Hostname: page-component-77f85d65b8-6c7dr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-04-20T15:55:41.977Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Little puritans?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2023

Christina Starmans Open the ORCID record for Christina Starmans [Opens in a new window]
Christina Starmans*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada. christina.starmans@utoronto.ca; https://starlab.utoronto.ca/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I propose that young children may be a useful test case for Fitouchi et al.'s theory that certain seemingly harmless acts are moralized because they are seen as risk factors for future poor cooperation. The theory predicts that prior to the development of certain folk-psychological beliefs about self-control, children should be untroubled by violations of puritanical morality, and that an adult-like folk psychology of self-control should develop in tandem with disapproval of such violations.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 46 , 2023 , e314
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Aznar, A., Tenenbaum, H. R., & Russell, P. S. (2023). Is moral disgust socially learned? Emotion, 23(1), 289–301.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bloom, P. (2014). Just babies: The origins of good and evil. Crown.Google Scholar
Choe, K. S., Keil, F. C., & Bloom, P. (2005). Children's understanding of the Ulysses conflict. Developmental Science, 8(5), 387–392.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Duckworth, A. L., Gendler, T. S., & Gross, J. J. (2014). Self-control in school-age children. Educational Psychologist, 49(3), 199–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, P. L. (1989). Children and emotion: The development of psychological understanding. Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Harter, S., & Buddin, B. J. (1987). Children's understanding of the simultaneity of two emotions: A five-stage developmental acquisition sequence. Developmental Psychology, 23(3), 388.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kestenbaum, R., & Gelman, S. (1995). Preschool children’s identification and understanding of mixed emotions. Cognitive Development, 10(3), 443–458.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kushnir, T., Gopnik, A., Chernyak, N., Seiver, E., & Wellman, H. M. (2015). Developing intuitions about free will between ages four and six. Cognition, 138, 79–101.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lagattuta, K. H. (2005). When you shouldn't do what you want to do: Young children's understanding of desires, rules, and emotions. Child Development, 76(3), 713–733.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mischel, H. N., & Mischel, W. (1983). The development of children's knowledge of self-control strategies. Child Development, 54, 603–619.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rottman, J., & Kelemen, D. (2012). Aliens behaving badly: Children's acquisition of novel purity-based morals. Cognition, 124(3), 356–360.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Starmans, C., & Bloom, P. (2016). When the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak: Developmental differences in judgments about inner moral conflict. Psychological Science, 27(11), 1498–1506.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wente, A., Zhao, X., Gopnik, A., Kang, C., & Kushnir, T. (2020). The developmental and cultural origins of our beliefs about self-control. In Mele, A. (Ed.), Surrounding self-control (pp. 47–64). Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woo, B. M., Tan, E., & Hamlin, J. K. (2022). Human morality is based on an early-emerging moral core. Annual Review of Developmental Psychology, 4, 41–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhao, X., & Kushnir, T. (2022). When it's not easy to do the right thing: Developmental changes in understanding cost drive evaluations of moral praiseworthiness. Developmental Science, e13257.Google ScholarPubMed