Tomasello’s A Natural History of Morality is novel, compelling, and comprehensive. Drawing on past and current research in developmental psychology, as well as moral philosophy, I make the following points: (1) cooperation is a significant major hallmark of early human sociality but is also the foundation for antagonistic goals designed to enhance one’s own group’s benefit at the cost of due justice to others; (2) interdependence coexists with independent autonomous thinking, which is necessary for challenging group norms, authority, and institutional (...) mandates, and is a core aspect of morality; and (3) morality after age 5 years undergoes major, qualitative developments which shed light on what it means to view morality as an impartial obligation to uphold fairness, to recognize the breadth of moral concepts including equality, rights, and others’ welfare, and to challenge social inequality and injustice, throughout human ontogenetic development. (shrink)

The present study examined British children’s and adolescents’ individual and perceived group evaluations of a challenger when a member of one’s own group excludes a British national or an immigrant newcomer to the school from participating in a group activity. Participants included British children and adolescents, who were inducted into their group and heard hypothetical scenarios in which a member of their own group expressed a desire to exclude the newcomer from joining their activity. Subsequently, participants heard that another member (...) of the ingroup challenged the exclusionary act by stating that they should be inclusive. Children’s and adolescents’ individual evaluations of the bystander who challenged the social exclusion of an immigrant peer were more positive than their perceived group evaluations, recognizing that groups are often exclusionary. Only adolescents but not children differed in their individual and perceived group evaluations in the social exclusion of British peers. When the newcomer was an immigrant peer, adolescents were more likely to evaluate the challenger positively in both their individual and perceived group evaluations compared to children. Further, children, compared to adolescents, were more likely to reason about social and group norms to justify their evaluations only when the excluded peer was an immigrant but not when the excluded peer was British. Adolescents were more likely to reason about fairness, rights, and equality. The findings indicate that exclusionary group norms surrounding immigrants begin in childhood. Interventions that focus on changing group norms to be more inclusive could be effective in reducing prejudicial attitudes toward immigrants in childhood. (shrink)

Morality has two key features: (1) moral judgments are not solely determined by what your group thinks, and (2) moral judgments are often applied to members of other groups as well as your own group. Cooperative motives do not explain how young children reject unfairness, and assert moral obligations, both inside and outside their groups. Resistance and experience with conflicts, alongside cooperation, is key to the emergence and development of moral obligation.

Developmental perspectives on prejudice provide a fundamental and important key to the puzzle for determining how to address prejudice. Research with historically disadvantaged and advantaged groups in childhood and adolescence reveals the complexity of social cognitive and moral judgments about prejudice, discrimination, bias, and exclusion. Children are aware of status and hierarchies, and often reject the status quo. Intervention, to be effective, must happen early in development, before prejudice and stereotypes are deeply entrenched.

Children’s understanding of status and group norms influence their expectations about social encounters. However, status is multidimensional and children may perceive status stratification differently across multiple status dimensions. The current study investigated the effect of status level and norms on children’s expectations about intergroup affiliation in wealth and popularity contexts. Participants were randomly assigned to hear two scenarios where a high- or low-status target affiliated with opposite-status groups based on either wealth or popularity. In one scenario, the group expressed an (...) inclusive norm. In the other scenario, the group expressed an exclusive norm. For each scenario, children made predictions about children’s expectations for a target to acquire social resources. Novel findings indicated that children associated wealth status to some extent, but they drew stronger inferences from the wealth dimension than from the popularity dimension. In contrast to previous evidence that children distinguish between high- and low-status groups, we did not find evidence to support this in the context of the current study. In addition, norms of exclusion diminished children’s expectations for acquiring social resources from wealth and popularity groups but this effect was more pronounced between wealth groups. We found age differences in children’s expectations in regards to norms, but not in regards to status. The implications of how these effects, in addition to lack of effects, bear on children’s expectations about acquiring resources are discussed. (shrink)