Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Moral emotions and moral judgments in children's narratives: Comparing real-life and hypothetical transgressions

2010; Wiley; Volume: 2010; Issue: 129 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1002/cd.273

1534-8687

Eveline Gutzwiller‐Helfenfinger, Luciano Gasser, Tina Malti,

Child and Animal Learning Development

New Directions for Child and Adolescent DevelopmentVolume 2010, Issue 129 p. 11-31 Research Article Moral emotions and moral judgments in children's narratives: Comparing real-life and hypothetical transgressions Eveline Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger, Eveline Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger University of Teacher Education of Central Switzerland, Lucerne, SwitzerlandSearch for more papers by this authorLuciano Gasser, Luciano Gasser University of Toronto MississaugaSearch for more papers by this authorTina Malti, Tina Malti University of Toronto MississaugaSearch for more papers by this author Eveline Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger, Eveline Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger University of Teacher Education of Central Switzerland, Lucerne, SwitzerlandSearch for more papers by this authorLuciano Gasser, Luciano Gasser University of Toronto MississaugaSearch for more papers by this authorTina Malti, Tina Malti University of Toronto MississaugaSearch for more papers by this author First published: 17 September 2010 https://doi.org/10.1002/cd.273Citations: 19AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Abstract How children make meaning of their own social experiences in situations involving moral issues is central to their subsequent affective and cognitive moral learning. Our study of young children's narratives describing their interpersonal conflicts shows that the emotions and judgments constructed in the course of these real-life narratives differ from the emotions and judgments generated in the context of hypothetical transgressions. In the narratives, all emotions mentioned spontaneously were negative. In contrast, emotions attributed in the interview part covered a broader spectrum. One's own real-life transgressions were judged less severe and more justified than hypothetical transgressions. © Wiley Periodicals, Inc. REFERENCES Arsenio, W., Gold, J., & Adams, E. (2006). Children's conceptions and displays of moral emotions. In M. Killen & J. Smetana (Eds.), Handbook of moral development (pp. 581– 609). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Arsenio, W., & Lemerise, E. (2004). Aggression and moral development: Integrating social information processing and moral domain models. Child Development, 75, 987– 1002. Bretherton, I., Prentiss, C., & Ridgeway, D. (1990). Family relationships as represented in a story-completion task at thirty-seven and fifty-four months of age. New Directions for Child Development, 48, 85– 105. Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bruner, J. (2002). Making stories: Law, literature, life. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Day, J. M. (1991). The moral audience: On the narrative mediation of moral "judgment" and moral "action." New Directions for Child Development, 54, 27– 42. Day, J. M., & Tappan, M. B. (1996). The narrative approach to moral development: From the epistemic subject to dialogical selves. Human Development, 39, 67– 82. De Vries, B., & Lehmann, A. J. (1996). The complexity of personal narratives. In J. E. Birren, G. M. Kenyon, J.-E. Ruth, J. J. Schroots, & T. Svensson (Eds.), Aging and biography: Explorations in adult development (pp. 149– 166). New York: Springer. Eisenberg, N. (2000). Emotion, regulation, and moral development. Annual Review of Psychology, 51, 665– 697. Ellsworth, P. C., & Scherer, K. R. (2003). Appraisal processes in emotion. In R. J. Davidson, K. R. Scherer, & H. H. Goldsmith (Eds.), Handbook of the affective sciences (pp. 572– 595). New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. Emde, R. N., Wolf, D. P., & Oppenheim, D. (2003) (Eds.). Revealing the inner worlds of young children. The Macarthur Story Stem Battery and parent-child narratives. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Flavell, J. H., Flavell, E. R., & Green, F. L. (2001). Development of children's understanding of connections between thinking and feeling. Psychological Science, 12, 430– 432. Gasser, L., & Keller, M. (2009). Are the competent the morally good? Perspective taking and moral motivation of children involved in bullying. Social Development, 18, 798– 816. Gergen, K., & Gergen, M. (1986). Narrative form and the construction of psychological science. In T. R. Sarbin (Ed.), Narrative psychology. The storied nature of human conduct (pp. 22– 44). New York: Praeger. Haidt, J. (2003). The moral emotions. In R. J. Davidson, K. R. Scherer, & H. H. Goldsmith (Eds.), Handbook of affective sciences (pp. 852– 870). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hoffman, M. (2000). Empathy and moral development: The implications for caring and justice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Hudson, J. A., & Shapiro, L. R. (1991). From knowing to telling: The development of children's scripts, stories, and personal narratives. In A. McCabe & C. Peterson (Eds.), Developing narrative structure (pp. 89– 137). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Kochanska, G., Padavich, D. L., & Koenig, A. L. (1996). Children's narratives about hypothetical moral dilemmas and objective measures of their conscience: Mutual relations and socialization antecedents. Child Development, 67, 1420– 1436. Krettenauer, T., & Eichler, D. (2006). Adolescents' self-attributed emotions following a moral transgression: Relations with delinquency, confidence in moral judgment, and age. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 24, 489– 506. Krettenauer, T., Malti, T., & Sokol, B. (2008). The development of moral emotion expectancies and the happy victimizer phenomenon: A critical review of theory and application. European Journal of Developmental Science, 2, 221– 235. Lourenço, O. (1997). Children's attributions of moral emotions to victimizers: Some data, doubts, and suggestions. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 15, 425– 438. Malti, T., Gasser, L., & Buchmann, M. (2009). Aggressive and prosocial children's emotion attributions and moral reasoning. Aggressive Behavior, 35, 90– 102. Malti, T., Gasser, L., & Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger, E. (2010). Children's interpretive understanding, moral judgments, and emotion attributions: Relations to social behavior. British Journal of Developmental Psychology. Malti, T., Gummerum, M., Keller, M., & Buchmann, M. (2009). Children's moral motivation, sympathy, and prosocial behavior. Child Development, 80, 442– 460. Malti, T., & Latzko, B. (2010). Children's moral emotions and moral cognition: Towards an integrative perspective. In B. Latzko & T. Malti (Eds.), Children's moral emotions and moral cognition: Developmental and educational perspectives. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 129, 1– 10. Maxwell, B., & DesRoches, S. (2010). Empathy and social-emotional learning: Pitfalls and touchstones for school-based programs. In B. Latzko & T. Malti (Eds.), Children's moral emotions and moral cognition: Developmental and educational perspectives. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 129, 33– 53. McAdams, D. P. (2008). Personal narratives and the life story. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, & L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research ( 3rd ed., pp. 242– 262). New York: Guilford Press. Minnameier, G. (2010). The problem of moral motivation and the happy victimizer phenomenon: Killing two birds with one stone. In B. Latzko & T. Malti (Eds.), Children's moral emotions and moral cognition: Developmental and educational perspectives. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 129, 55– 75. Narvaez, D. (2010). The emotional foundations of high moral intelligence. In B. Latzko & T. Malti (Eds.), Children's moral emotions and moral cognition: Developmental and educational perspectives. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 129, 77– 94. Nicolopoulou, A. (1997). Children and narratives: Toward an interpretive and sociocultural approach. In M. Bamberg (Ed.), Narrative development: Six approaches (pp. 179– 215). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Nunner-Winkler, G. (2007). Development of moral motivation from childhood to early adulthood. Journal of Moral Education, 36, 399– 414. Packer, M. J. (1991). Interpreting stories, interpreting lives: Narrative and action in moral development research. New Directions for Child Development, 54, 63– 82. Piaget, J. (1967). Biologie et connaissance [Biology and awareness]. Paris. Gallimard. Ramos-Marcuse, F., & Arsenio, W. F. (2001). Young children's emotionally-charged moral narratives: Relations with attachment and behavior problems. Early Education & Development, 12, 165– 184. Smetana, J. G., & Killen, M. (2008). Moral cognition, emotions, and neuroscience: An integrative developmental view. European Journal of Developmental Science, 2, 324– 339. Smetana, J. G., Schlagman, N., & Adams, P. (1993). Preschoolers' judgments about hypothetical and actual transgressions. Child Development, 64, 202– 214. Smetana, J. G., Toth, S. L., Cicchetti, D., Bruce, J., Kane, P., & Daddis, C. (1999). Maltreated and nonmaltreated preschoolers conceptions of hypothetical and actual moral transgressions. Developmental Psychology, 35, 269– 281. Tangney, J. P., Stuewig, J., & Mashek, D. J. (2007). Moral emotions and moral behavior. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 345– 372. Tappan, M. B. (1991). Narrative, authorship, and the development of moral authority. New Directions for Child Development, 54, 5– 25. Tappan, M. B. (1998). Moral education in the zone of proximal development. Journal of Moral Education, 27, 141– 160. Tappan, M. B. (2006). Mediated moralities: Sociocultural approaches to moral development. In M. Killen & J. Smetana (Eds.), Handbook of moral development (pp. 351– 374). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Wainryb, C., Brehl, B. A., & Matwin, S. (2005). Being hurt and hurting others: Children's narrative accounts and moral judgments of their own interpersonal conflicts. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 70, 1– 114. Waldinger, R. J., Toth, S. L., & Gerber, A. (2001). Maltreatment and internal representation of relationships: Core relationship themes in the narratives of abused and neglected preschoolers. Social Development, 10, 42– 58. Citing Literature Volume2010, Issue129Special Issue: Children's Moral Emotions and Moral Cognition: Developmental and Educational PerspectivesAutumn (Fall) 2010Pages 11-31 ReferencesRelatedInformation