Children's sympathy moderates the link between their attentional orientation and ethical guilt

Author:

Mehrotra Mishika1ORCID,Dys Sebastian P.2ORCID,Malti Tina34

Affiliation:

1. Department of Psychology University of Cambridge Cambridge UK

2. Department of Psychology Simon Fraser University Burnaby British Columbia Canada

3. Department of Psychology University of Toronto Toronto Canada

4. Centre for Child Development, Mental Health, and Policy University of Toronto Mississauga Mississauga Canada

Abstract

AbstractThis study examined how children's attentional orientation towards environmental cues, dispositional sympathy and inhibitory control were associated with their ethical guilt. Participants were 4‐ and 6‐year‐old children (N = 211; 55% male) from ethnically diverse backgrounds. To assess ethical guilt, children were presented with two vignettes depicting ethical violations and reported how they would feel and why, if they had committed those transgressions. Using eye tracking, we calculated attentional orientation as the percentage of time children attended to other‐oriented (i.e., victim) minus self‐serving (i.e., object gained by transgressing) cues during these vignettes. Children also reported on their sympathy and completed an observational measure of inhibitory control. Although main effects were not significant, sympathy moderated the link between attentional orientation and ethical guilt: attentional orientation was positively associated with ethical guilt for children with low levels of sympathy but had no effect among those high in sympathy. These findings suggest that practices centred on prompting children to attend to other‐oriented cues – and away from self‐serving ones – may be effective particularly for children who are generally less sympathetic.

Funder

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada

Publisher

Wiley

Subject

Developmental Neuroscience,Developmental and Educational Psychology

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