Preschoolers' knowledge about strategies in coping with other's disgust evoked by immoral actions

40 preschoolers in Exp. 1 and 22 in Exp. 2 (mean ages were both 5:11) were shown short stories presented as colored videotaped pictures with explanato ry narrations. In each story a recipient felt disgusted by an agent's actio n. In Exp. 1 the agent's action was immoral. The participants were asked to tell how the agent would behave, supposing they were the agent themselves. About 80% of their answers were prosocial. In Exp. 2, two kinds of story w ere shown. In one, the agent hurt the recipient intentionally; in the other , by accident. Almost all answers in both kinds of story were prosocial. Fu rthermore, over a third of the participants told the reasons for their answ ers, considering the recipient's emotion, even when the agent's action was intentional and immoral. These findings show that the preschoolers had suit able knowledge about the agent's strategies in coping with the recipient's disgust.