Separable effects of motives, consequences, and presentation order on children's moral judgments

Examined the effects of the order of presentation of motive and consequence information on the moral judgments of 96 kindergarten, 2nd-, and 5th-grade children. Information type (motives vs consequences) was varied factorially with presentation position (1st vs 2nd), allowing application of recent m...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Developmental psychology 1982-03, Vol.18 (2), p.257-266
Main Author: Surber, Colleen F
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Consequence
Human
Judgment
Moral Development
Motivation
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Summary:Examined the effects of the order of presentation of motive and consequence information on the moral judgments of 96 kindergarten, 2nd-, and 5th-grade children. Information type (motives vs consequences) was varied factorially with presentation position (1st vs 2nd), allowing application of recent models of source credibility. Recency effects were obtained at all 3 ages. Since Ss were required to repeat each story prior to judgment, verbatim memory is unlikely to be the sole cause of recency. Results also showed a developmental shift in the weights of motives and consequences. For 5th graders, evidence suggested that the weight of motives was larger than the weight of consequences, whereas for kindergartners the weight of consequences was larger than the weight of motives. These conclusions do not depend on the assumption that the scale values are developmentally static, a necessary assumption in previous research. (30 ref)
ISSN:0012-1649
1939-0599
DOI:10.1037/0012-1649.18.2.257