A total of 72 elementary school students responded to six moral judgment story pairs which corresponded to all the possible combinations of intentionality (intentional/unintentional) and type of damage (personal injury/property damage). (Author/JMB)

Dutch boys, 8 and 12 years old, read brief stories about a harm-doer whose intentions were either good or bad and whose actions resulted in either minor or serious injury to a victim. The older boys' but not the younger boys, differentiated naughtiness on the basis of provocation and intentions. (Author/CS)

Effects of observing differentially generous models, instructional constraint, and age on private and public charitability were assessed with 192 fourth and fifth grade girls, who engaged in a concept formation task which provided them with money. Implications for social learning theory and for moral development are discussed. (Author/CS)

Third- and sixth-grade children rated nine single stories which combined three levels of intentions and consequences and which varied by order in which intention and consequence information was presented. Subjects also made choices for three story pairs which varied in terms of the order of presentation of intention and consequence information.…

Examined the influence of both peer and adult models who displayed either consistent, conflicting, or inconsistent moral judgments on the moral judgments and explanations of first graders. The influence of rationale provision was also assessed. (Author)

Reports an attempt to test two interpretations of immanent justice responses as causal attributions rather than as moral judgments. Finds older children use causal chains to explain contiguity between misdeed and adversity. Data were interpreted as consistent with an information-processing model of immanent justice responses. (RMH)

Reports three experiments which investigated the reactions of children in grades 1-6 to the perpetrators and victims of injustices. Addresses the possibility that characteristics of the perpetrators may affect reactions to the victim. (JMB)

Preschoolers and second and fifth graders were interviewed to determine their understanding of an actor's motives and the intentionality of his act after watching films and hearing stories which portrayed an actor who intentionally or accidentally injured another for either good or bad motives. (JMB)

Cross-lagged correlational analyses and multiple-regression analyses of the data collected in these two studies supports the causal model that, while intentionality and internality both emerge when a common cognitive construct develops, heightened internality also significantly enhances a child's ability to learn intentionality. (Author/JMB)

The effects of rewards and expectations of future rewards on sharing were examined with 180 Israeli boys at three age levels (ages 6-7, 9-10, and 12-13). A relation between moral judgment and behavior was found. (BRT)

Videotaped stories depicting deliberate lies and unintentionally untrue statements were presented to 200 subjects evenly divided into the following age groups: 5, 8, 9, 11 years, and adult. Definitions of lying were seen to change gradually over this age range. (Author/RH)

Examined effects of cooperation on role taking and moral reasoning in 120 fifth-grade students. Classrooms using cooperative peer-initiated group learning were compared with other innovative and more traditional teacher-centered methods. Role taking was found to be enhanced by cooperative interdependence, but moral reasoning level was not…

Investigated preschool, second, and fifth grade children's definitions of, moral standards for, and internal evaluative reactions to lies and truthful statements. Older children correctly identified almost all statements, whereas preschoolers correctly identified about 70 percent. Lies were rated as worse than truthful statements by all age…