When making moral judgments of past actions, adults often think counterfactually about what could have been done differently. Considerable evidence suggests that counterfactual thinking emerges around age 6, but it remains unknown how this development influences children's moral judgments. Across two studies, Australian children aged 4-9 (N = 236,…

This study interconnects developmental psychology of fair and moral behavior with economic game theory. One hundred eighty-nine 9- to 17-year-old students shared a sum of money as individuals and groups with another anonymous group (dictator game). Individual allocations did not differ by age but did by gender and were predicted by participants'…

Makes a case for rereading the fact-value dichotomy that currently divides the contemporaneous literatures dealing with children's moral reasoning development and their evolving theories of mind. Presents findings from two research programs, in which children's beliefs about truth and rightness are combined, to illustrate the natural…

Interviewed 4- and 6-year-old Hong Kong preschoolers about familiar moral, social-conventional, and personal events. Found that children judged children as deciding personal issues, based on personal choice justifications, and judged parents as deciding moral and conventional issues. With age, children granted increased decisionmaking power to the…

This study explored judgments and reasoning of Chinese 13- to 18-year-olds regarding making decisions involving children in peer, family, and school contexts. Findings indicated that judgments and reasoning about decision-making varied by social context and by the decision under consideration. Evaluations of procedures became more differentiated…