Does governmental corruption aid or hamper early moral development? Insights from the Dominican Republic and United States contexts.

We tested whether children growing up in the Dominican Republic (D.R.), a context with relatively high governmental corruption levels, would support versus distance themselves from widespread unethical practices like bribery. In Experiment 1 (moral judgments; n = 106), D.R. elementary schoolers and adults evaluated judges who accepted gifts from contestants before or after selecting contest winners and predicted whether bribe-taking judges would be secretive. Like adults, older-but not younger-D.R. elementary schoolers differentially condemned judges who accepted gifts before versus after picking contest winners. Unlike adults, children often predicted that judges would disclose receiving gifts. In Experiment 2 (moral behaviors; n = 44), D.R. elementary schoolers could secretly accept or reject a bribe in exchange for 1st place while judging a drawing contest. All but two children rejected the bribe. Together, these findings stand in contrast with U.S. bribery-related developmental trends (Reyes-Jaquez & Koenig, 2021, 2022) and support this contention: When growing up in a more morally heterogeneous context like the D.R., children eventually assume a critical and differentiated stance toward-and will resist or subvert-some of their culture's unethical practices. Greater exposure to a wide range of unethical transactions might hinder aspects of bribery-related moral development early on, depending on how these aspects are measured (moral judgment vs. behavior). Nevertheless, over time, such exposure may strengthen children's capacity to resist unethical cultural practices, indicated by children's overwhelming rejection of bribes. We discuss the importance of including diverse response modalities (verbal, behavioral) when measuring psychological constructs in non-Western societies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Able and willing: Infants selectively seek help from competent and benevolent others.

Young children often encounter unsolvable problems with which they require others' help. To receive adequate assistance, children must be savvy about whom they seek help from: Effective helpers must possess both the ability to help (e.g., competence) and a willingness to do so (e.g., benevolence). Although past work suggests that information about competence and benevolence can inform young children's help-seeking behavior, it remains unclear how and whether children utilize said factors independently of each other. Furthermore, it is unclear whether they can generalize potential helpers' competence from one task to another. The current experiments examined whether 22- to 23-month-olds confronted with a broken toy selectively sought help from agents who had previously demonstrated either competence (Experiment 1) or benevolence (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, infants preferred to seek help from a competent agent who successfully opened a closed box over one who failed to do so. In Experiment 2, infants selectively sought help from a benevolent agent who helped a third party by returning a lost ball, over an agent who stole the ball instead. These patterns of selectivity were not driven by associative valence matching; in Experiment 3, infants showed no preference for an agent who was itself helped versus an agent who was hindered. These results suggest that before their second birthday, infants independently utilize cues to both competence and benevolence to inform their help seeking, using information generalized from novel contexts. We discuss the potential nature of this generalization as well as directions for future work. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Trusting information from friends: Adults expect it but preschoolers do not.

As adults, we might understand that beliefs often spread because people are strongly influenced by their friends, family, and other social connections. However, do we think those influences are strong enough to overrule direct evidence of a friend's unreliability? And do preschoolers expect people to show such biases toward friends and to privilege friendship over reliability? Across three experiments, we explored whether friendship influences the evaluations of trust when others learn labels for novel objects as well as personal opinions. After watching scenes involving a main character, her best friend, and a stranger, preschoolers and adults judged who would be trusted for information from the main character's perspective (third person) as well as their own (first person). Adults (n = 128, 55 female, recruited online from across the United States) expected the main character to trust information from her friend even if she had been previously inaccurate, while basing their own first-person judgments on accuracy. In contrast, 4- and 5-year-olds (n = 128, 62 female, from the United States) thought that the main character would be like themselves and prioritize accuracy over friendship. Further, preschoolers expected the main character to trust her (inaccurate) friend and (accurate) stranger equally when forming personal opinions. Thus, young children, unlike adults, do not expect others' epistemic trust to privilege friendship with the speaker over accuracy information. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The Collaborative Nature of Testimonial Learning.

Children's testimonial learning often occurs in epistemic collaborations with others. In this paper, we will discuss ways in which cultural learning emerges in social and interpersonal contexts, and is intrinsically supported and guided by children's collaborative capacities. Much work in cultural learning has focused on children's examination of speaker and model characteristics, but more recent research has investigated the interactive aspects of testimonial exchanges. We will review evidence that children (1) participate in the interpersonal commitments that are shared in testimonial transactions by way of direct address and epistemic buck passing, (2) participate in social groups that affect their selective learning in nuanced ways, and (3) may detect epistemic harms by listeners who refuse to believe sincere and accurate speakers. Implications for conceptualizing children's testimonial learning as an interactive mechanism of collaboration will be discussed.

Understanding the value of telescopic testimony: With age, a predominantly White Midwestern sample of children credits knowledge to speakers whose statements go beyond the evidence.

One primary value of testimony lies in its ability to extend our powers of observation. Do children credit more knowledge to speakers whose testimony goes beyond firsthand observation? The current study investigated 3- to 8-year-old children's (N = 180) and adults' (N = 20) knowledge attributions to speakers who made claims regarding perceptually evident features of a novel animal (e.g., "is brown") or claims regarding perceptually absent features (e.g., "eats insects"). By 7 years of age, children and adults attributed more knowledge to speakers who discussed telescopic information and generalized their knowledge to other domains. Because the knowledge base of child listeners expands with age, they place increased value on telescopic information and the speakers who provide it.

Mind-mindedness in a high-risk sample: Differential benefits for developmental outcomes based on child maltreatment.

Mind-mindedness is associated with positive developmental outcomes. However, much of the literature uses mostly White, middle to high socioeconomic status (SES) samples despite evidence that the benefits of mind-mindedness may vary based on degree of social risk. Additionally, few studies have examined relations between mind-mindedness and language development. The current study investigates whether mind-mindedness predicts children's language development and behavioral functioning and if family history of childhood maltreatment moderates the relation of mind-mindedness to these outcomes. Participants were 98 mothers (49.0% Black, 24.5% White, 13.3% Latina, 7.2% multiracial; 81.6% low SES per Hollingshead classifications) and their children (49 boys, 49 girls) from the Rochester, New York area recruited at Time 1 (Mage = 13.34 months) and followed up twice (Mages = 27.51 [Time 2] and 39.31 months [Time 3]). Mother-child dyads participated in videotaped free play interactions at Times 1 and 2. Using transcripts of these interactions, we coded mind-mindedness at Times 1 and 2 and children's internal state language at Time 2. Mothers reported on children's behavioral functioning at Time 3. Findings revealed that Time 2 mind-mindedness predicted fewer Time 3 behavioral difficulties in children from maltreating families but did not predict behavioral difficulties in children from nonmaltreating families. Additionally, Time 1 mind-mindedness predicted children's Time 2 use of decontextualized internal state language. Findings highlight the importance of examining mind-mindedness in higher risk populations and how mind-mindedness can be leveraged as a protective factor to prevent future maladjustment in children at risk for adverse outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Evaluations of epistemic and practical reasons for belief in a predominantly White U.S. sample of preschoolers.

Parents and educators commonly seek to influence children's behavior by providing them with practical incentives, but how should we understand the influence of such incentives on children's beliefs? Are children capable of distinguishing between speech acts that provide practical reasons for believing, such as requests and offers, from speech acts that provide straightforward epistemic reasons, such as simple acts of telling? To investigate these questions, we randomly assigned 3- to 6-year-old children (N = 97) to one of two conditions (Request or Offer) in which two speakers each commented on a series of four exotic animals. In each condition, an agent who stated what an object was called with a simple telling ("This is a tanzer") was contrasted with an agent who made either a doxastic request ("I want you to think that this is a tanzer") or a doxastic offer ("If you think that this is a tanzer, I'll let you play with this new toy"). We then measured children's endorsement of and semantic memory for the claims as well as their knowledge attributions and resource allocation decisions. Our results suggest that children appreciate the epistemic reasons inherent in acts of telling when contrasted with doxastic requests, as evidenced by their general preference to learn from, attribute knowledge to, and share with the teller in the Request condition. When tellings were contrasted with doxastic offers, children were less systematic in their preferences. We discuss various interpretations of this finding and offer suggestions for future research.

Greasing (small) palms: Early rejection of bribery.

We tested when U.S. children reject bribery, and whether their rejections vary by public versus private setting. Six- to 10-year-olds (224 children, 118 boys, 106 girls, majority-White) participated across four experiments, in which participants indicated whether a contest judge should accept a contestant's financial gift. Children conveyed their preferences while in public or in private (in the presence or absence of an adult experimenter). Children's rejections of bribes were found to increase with age. Notably, younger children's acceptance rate was higher when the experimenter was present than in their absence; in contrast, older children showed comparable rejection rates across settings. Limitations in children's early reasoning about bribery, including the reputational and moral implications of accepting bribes in public, are discussed.

Early presence of a "power = males" association: Girls link power to their gender less often than boys but can be as motivated to gain it.

In three studies, it was tested whether children (N = 184; aged 6-10 years, White, mid- to high income) from a U.S. midwestern city used other individuals' gender and race to predict who is in charge and the means by which power is gained (Study 1) and whether children's own gender predicted their assignments of positions of authority (Study 2A) and pursuits of positions of authority (Study 2B). When asked to predict who was in charge at different workplaces, with age White children decreased their race-based, power-related favoritism; children were increasingly likely with age to link White adults to rather questionable routes to power as well as Black adults with meritorious reasons for gaining power (Study 1). In addition, boys (but not girls) systematically associated power with adult workers of their own gender and did so regardless of whether or not power had been obtained meritoriously (Study 1). Nonetheless, when given the option to assign an authority role (Study 2A) or assume an authority role (Study 2B), boys and girls exhibited comparable levels of in-group and self-biases.

Children's attributions of moral and epistemic virtue: Effects on learning and memory.

One developmental task faced by children is to identify, remember, and learn from epistemic and moral agents around them who are known to be good or virtuous. Here, in 2 studies, we examined U.S children's (N = 138; 55% female, 45% male; predominantly White, middle-class) memory processes for agents varying in moral and epistemic virtue. In Study 1, when presented with 16 faces of individuals who were said to vary in moral or epistemic virtue, children demonstrated enhanced trait memory for the characteristics of agents lacking in virtue relative to their more moral and competent counterparts. In Study 2, when presented with pairs of faces in the moral and epistemic domains, children showed enhanced content memory for information communicated by an epistemically competent individual with age. Together, these findings provide evidence that when categorizing single agents among many, children show better memory for their negative characteristics; and in a learning context, children show better retention of information communicated by more competent agents. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Creating a sustainable action-oriented engagement infrastructure-a UMN-MIDB perspective.

Following the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, Minneapolis represented the epicenter of protests that would reverberate internationally and re-instantiate a reckoning of the systemic and institutional racism that plagues American society. Also in the summer of 2020, and after several years of planning, the University of Minnesota (UMN) launched the Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain (MIDB), an interdisciplinary clinical and community research enterprise designed to create knowledge and engage all members of our community. In what follows, we describe the mission of the MIDB Community Engagement and Education (CEEd) Core and adjacent efforts within the UMN neuroscience and psychology community. Inherent to these efforts is the explicit attempt to de-center the dominant academic voice and affirm knowledge creation is augmented by diverse voices within and outside of traditional academic institutions. We describe several initiatives, including the Neuroscience Opportunities for Discovery and Equity (NODE) network, the NextGen Psych Scholars Program (NPSP), the Young Scientist Program, among others as exemplars of our approach. Developing and fortifying sustainable pathways for authentic community-academic partnerships are of central importance to enhance mutually beneficial scientific discovery. We posit that traditional academic approaches to community engagement to benefit the institution are severely constrained and perpetuate inherently exploitative power dynamics between academic institutions and communities.

The roles of group membership and social exclusion in children's testimonial learning.

Here, we used high- and low-stakes testimonial learning tasks to better understand two important types of social influence on children's learning decisions: group membership and social ostracism. Children (4- and 5-year-olds; N = 100) were either included or excluded by in-group or outgroup members in an online ball tossing game. Then, children were asked to selectively learn new information from either an in-group or out-group member. They also received counterintuitive information from an in-group or out-group member that was in conflict with their own intuitions. When learning new information, children who were excluded were more likely to selectively trust information from their in-group member. In contrast, when accepting counterintuitive information, children relied only on group membership regardless of their exclusion status. Together, these findings demonstrate ways in which different forms of testimonial learning are guided not only by epistemic motivations but also by social motivations of affiliation and maintaining relationships with others.

The development of a morality against power abuse: The case of bribery.

In three experiments, we presented children and adults with opportunities to condemn acts resembling bribery, a prevalent form of power abuse. Adults and children (N = 333) in the United States rated the acceptability of actions by contest judges. Judges used their position in a self-serving (e.g., accepted or requested gifts from contestants prior to picking winners) versus responsible (e.g., rejected gifts, accepted gifts after judging) way. Across experiments, children by age 10 gave harsher ratings to judges who accepted or requested gifts prior to selecting the contest winners. Further, children expected judges to become biased (Experiment 1) and secretive (Experiment 2) if they accepted gifts during the contest. Children's judgments were influenced by characters' authority level (Experiment 3) and varied as a function of age and modality of assessment (e.g., whether gifts were accepted vs. rejected). Taken together, these results constitute evidence that by late childhood people showcase an emerging moral stance against unethical actions linked to authority-based corruption. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Learning From "Thinkers": Parent Epistemological Understanding Predicts Individual Differences in Children's Judgments About Reasoners.

Four-, 5-, and 6-year olds (N = 102) observed agents perform a reasoning task that required gathering hidden evidence. An agent who made sound inferences was contrasted with an agent who made either unsound inferences (UI; failed to base conclusion on gathered evidence) or guesses (failed to gather evidence). Four-year olds attributed knowledge to all agents and endorsed their conclusions widely. However, 5- and 6-year olds' knowledge attributions were mitigated by UI, and 6-year olds neither attributed knowledge to a guesser nor endorsed his conclusions. Notably, parents' tendency to make evaluativist epistemological judgments-which place value in evidence as a basis for belief-predicted children's reluctance to learn from and credit knowledge to poor reasoners. Parents' evaluativist judgments also predicted children's selective learning about object functions.

The sense of obligation in children's testimonial learning.

We extend Tomasello's discussion of children's developing sense of obligation to testimonial learning. First, we review a battery of behaviors in testimonial exchanges that parallel those described by Tomasello. Second, we explore the variable ways in which children hold others accountable, suggestive that children's evaluations of moral and epistemic responsibilities in joint collaborative activities are distinct.

The role of testimony in children's moral decision making: Evidence from China and United States.

What does it take know a moral truth or principle? Although testimony is an undisputed source of empirical knowledge of contingent facts, it is less clear whether it is possible to acquire "second-hand moral knowledge" (Jones, 1999; Wolff, 1998). In the present studies, 3- to 5-year-old Chinese (N = 124) and U.S. American (N = 90) children were asked to judge whether novel, distress-inducing actions were morally permissible, both independently and after either 1 or 3 adult informants had made counterintuitive judgments. Although participants made appropriate moral judgments independently, children from both countries were affected by the counterintuitive testimony provided by the adult informant(s). Moreover, Chinese children were especially receptive to such counterintuitive claims. These findings demonstrate that intuitive moral judgments based on perceived harm are common across 2 cultural groups, but adult testimony can potentially shift those judgments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Children's Judgments of Epistemic and Moral Agents: From Situations to Intentions.

Children's evaluations of moral and epistemic agents crucially depend on their discerning that an agent's actions were performed intentionally. Here we argue that children's epistemic and moral judgments reveal practices of forgiveness and blame, trust and mistrust, and objection or disapproval and that such practices are supported by children's monitoring of the situational constraints on agents. Inherent in such practices is the understanding that agents are responsible for actions performed under certain conditions but not others. We discuss a range of situational constraints on children's early epistemic and moral evaluations and clarify how these situational constraints serve to support children's identification of intentional actions. By monitoring the situation, children distinguish intentional from less intentional action and selectively hold epistemic and moral agents accountable. We argue that these findings inform psychological and philosophical theorizing about attributions of moral and epistemic agency and responsibility.

Varieties of trust in preschoolers' learning and practical decisions.

Keeping commitments to others can be difficult, and we know that people sometimes fail to keep them. How does a speaker's ability to keep commitments affect children's practical decisions to trust and their epistemic decisions to learn? An amassing body of research documents children's trust in testimonial learning decisions, which can be moved in the face of epistemic and moral evidence about an agent. However, other bases for trust go largely unexplored in this literature, such as interpersonal reasons to trust. Here, we investigated how direct bids for interpersonal trust in the form of making commitments, or obligations to the listener, influence a range of decisions toward that agent. We found that 3- and 4-year-olds' (N = 75) practical decisions to wait and to share were moved as a function of a person's commitment-keeping ability, but epistemic decisions to learn were not. Keeping one's commitments may provide children with interpersonal reasons to trust, reasons that may function in ways distinct from the considerations that bear on accepting a claim.

Fourteen-month-olds selectively search for and use information depending on the familiarity of the informant in both laboratory and home contexts.

Infants are selective in their learning from others. However, there is only very limited research on the possible factors that shape this selectivity, especially when it comes to the impact of infants' familiarity with the informant and the context. The current study investigated whether 14-month-olds preferred to receive and use information provided by an unfamiliar informant (experimenter) compared with a familiar informant (parent) and whether this pattern depended on the context (home vs. laboratory). We tested infants either in the laboratory (n = 67) or in their home (n = 70). When both informants presented a novel object with positive or negative emotions, we measured infants' gaze behavior as an indicator for information search. When infants acted on the novel object themselves, we measured their exploratory behavior as an indicator of information use. Results revealed no effect of context on infants' information search and use. Rather, we found that the familiarity of informant had distinct effects on infant attention and object exploration. Namely, infants looked longer at the unfamiliar informant across contexts, but they explored more when the familiar informant presented the object compared with when the unfamiliar informant did so. Thus, during information search, 14-month-olds paid most attention to an unfamiliar source of information. However, participants explored the objects more when they came from a familiar source than when they came from an unfamiliar one. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed.

Trusting others: shared reality in testimonial learning.

Much of early learning depends on others, and the transmission of testimony presents children with a range of opportunities to learn about and from other people. Much work has focused on children's ability to select or prefer particular sources of information based on various epistemic (e.g. accuracy, reliability, perceptual access, expertise) and moral (e.g. benevolence, group membership, honesty) characteristics. Understanding the mechanisms by which such selective preferences emerge has been couched primarily in frameworks that treat testimony as a source of inductive evidence, and that treat children's trust as an evidence-based inference. However, there are other distinct interpersonal considerations that support children's trust towards others, considerations that influence who children learn from as well as other practical decisions. Broadening our conception of trust and considering the interpersonal reasons we have to trust others can both strengthen our current understanding of the role that trust plays in children's learning and practical decisions as well as provide a more holistic picture of how children participate in a shared reality with their family, peers, and communities.