Crime but not punishment? Children are more lenient toward rule-breaking when the “spirit of the law” is unbroken

Abstract

Even early in development, children understand how rules work, and they harshly evaluate rule violators. Furthermore, we know that adults make nuanced evaluations about rule violations; in many situations, they believe that it can be acceptable to violate the technical language of a rule (the “letter of a rule”) if doing so does not violate the reason why the rule was created (the “spirit of the rule”). Distinguishing between the letter and spirit of a rule is critical for a developed normative understanding. We investigated whether and when children begin to believe that it is less wrong to violate the letter of a rule if one does not violate the rule’s spirit. Participants (N = 246 4- to 10-year-olds) were asked to evaluate a rule-breaker who either violated the letter of a rule but not the spirit or violated both the letter and spirit of a rule. We found that by 4 years of age, children acknowledged that the rule had technically been broken in both cases, but their evaluations of the rule-breaker were much more lenient in the case where the spirit of the rule remained intact. We also found that children are increasingly more lenient in the case where the spirit of the rule remains intact case as they age, and they are increasingly harsher in the case where the spirit is violated. We discuss how these studies provide insight into early normative reasoning, including implications for future research on social cognitive development, rule learning, and legislative intent.