Aggressive and prosocial children's emotion attributions and moral reasoning

Abstract

Aggressive and prosocial children's emotion attributions and moral reasoning were investigated. Participants were 235 kindergarten children (M 5 6.2 years) and 136 elementary-school children (M 5 7.6 years) who were selected as aggressive or prosocial based on (kindergarten) teacher ratings. The children were asked to evaluate hypothetical rule violations, attribute emotions they would feel in the role of the victimizer, and justify their responses. Compared with younger prosocial children, younger aggressive children attributed fewer negative emotions and were more likely to provide sanction-oriented justifications when evaluating rule violations negatively. Furthermore, age-, gender-and context-effects in moral development occurred. The context-effects included both effects of transgression type (i.e., prosocial morality vs. fairness) on emotion attributions and moral reasoning and the effects of the context of moral evaluation and emotion attribution on moral reasoning. Findings are discussed in terms of the role of emotion attributions and moral reasoning as antecedents of children's aggressive and prosocial behavior. Aggr.

Children's Moral Emotion Attribution in the Happy Victimizer Task: The Role of Response Format

“…Previous research indicated that children regard violations of negative moral duties as more severe than not following positive moral duties, such as not sharing (e.g. Malti, Gasser, & Buchmann, 2009). Thus, having to wait with one's response might have helped children to think about the victimizer's transgression in more detail and attribute negative emotions according to the perceived severity of the violation.…”

An Examination of Differences in Moral Disengagement and Empathy Among Bullying Participant Groups

“…Empathy, like other moral emotions (e.g., shame and guilt), has been seen as a mediator of moral standards and behaviour (Tangney, Stuewig, & Mashek, 2007). Moral emotions appear to enable individuals to anticipate how moral transgressions will lead to deleterious outcomes, which assists in altering behaviour for a more positive result (Malti, Gasser, & Buchmann, 2009). Empathy in particular has been shown to be a factor that can inhibit antisocial behaviour (Cohen & Strayer, 1996;Hoffman, 2000;Miller & Eisenberg, 1988).…”

Cyberbullying and traditional bullying in adolescence: Differential roles of moral disengagement, moral emotions, and moral values

“…They help children anticipate the negative outcomes of moral transgressions and enable them to adjust their moral behaviour accordingly (Malti, Gasser, & Buchmann, 2009).…”