Children's Understanding of the Effect of Emotion on Moral Transgressions

도덕적 위반 행동의 결과에 대한 아동의 정서 이해

The purpose of this study was to examine developmental trends in children's understanding of the effect of emotion on moral transgressions. The subjects were 120 children, 15 boys and 15 girls each at 4, 6, 8, and 10 years of age. The subjects listened to the moral transgression stories which were revised by this investigator based on Arsenio and Kramer's(1992) study. They reported their emotional attribution, justification, and emotional intensity about the story children engaged in moral transgression. The data of the present study were analyzed by ${\chi}^2$ and 2-way ANOVA for repeated measures. The results showed that (1) most of the children expected victimizers to feel happy. While happy responses decreased with age, fear responses increased with age. Most of the four-year-olds expected victims to feel sad, but 6-, 8-, and 10-year-olds expected anger. (2) Most children justified victimizers' emotions in terms of the outcome produced by victimization. This outcome-focused justification decreased with age, but morality-focused justification increased with age. In contrast, most children justified victims' emotion in terms of the victimization. This victimization-focused justification decreased with age, but morality-focused justification increased with age. (3) Most children viewed physical harm more negatively than theft on the part of victims.