The more familiar the others, the higher the morality: children’s preference for familiar others in moral expectations early appears in the negative moral context

ABSTRACT

In order to explore the development mechanism of construction theory in the field of moral judgment, this study investigated the influence of age and social distance on such moral expectations in positive moral context and negative moral context. In both positive and negative moral contexts, 5–6-year-old children had the highest moral expectations of people who are socially closest to them. In negative moral contexts, 3–4-year-old children had significantly higher moral expectations of people who are socially closest to them, whereas in positive moral contexts, no significant difference was noted in their moral expectations of others for various degrees of social distance. These findings suggest that children have lower moral expectations of strangers and exhibit a preference for familiar person in moral expectations as they grow older. And this preference was first observed in contexts which the child thought that someone close to him or her was less likely to do immoral things in negative moral context than to do moral things in positive moral contexts. In conclusion, our study provides empirical evidence for construction theory in the field of moral judgment, proving that social distance, age and moral context strongly affect children’s moral expectations of others.

KEYWORDS:

• Moral expectation
• social distance
• 3–6-year-old
• construction theory

Acknowledgement

We would like to express our special gratitude to children and families, Yi Liu for help with data collection, Zimei Guo for assistance with experimental design and procedures. Wenjie Zhang and Geying Liang analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript and Wei Fan reviewed the manuscript. Due to Wenjie Zhang and Geying Liang have contributed equally to this work, they were the prime authors in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by the Youth pedagogic projects of National Social Science Fund of China, ‘Psychological mechanism of preschoolers’ sharing behaviour: the role of recipients’ self-relevance and neediness’ (CBA190244).

Notes on contributors

Wenjie Zhang

Wenjie Zhang is an associate professor of Hunan Normal University.

Geying Liang

Geying Liang is a postgraduate of Hunan Normal University.

Zimei Guo

Zimei Guo is a postgraduate of Hunan Normal University.

Yi Liu

Yi Liu is a teacher from the Second Kindergarten of Yuelu District Preschool Education.

Wei Fan

Wei Fan is a professor of Hunan Norma Univerisity.