In the second year of life, children engage in a variety of transgressions. At the same time, their verbal abilities are very limited. I am investigating how parents and children interact following moral and other types of transgressions, as well as how children make use of social experiences to understand what they should and should not do.
Continue Reading The Early Aquisition of Moral and Other Norms

The tendency to help others is a key component of mature morality. How does this tendency develop? As early as the second year of life, children begin to help parents, siblings, and even experimenters in various tasks, for instance by picking up out-of-reach objects. We are investigating how social experiences early in life affect the… Continue Reading The Emergence of Helping Behavior

Some normative issues are especially prevalent early in life:Why is it not okay to spill food on purpose? Why is it wrong to drag dirty shoes into the living room? Families with young children frequently face these kinds of transgressions, yet we know little about how young children evaluate such transgressions. In addition to studying… Continue Reading Reasoning About Norms in Preschoolers and Adults