Following a transgression, forgiveness can restore power imbalances and repair damaged bonds, helping maintain important relationships. Yet, we know little about which kinds of responses to transgression best foster forgiveness. Across two studies, with 5- to 9-year-olds in the United States (N = 302; 159 female, 64.2% White, tested in 2022 and…

Racial disparities in school discipline may have collateral consequences on the larger non-suspended student population. The present study leveraged two longitudinal datasets with 1201 non-suspended adolescents (48% Black, 52% White; 55% females, 45% males; M[subscript age]: 12-13) enrolled in 84 classrooms in an urban mid-Atlantic city of the…

Investigated 6-, 8-, and 10-year-olds' reasoning about laws and legal compliance. Found that children considered several factors in their judgments, including perceived justice of the law, its socially beneficial purpose, and potential for infringement on individual freedoms and rights. Found that children apply moral concepts of harm, rights, and…

Thirty-four boys and girls between the ages of four and nine were interviewed on their conceptions of positive justice and parental authority and were then reinterviewed one and two years later. Results suggested that stagelike development in children's social reasoning proceeds gradually, with important continuities in children's social cognition…

In order to investigate the relationship between the development of justice (moral) conceptions and the development of mathematical and physical (logical) conceptions, 50 children(ages 4-8) were administered a "positive justice" interview and five of Piaget's concrete-operational mathematical and physical tasks. (Author/CS)

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)

The moral realism of everyday life is neither Piaget's childlike egocentrism nor Gabennesch's reification. Natural moral law is seen by Turiel, a cognitivist, as a code of harm, rights, and justice. Other cognitivists accept codes of duty and natural order. (BC)

Investigated Piaget's belief that immanent justice responses occur when fairness judgments override conceptions of physical causality in six- through eight-year-olds' understanding of a certain type of story. Results supported the prediction that children would use the belief in a just world in immanent justice judgments. (RH)

An argument for a closer relationship between the American legal system and developmental research in such areas as foster care, child abuse, and child custody. (BRT)

Euro-American 2nd- and 4th-grade children (Ms=7.67 and 9.82 years) heard stories about Black and White characters who produced artwork yielding a windfall reward. Children allocated rewards to characters, justified their allocations, and judged the fairness of patterns representing different justice principles. Older children allocated more money…

Children of 5, 9, and 13 years of age were asked to allocate resources in hypothetical situations in which norms of equity, equality, or need were applicable. Young children were insensitive to the contextual information, whereas older children appropriately tailored their decisions to the situation. (BC)

Examined children's obligatory moral judgments, which reflect a moral requirement, and discretionary moral judgments, which reflect moral worthiness but not a requirement. Children were interviewed in response to three stories that entailed positive and negative morality. Results showed that moral acts conceived of by children as being obligatory…

First- and fifth-grade kibbutz and city children (320 in two studies) individually were requested to distribute rewards between themselves and a partner who had produced either more or less than the subject had. Fifth graders were also asked about the level of effort and merit displayed by themselves and their partners. (Author/RH).

Two studies of third, sixth, and ninth graders were conducted to determine whether the children made judgments about both justice and interpersonal relations in conflict situations. Results demonstrate that concerns with justice and interpersonal relationships coexist in judgments of male and female children. The ways in which these concerns are…