| Scope and method of study. The purpose of this study was to assess preschool children's concepts of safety and moral rules. Specifically, this study examined if preschool children could distinguish between rule types, if the youngest preschool children differentiated less between rule types, and if transgressions with negative outcomes were judged more serious than neutral outcome stories. Participants were 120 children (ages 3, 4, 5, and 6 years) who were presented with moral and safety rule transgression scenarios which resulted in both negative or neutral outcomes. Participants judged the seriousness of the transgression, deserved punishment, rule contingency, rule relativity, and negation of rule by authority. Analyses of variance and Tukey multiple comparison tests were used to analyze the results.;Findings and conclusions. A significant main effect for domain was found for the Seriousness variable indicating that children judged prudential rule violations as more serious than moral rule transgressions. There were also significant Domain x Outcome interactions for all dependent variables and significant Age x Domain x Outcome interactions for the Seriousness, Punishment and Contingency variables. Results indicated that negative outcome moral violations were judged more serious and more punishable than neutral outcome moral violations. However, prudential violations were judged as serious and deserving of the same amount of punishment regardless of whether an injury resulted or not. The same pattern resulted when age differences were analyzed, except that younger children differentiated less when assessing seriousness and only the 6 year olds assigned more punishment to negative outcome moral violations. It was concluded that preschool children were able to differentiate between safety and moral rules and that negative outcomes do not affect prudential judgments but do affect moral judgments. These differences are speculated to correspond to socialization patterns in early childhood, with safety rule socialization being of high priority for preschool children. |
