Variations in judgments of intentional action and moral evaluation across eight cultures

Individuals tend to judge bad side effects as more intentional than good side effects (the Knobe or side- effect effect). Here, we assessed how widespread these findings are by testing eleven adult cohorts of eight highly contrasted cultures on their attributions of intentional action as well as ratings of blame and praise. We found limited generalizability of the original side-effect effect, and even a reversal of the effect in two rural, traditional cultures (Samoa and Vanuatu) where participants were more likely to judge the good side effect as intentional. Three follow-up experiments indicate that this reversal of the side-effect effect is not due to semantics and may be linked to the perception of the status of the protagonist. These results highlight the importance of factoring cultural context in our understanding of moral cognition

Sharing and fairness in development

PostprintPeer reviewe

An Account of the Systematic Error in Judging What Is Reachable

An account of the postural determinants of perceived reachability is proposed to explain systematic overestimations of the distance at which an object is perceived to be reachable. In this account, these errors are due to a mapping of the limits of prehensile space onto a person\u27s perceived region of maximum stretchability, in the context of a whole-body engagement. In support of this account, 6 experiments on the judged reachability of both static and dynamic objects are reported. We tentatively conclude that the mental imagery of action is grounded and calibrated in reference to multiple skeletal degrees of behavioral freedom. Accordingly, this calibration is a source of systematic error in reachability judgments

Emerging Signs of Strong Reciprocity in Human Ontogeny

Strong reciprocity is considered here as the propensity to sacrifice resources to be kind or to punish in response to prior acts, a behavior not simply reducible to self-interest and a likely force behind human cooperation and sociality. The aim was to capture emerging signs of strong reciprocity in human ontogeny and across highly contrasted cultures. Three- and 5-year-old middle class American children (N = 162) were tested in a simple, multiple round, three-way sharing game involving the child, a generous puppet, and a stingy puppet. At the end of the game, the child was offered an opportunity to sacrifice some of her personal gains to punish one of the puppets. By 3 years, American children demonstrate a willingness to engage in costly punishment. However, only 5-year-olds show some evidence of strong reciprocity by orienting their punishment systematically toward the stingy puppet. Further analyses and three additional control conditions demonstrate that such propensity is not simply reducible to (a) straight imitation, or (b) inequity aversion. To assess the relative universality of such development, a group of 5- to 6-year-old children from rural Samoa (N = 14) were tested and compared to age and gender-matched American children. Samoan children did not manifest the same propensity toward strong reciprocity. The results are interpreted as pointing to (1) the developmental emergence of an ethical stance between 3 and 5 years of age, and (2) that the expression of such stance by young children could depend on culture

Primacy of action in early ontogeny

Much of the recent research on infant cognition is framed around a critique of Piaget's theory regarding The Origins of Intelligence (1936Intelligence ( /1952 and The Construction of Reality in the Child (1937Child ( /1954. The article of Müller and Overton provides a humbling reexamination of this critique, bringing back to us how much has been thought and is accounted for in the monumental work Piaget left behind. But who can afford a thorough reading of Piaget in the current 'publish or perish' culture of academia? Müller and Overton seem to have managed, providing an eloquent demonstration that Piaget's action-centered view on cognitive development cannot be easily dismissed when considering it as a whole, not as a collection of discrete claims. More importantly, it challenges the current Zeitgeist that presumes prewiring, modularity, unsuspected cognitive processes and sophistication at the outset of development. Whether or not we agree with the long argument proposed by the authors, their discussion reminds us that developmental questions regarding transitions and the role of action in early ontogeny cannot be ignored. Many infancy researchers (including ourselves) have based a great deal of their work on disproving Piaget's claims regarding the developmental timing of certain competencies (e.g., the notion of a permanent object) and demonstrations of precocious spatial and physical knowledge that elude the fundamental questions of their developmental origin and the process underlying their rapid growth. In the frenzy of emerging new experimental techniques and paradigms for the study of infants, we have developed a formidable appetite for demonstrations of discrete sophistication in specific domains at the youngest age possible. But what are we left with and what kind of baby are we building in theory? Is it a mere collection of precocious abilities mysteriously accruing in development? We share the concerns of Müller and Overton that the recent neonativist stance inspiring much of the current theories and research in infancy might have thrown out the baby with the bath water. We will briefly suggest here that it is time to reconsider infants as developing actors in a meaningful environment, not as born philosophers contemplating a Cartesian world. If infants eventually develop as little philosophers, this development is grounded in their primary experience as actors in a resourceful environment

Fairness and distributive justice by 3- to 5-year-old Tibetan children

We asked whether young children raised in an environment strongly promoting compassion for others, as in the case of Tibetan Buddhism, would show less proclivity toward self-maximizing in sharing. We replicated the procedure of Rochat et al. with a group of 3- and 5-year-old Tibetan children living in exile and attending a traditional Buddhist school where the Dalai Lama resides. We report that Tibetan children, like children of seven other cultures, start from a marked self-maximizing propensity at 3 years of age, becoming significantly more fair by 5 years. These data confirm that the developing sense of equity by young children is comparable in the context of a compassion-based culture.PostprintPeer reviewe

White bias in 3-7 year-old children across cultures

In three studies we report data confirming and extending the finding of a tendency toward a White preference bias by young children of various ethnic backgrounds. European American preschoolers who identify with a White doll also prefer it to a Black doll. In contrast, same age African American children who identify with a Black doll do not show a significant preference for it over a White doll. These results are comparable in African American children attending either a racially mixed (heterogeneous), or an Afro-centric, all African American (homogenous) preschool. These results show the persistence of an observation that contributed to school de-segregation in the United States. Results also reveal a lack of congruence between skin color identity and preference is not limited to African Americans. There is a comparable, if not stronger White preference bias in five to seven-year-old Polynesian and Melanesian children tested in their native island nations. Using a modified procedure controlling for binary forced choice biases, we confirm these findings with second generation American children of Indian descent showing clear signs of a White (lighter skin preference) bias. These results are consistent with the idea that during the preschool years children are sensitive and attracted to signs of higher social status that, for historical reasons and across cultures, tends to be associated with lighter skin color.PostprintPeer reviewe

Self-Unity as Ground Zero of Learning and Development

Contrary to the suggestion that we are born in a state of confusion and primordial state of a-dualism with the environment, infancy research of the past 40 years shows that from the outset, infants are objective perceivers guided by rich evolved survival values of approach and avoidance in relation to specific resources in the environment such as faces, food, or smell. This starting-state competence drives and organizes their behavior. Evidence-based ascription of self-unity at birth is discussed. Selected findings are presented suggesting that self-unity is a primordial human experience, the main organizer of behavior from the outset. Self-unity is the necessary ground zero enabling the rapid learning and development taking place early in human life