Cultural Similarities and Differences in the Development of Sociomoral Judgments: An Eye-Tracking Study.

People integrate the valence of behavior and that of outcome when making moral judgments. However, the role of culture in the development of this integration among young children remains unclear. We investigated cultural similarities and differences in moral judgments by measuring both visual attention and verbal evaluations. Three- and four-year-olds from Japan and the U.S. (N = 141) were shown sociomoral scenarios that varied in agents' behavior which reflected prosocial or antisocial intention and recipients' emotional outcome (happy, neutral, or sad); then, they were asked to evaluate agents' moral trait. Their eye fixations while observing moral scenarios were measured using an eye-tracker. We found culturally similar tendencies in the integration of behavior and outcome; however, a cultural difference was shown in their verbal evaluation. The link between implicit attention and explicit verbal evaluation was negligible. Both culturally shared and specific aspects of sociomoral development are discussed.

The development of social comparisons and sharing behavior across 12 countries.

Humans are social beings, and acts of prosocial behavior may be influenced by social comparisons. To study the development of prosociality and the impact of social comparisons on sharing, we conducted experiments with nearly 2500 children aged 3-12 years across 12 countries across five continents. Children participated in a dictator game where they had the opportunity to share up to 10 of their stickers with another anonymous child. Then, children were randomized to one of two treatments. In the "shared a little" treatment children were told that another child from their school had shared 1 sticker, whereas in the "shared a lot" treatment children were told that another child from their school had shared 6 stickers in the same game. There was a strong increase in baseline sharing with age in all countries and in both treatments. The "shared a lot" treatment had a positive treatment effect in increasing sharing overall, which varied across countries. However, cross-cultural comparisons did not yield expected significant differences between collectivist and individualist countries. Our results provide interesting evidence for the development of sharing behavior by age across the world and show that social information about the sharing of peers is important for children's decision making.

The development of children's preferences for equality and equity across 13 individualistic and collectivist cultures.

A concern for fairness is a fundamental and universal element of morality. To examine the extent to which cultural norms are integrated into fairness cognitions and influence social preferences regarding equality and equity, a large sample of children (N 2,163) aged 4-11 were tested in 13 diverse countries. Children participated in three versions of a third-party, contextualized distributive justice game between two hypothetical recipients differing in terms of wealth, merit, and empathy. Social decision-making in these games revealed universal age-related shifts from equality-based to equity-based distribution motivations across cultures. However, differences in levels of individualism and collectivism between the 13 countries predicted the age and extent to which children favor equity in each condition. Children from the most individualistic cultures endorsed equitable distributions to a greater degree than children from more collectivist cultures when recipients differed in regards to wealth and merit. However, in an empathy context where recipients differed in injury, children from the most collectivist cultures exhibited greater preferences to distribute resource equitably compared to children from more individualistic cultures. Children from the more individualistic cultures also favored equitable distributions at an earlier age than children from more collectivist cultures overall. These results demonstrate aspects of both cross-cultural similarity and divergence in the development of fairness preferences.

The development of cognitive empathy and concern in preschool children: A behavioral neuroscience investigation.

This developmental neuroscience study examined the electrophysiological responses (EEG and ERPs) associated with perspective taking and empathic concern in preschool children, as well as their relation to parental empathy dispositions and children's own prosocial behavior. Consistent with a body of previous studies using stimuli depicting somatic pain in both children and adults, larger early (~200 ms) ERPs were identified when perceiving painful versus neutral stimuli. In the slow wave window (~800 ms), a significant interaction of empathy condition and stimulus type was driven by a greater difference between painful and neutral images in the empathic concern condition. Across early development, children exhibited enhanced N2 to pain when engaging in empathic concern. Greater pain-elicited N2 responses in the cognitive empathy condition also related to parent dispositional empathy. Children's own prosocial behavior was predicted by several individual differences in neural function, including larger early LPP responses during cognitive empathy and greater differentiation in late LPP and slow wave responses to empathic concern versus affective perspective taking. Left frontal activation (greater alpha suppression) while engaging in affective perspective taking was also related to higher levels of parent cognitive empathy. Together, this multilevel analysis demonstrates the important distinction between facets of empathy in children; the value of examining neurobehavioral processes in development. It provides provoking links between children's neural functioning and parental dispositions in early development.

Children's neural processing of moral scenarios provides insight into the formation and reduction of in-group biases.

Survival is dependent on sociality within groups which ensure sustenance and protection. From an early age, children show a natural tendency to sort people into groups and discriminate among them. The computations guiding evaluation of third-party behaviors are complex, requiring integration of intent, consequences, and knowledge of group affiliation. This study examined how perceiving third-party morally laden behavior influences children's likelihood to exhibit or reduce group bias. Following a minimal group paradigm assignment, young children (4-7 years) performed a moral evaluation task where group affiliations and moral actions were systematically juxtaposed, so that they were exposed to disproportionately antisocial in-group and prosocial out-group scenarios. Electroencephalography was recorded, and group preference was assessed with a resource allocation game before and after the EEG session. Across all children, evaluations of others' moral actions arose from early and automatic processing (~150 ms), followed by later interactive processing of affiliation and moral valence (~500 ms). Importantly, individual differences in bias manifestation and attitude change were predicted by children's neural responses. Children with high baseline bias selectively exhibited a rapid detection (~200 ms) of scenarios inconsistent with their bias (in-group harm and out-group help). Changes in bias corresponded to distinct patterns in longer latency neural processing. These new developmental neuroscience findings elucidate the multifaceted processing involved in moral evaluation of others' actions, their group affiliations, the nature of the integration of both into full judgments, and the relation of individual differences in neural responses to social decision-making in childhood.

A Developmental Neuroscience Study of Moral Decision Making Regarding Resource Allocation.

Distinguishing between equity and equality is essential when making social and moral decisions, yet the related neurodevelopmental processes are unknown. Evaluations of contextually based third-party distributions incorporating recipient need and resource importance were examined in children and adolescents (N = 82; 8-16 years). Spatiotemporal neurodynamic responses show distinct developmental profiles to viewing such distributions. Event-related potentials (ERPs) differentially predicted real-life behaviors based on age, where older children's (8-10 years) evaluations were related to a fairly rapid, automatic ERP component (early posterior negativity), whereas adolescent and preadolescent (11-16 years) evaluations, first-person allocations, and prosocial behaviors were predicted by later, cognitively controlled ERP components (P3 and late positive potential). Together, these results reveal age-related changes regarding the neural responses that correspond to distributive justice decisions.

Interpersonal harm aversion as a necessary foundation for morality: A developmental neuroscience perspective.

Growing evidence from developmental psychology and social neuroscience emphasizes the importance of third-party harm aversion for constructing morality. A sensitivity to interpersonal harm emerges very early in ontogeny, as reflected in both the capacity for implicit social evaluation and an aversion for antisocial agents. Yet it does not necessarily entail avoidance toward inflicting pain to others. Later, an understanding that harmful actions cause suffering emerges, followed by an integration of rules that can depend on social contexts and cultures. These developmental findings build on a burgeoning literature, which suggests that the fundamental nature of moral and social cognition, including their motivational and hedonic value, lies in general computational processes such as attention, approach-avoidance, social valuation, and decision making rather than in fully distinct, dedicated neural regions for morality. Bridging the gap between cognition and behaviors and the requisite affective, motivational, and cognitive mechanisms, a developmental neuroscience approach enriches our understanding of the emergence of morality.

Precursors to morality in development as a complex interplay between neural, socioenvironmental, and behavioral facets.

The nature and underpinnings of infants' seemingly complex, third-party, social evaluations remain highly contentious. Theoretical perspectives oscillate between rich and lean interpretations of the same expressed preferences. Although some argue that infants and toddlers possess a "moral sense" based on core knowledge of the social world, others suggest that social evaluations are hierarchical in nature and the product of an integration of rudimentary general processes such as attention allocation and approach and avoidance. Moreover, these biologically prepared minds interact in social environments that include significant variation, which are likely to impact early social evaluations and behavior. The present study examined the neural underpinnings of and precursors to moral sensitivity in infants and toddlers (n = 73, ages 12-24 mo) through a series of interwoven measures, combining multiple levels of analysis including electrophysiological, eye-tracking, behavioral, and socioenvironmental. Continuous EEG and time-locked event-related potentials (ERPs) and gaze fixation were recorded while children watched characters engaging in prosocial and antisocial actions in two different tasks. All children demonstrated a neural differentiation in both spectral EEG power density modulations and time-locked ERPs when perceiving prosocial or antisocial agents. Time-locked neural differences predicted children's preference for prosocial characters and were influenced by parental values regarding justice and fairness. Overall, this investigation casts light on the fundamental nature of moral cognition, including its underpinnings in general processes such as attention and approach-withdrawal, providing plausible mechanisms of early change and a foundation for forward movement in the field of developmental social neuroscience.

The development of generosity and moral cognition across five cultures.

Morality is an evolved aspect of human nature, yet is heavily influenced by cultural environment. This developmental study adopted an integrative approach by combining measures of socioeconomic status (SES), executive function, affective sharing, empathic concern, theory of mind, and moral judgment in predicting sharing behavior in children (N = 999) from the age of 5 to 12 in five large-scale societies: Canada, China, Turkey, South Africa, and the USA. Results demonstrate that age, gender, SES, culture, and social cognitive mechanisms explain over 20% of the variance worldwide in children's resource allocation. These findings are discussed in reference to standard cultural comparisons (individualist/collectivist), as well as the degree of market integration, and highlight continuities and discontinuities in children's generosity across urban contexts.

Specific electrophysiological components disentangle affective sharing and empathic concern in psychopathy.

Empathic impairment is one of the hallmarks of psychopathy, a personality dimension associated with poverty in affective reactions, lack of attachment to others, and a callous disregard for the feelings, rights, and welfare of others. Neuroscience research on the relation between empathy and psychopathy has predominately focused on the affective sharing and cognitive components of empathy in forensic populations, and much less on empathic concern. The current study used high-density electroencephalography in a community sample to examine the spatiotemporal neurodynamic responses when viewing people in physical distress under two subjective contexts: one evoking affective sharing, the other, empathic concern. Results indicate that early automatic (175-275 ms) and later controlled responses (LPP 400-1,000 ms) were differentially modulated by engagement in affective sharing or empathic concern. Importantly, the late event-related potentials (ERP) component was significantly impacted by dispositional empathy and psychopathy, but the early component was not. Individual differences in dispositional empathic concern directly predicted gamma coherence (25-40 Hz), whereas psychopathy was inversely modulatory. Interestingly, significant suppression in the mu/alpha band (8-13 Hz) when perceiving others in distress was positively associated with higher trait psychopathy, which argues against the assumption that sensorimotor resonance underpins empathy. Greater scores on trait psychopathy were inversely related to subjective ratings of both empathic concern and affective sharing. Overall, the study demonstrates that neural markers of affective sharing and empathic concern to the same cues of another's distress can be distinguished at an electrophysiological level, and that psychopathy alters later time-locked differentiations and spectral coherence associated with empathic concern.

Circadian rhythms in executive function during the transition to adolescence: the effect of synchrony between chronotype and time of day.

To explore the influence of circadian rhythms on executive function during early adolescence, we administered a battery of executive function measures (including a Go-Nogo task, the Iowa Gambling Task, a Self-ordered Pointing task, and an Intra/Extradimensional Shift task) to Morning-preference and Evening-preference participants (N = 80) between the ages of 11 and 14 years who were tested in the morning or afternoon. Significant Chronotype × Time of Day interactions (controlling for amount of sleep the previous night) revealed that adolescents tested at their optimal times of day performed better than those tested at their nonoptimal times. Implications for our understanding of physiological arousal, sleep, and executive function during adolescence are discussed.

Emotion or Evaluation: Cultural Differences in the Parental Socialization of Moral Judgement.

Moral reasoning develops rapidly in early childhood. Recent evidence from cognitive neuroscience literature suggests that the development of moral reasoning is supported by an integration of cognitive and affective components. However, the role of culture in the development of moral reasoning in young children is under-investigated. Previous cross-cultural research suggests that culture shapes how people interpret other's behaviors. In particular, people raised in independent cultures, such as the United States, tend to form impressions of others and attribute others' behaviors to their personal dispositions more quickly than people raised in interdependent cultures, such as Japan. In the present cross-cultural study, we examined parents' discourse with children in Japan and the United States. Parents and their 3- to 4-year-old children were asked to view and discuss cartoon characters depicting prosocial and antisocial acts. Results indicated that in both cultures, parents discussed about moral actions (e.g., helping, harming) of characters. Furthermore, United States parents were more likely to evaluate dispositional characteristics of characters based on their pro-social and anti-social acts, whereas Japanese parents were more likely to refer to emotion of the characters who got hurt. We discuss implications of cross-cultural differences and similarities in parental moral socialization and the development of moral reasoning in young children.

The neurodevelopment of social preferences in early childhood.

Human social preferences are the product of gene-culture coevolution, and rely on predispositions that emerge early in development. These social preferences encompasse distinct motivations, mechanisms, and behaviors, that facilitate social cohesion and cooperation. Developmental social neuroscience critically contributes in elucidating the proximate mechanisms involved in social decision-making and prosociality, and their gradual maturation in interaction with the social and cultural environment.

That's not fair: Children's neural computations of fairness and their impact on resource allocation behaviors and judgments.

The ability to distinguish between mere equality in resource distributions and fairness based on a broader range of contextual factors is of paramount importance in social decision making and is a critical component of morality. Children's developmental shift from viewing inequality as a dichotomous moral issue toward a more nuanced understanding of partial inequality has been well documented across middle childhood and is attributed to a host of potential theoretical underpinnings, including developing number concept, increased regard for one's social status, and a maturing concept of fairness. The current study examined the electrophysiological markers associated with children's (N = 83; 4 to 8 years of age) third-party evaluations of equal, slightly unequal, and extremely unequal resource distributions, documenting the timing of fairness considerations. It further explored the link between individual differences in these neural computations and children's allocation behaviors and judgments. Event-related potentials demonstrated an early differentiation between equality and any type of inequality reflected by a medial frontal negativity. Later (after 500 ms), extreme inequality was discriminated from equality and slight inequality. Differences in later waveforms predicted sharing and third-party contextual resource distributions, accounting for wealth and merit. These results illuminate the multifaceted nature of developing neural computations of fairness and illustrate the value of a multiple levels of analysis approach in contributing theoretical clarity toward the developmental science of moral cognition and behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Domain-general neural computations underlying prosociality during infancy and early childhood.

A mounting body of neuroscience research in the social and moral evaluative abilities of infants and young children suggests the coopting of three domain-general processes involved in attention allocation, approach/avoidance, and intention and action understanding. Electrophysiological investigations demonstrate children's preference for prosocial others, that children's individual differences in moral evaluation predict prosocial behaviors, and that parental values may already influence neural sociomoral computations at quite young ages. This review highlights the importance of a developmental neuroscience approach in clarifying our understanding of early prosocial preference and behavior.

The neuroscience of implicit moral evaluation and its relation to generosity in early childhood.

Despite cultural and individual variation, humans are a judgmental bunch. There is accumulating evidence for early social and moral evaluation as shown by research with infants and children documenting the notion that some behaviors are perceived as right and others are perceived as wrong. Moreover, social interactions are governed by a concern for fairness and others' well-being. However, although generosity increases between infancy and late childhood, it is less clear what mechanisms guide this change. Early predispositions toward prosociality are thought to arise in concert with the social and cultural environment, developing into adult morality, a complex incorporation of emotional, motivational, and cognitive processes. Using EEG combined with eye tracking and behavioral sharing, we investigated, for the first time, the temporal neurodynamics of implicit moral evaluation in 3- to 5-year-old children. Results show distinct early automatic attentional (EPN) and later cognitively controlled (N2, LPP) patterns of neural response while viewing characters engaging in helping and harming behaviors. Importantly, later (LPP), but not early (EPN), waveforms predicted actual generosity. These results shed light on theories of moral development by documenting the respective contribution of automatic and cognitive neural processes underpinning social evaluation and directly link these neural computations to prosocial behavior in children.

Empathy, justice, and moral behavior.

Empathy shapes the landscape of our social lives. It motivates prosocial and caregiving behaviors, plays a role in inhibiting aggression, and facilitates cooperation between members of a similar social group. Thus, empathy is often conceived as a driving motivation of moral behavior and justice, and as such, everyone would think that it should be cultivated. However, the relationships between empathy, morality, and justice are complex. We begin by explaining what the notion of empathy encompasses and then argue how sensitivity to others' needs has evolved in the context of parental care and group living. Next, we examine the multiple physiological, hormonal, and neural systems supporting empathy and its functions. One troubling but important corollary of this neuro-evolutionary model is that empathy produces social preferences that can conflict with fairness and justice. An understanding of the factors that mold our emotional response and caring motivation for others helps provide organizational principles and ultimately guides decision-making in medical ethics.

The curious relation between theory of mind and sharing in preschool age children.

Young children have long been known to act selfishly and gradually appear to become more generous across middle childhood. While this apparent change has been well documented, the underlying mechanisms supporting this remain unclear. The current study examined the role of early theory of mind and executive functioning in facilitating sharing in a large sample (N = 98) of preschoolers. Results reveal a curious relation between early false-belief understanding and sharing behavior. Contrary to many commonsense notions and predominant theories, competence in this ability is actually related to less sharing. Thus, the relation between developing theory of mind and sharing may not be as straightforward as it seems in preschool age children. It is precisely the children who can engage in theory of mind that decide to share less with others.

The Negative Association between Religiousness and Children's Altruism across the World.

Prosocial behaviors are ubiquitous across societies. They emerge early in ontogeny and are shaped by interactions between genes and culture. Over the course of middle childhood, sharing approaches equality in distribution. Since 5.8 billion humans, representing 84% of the worldwide population, identify as religious, religion is arguably one prevalent facet of culture that influences the development and expression of prosociality. While it is generally accepted that religion contours people's moral judgments and prosocial behavior, the relation between religiosity and morality is a contentious one. Here, we assessed altruism and third-party evaluation of scenarios depicting interpersonal harm in 1,170 children aged between 5 and 12 years in six countries (Canada, China, Jordan, Turkey, USA, and South Africa), the religiousness of their household, and parent-reported child empathy and sensitivity to justice. Across all countries, parents in religious households reported that their children expressed more empathy and sensitivity for justice in everyday life than non-religious parents. However, religiousness was inversely predictive of children's altruism and positively correlated with their punitive tendencies. Together these results reveal the similarity across countries in how religion negatively influences children's altruism, challenging the view that religiosity facilitates prosocial behavior.

Friends or Foes: Is Empathy Necessary for Moral Behavior?

In the past decade, a flurry of empirical and theoretical research on morality and empathy has taken place, and interest and usage in the media and the public arena have increased. At times, in both popular culture and academia, morality and empathy are used interchangeably, and quite often the latter is considered to play a foundational role for the former. In this article, we argue that although there is a relationship between morality and empathy, it is not as straightforward as apparent at first glance. Moreover, it is critical to distinguish among the different facets of empathy (emotional sharing, empathic concern, and perspective taking), as each uniquely influences moral cognition and predicts differential outcomes in moral behavior. Empirical evidence and theories from evolutionary biology as well as developmental, behavioral, and affective and social neuroscience are comprehensively integrated in support of this argument. The wealth of findings illustrates a complex and equivocal relationship between morality and empathy. The key to understanding such relations is to be more precise on the concepts being used and, perhaps, abandoning the muddy concept of empathy.