Cultural similarities and differences in the development of sociomoral judgments: An eye-tracking study

• Published in: Cognitive development Vol. 57; p. 100974
• Main Authors: Shimizu, Yuki, Senzaki, Sawa, Cowell, Jason M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.01.2021
• Subjects: Attention; Cross-cultural comparison; Implicit and explicit processes; Moral development; Sociomoral trait evaluation; Young children; Young children; Cross-cultural comparison; Moral development; Implicit and explicit processes; Attention; Sociomoral trait evaluation; moral development; cross-cultural comparison; attention; implicit and explicit processes; sociomoral trait evaluation; young children
• ISSN: 0885-2014; 1879-226X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2020.100974

•European American and Japanese 3- to 4-year-olds were compared on the moral judgment.•Children watched scenarios varying in behavior and outcome (recipient’s reaction).•Two cultures were similar in the integration of behavior and outcome information.•The verbal evaluation of agents’ moral traits developed differently across cultures.•The dissociation between implicit encoding and explicit evaluation was shown. 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.