N. Yuill et al., CHILDRENS CHANGING UNDERSTANDING OF WICKED DESIRES - FROM OBJECTIVE TO SUBJECTIVE AND MORAL, British journal of developmental psychology, 14, 1996, pp. 457-475
Previous work makes two conflicting claims about children's developing
judgments of the emotions of an actor committing a desired but immora
l act: children's judgments change (1) from sad to happy, as they come
to appreciate desire as a subjective mental state, or (2) from happy
to sad, as children acknowledge the role of moral values in emotion. I
n three experiments designed to explain this conflict, 3-10-year-olds
judged emotions of actors committing neutral and immoral acts. Experim
ent 1 rules out procedural differences as an explanation of conflictin
g findings. Experiment 2 shows an age change from sad, to happy, to sa
d (remorseful), integrating the conflicting claims. Experiment 3 shows
that 5- but not 3-year-olds can judge ill-doers pleased with their su
ccess or remorseful at their wrongdoing, depending on the salience of
moral issues. We discuss the roles of cognitive development, moral und
erstanding and moral climate in influencing children's understanding o
f desire and moral emotion.