinyode ◽  
Zara P. Brodie ◽  
Graham G. Scott
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Cognitive Factors ◽  
Relationship Status ◽  
Injunctive Norm ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Insight Into

Technology has given rise to online behaviors such as sexting. It is important that we examine predictors of such behavior in order to understand who is more likely to sext and thus inform intervention aimed at sexting awareness. We used the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to examine sexting beliefs and behavior. Participants (n = 418; 70.3% women) completed questionnaires assessing attitudes (instrumental and affective), subjective norms (injunctive and descriptive), control perceptions (self-efficacy and controllability) and intentions toward sexting. Specific sexting beliefs (fun/carefree beliefs, perceived risks and relational expectations) were also measured and sexting behavior reported. Relationship status, instrumental attitude, injunctive norm, descriptive norm and self-efficacy were associated with sexting intentions. Relationship status, intentions and self-efficacy related to sexting behavior. Results provide insight into the social-cognitive factors related to individuals’ sexting behavior and bring us closer to understanding what beliefs predict the behavior.

scholarly journals Small-scale societies exhibit fundamental variation in the role of intentions in moral judgment

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (17) ◽  
pp. 4688-4693 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Clark Barrett ◽  
Alexander Bolyanatz ◽  
Alyssa N. Crittenden ◽  
Daniel M. T. Fessler ◽  
Simon Fitzpatrick ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Narrow Range ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Moral Assessment ◽  
Mitigating Circumstances

Intent and mitigating circumstances play a central role in moral and legal assessments in large-scale industrialized societies. Although these features of moral assessment are widely assumed to be universal, to date, they have only been studied in a narrow range of societies. We show that there is substantial cross-cultural variation among eight traditional small-scale societies (ranging from hunter-gatherer to pastoralist to horticulturalist) and two Western societies (one urban, one rural) in the extent to which intent and mitigating circumstances influence moral judgments. Although participants in all societies took such factors into account to some degree, they did so to very different extents, varying in both the types of considerations taken into account and the types of violations to which such considerations were applied. The particular patterns of assessment characteristic of large-scale industrialized societies may thus reflect relatively recently culturally evolved norms rather than inherent features of human moral judgment.

scholarly journals Genome-wide identification of chitinase genes in Thalassiosira pseudonana and analysis of their expression under abiotic stresses

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Haomiao Cheng ◽  
Zhanru Shao ◽  
Chang Lu ◽  
Delin Duan
Keyword(s):  
Abiotic Stresses ◽  
Chitinase Activity ◽  
Thalassiosira Pseudonana ◽  
Centric Diatom ◽  
Carbon And Nitrogen ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Duplication Events ◽  
The Many ◽  
Chitinase Genes ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract Background The nitrogen-containing polysaccharide chitin is the second most abundant biopolymer on earth and is found in the cell walls of diatoms, where it serves as a scaffold for biosilica deposition. Diatom chitin is an important source of carbon and nitrogen in the marine environment, but surprisingly little is known about basic chitinase metabolism in diatoms. Results Here, we identify and fully characterize 24 chitinase genes from the model centric diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana. We demonstrate that their expression is broadly upregulated under abiotic stresses, despite the fact that chitinase activity itself remains unchanged, and we discuss several explanations for this result. We also examine the potential transcriptional complexity of the intron-rich T. pseudonana chitinase genes and provide evidence for two separate tandem duplication events during their evolution. Conclusions Given the many applications of chitin and chitin derivatives in suture production, wound healing, drug delivery, and other processes, new insight into diatom chitin metabolism has both theoretical and practical value.

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