Developmental moral psychology has recently been revolutionised by findings that infants and preschoolers are capable of social evaluations and moral behaviours previously thought beyond them. For example, 6-month-olds prefer to play with puppets who have helped other puppets, and 14-month-olds spontaneously help adults in need. These children are probably not capable of moral reasoning but parallel studies have shown that even in adults unconscious intuitions can determine moral judgements without the need for reasoning. The fact that even adults’ moral judgements are heavily based on intuition means that we should take seriously the possibility that very young children’s social evaluations are part of a developing moral sense.

This project investigates young children’s developing moral sense with methods which do not require language, for example puppet theatre in which the child can participate, and eye-tracking when the child is watching social interactions. An example of a method which can reveal children’s judgements without using language is to give children the opportunity to punish mean puppets, for example by withholding biscuits at tea-time. This approach is also useful because the desire to punish is an interesting aspect of human psychology of which very little is known from a developmental perspective.

Responsible for the project: Ben Kenward