The Development of Morality in Relation to Age and Executive Functioning in Preschoolers

Abstract

The present study examined the development of morality in preschoolers in relation to their age and executive functioning (EF) skills. A sample of 204 3- and 4-year-olds completed a moral and conventional norm storytelling task, a hot EF task, and a cool EF task. Based on past literature, it was expected that there would be a significant difference in children’s ratings of severity of moral and conventional norm violations, as well as a significant age difference. It was also hypothesized that scores on the hot and cool EF tasks would be associated with scores on the stories about moral transgressions, while only scores on the cool EF task would be associated with scores on the stories about conventional transgressions. Results revealed that children rated moral transgressions as more severe than conventional, however, no age differences were found. Older children provided a higher proportion of reasons compared to younger children. Children suggested that moral transgressions were wrong because someone was a victim or the action was bad, while conventional transgressions were wrong because they violated a rule. Only hot EF scores were related to scores on the moral stories, while neither EF task was related to scores on conventional stories.