Counterfactual choices and moral judgments in children

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Gautam, S
Owen Hall, R
Suddendorf, T
Redshaw, J
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2023
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Abstract

When making moral judgments of past actions, adults often think counterfactually about what could have been done differently. Considerable evidence suggests that counterfactual thinking emerges around age 6, but it remains unknown how this development influences children's moral judgments. Across two studies, Australian children aged 4–9 (N = 236, 142 Females) were told stories about two characters who had a choice that led to a good or bad outcome, and two characters who had no choice over a good or bad outcome. Results showed that 4- and 5-year-olds’ moral judgments were influenced only by the actual outcome. From age 6, children's moral judgments were also influenced by the counterfactual choices that had been available to the characters.

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Child Development

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94

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5

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© 2023 The Authors. Child Development published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Research in Child Development. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Gautam, S; Owen Hall, R; Suddendorf, T; Redshaw, J, Counterfactual choices and moral judgments in children, Child Development, 2023, 94 (5), pp. e296-e307

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