CHILDREN'S DEVELOPMENT AND USE OF INFERENCES ABOUT INTENTIONS AND MOTIVES IN MORAL JUDGMENT

Abstract

S ummary . A sample of 42 children, age 5 to 7, were tested for their ability to give appropriate causal accounts of incidents and to consider intentions and motives in judging the characters involved in these incidents. Results indicated that children are able to consider intention before they develop the ability to consider motives in moral judgment. A comparison of the causal accounts and moral judgments showed that children can make the appropriate causal inferences before they are able to make use of these in their moral judgments. This supports an interpretation of immature moral judgments as reflecting a deficiency in mediation rather than a deficiency in capacity.