Evidence for the side-effect effect in young children: Influence of bilingualism and task presentation format

Abstract

Children as young as 4 years, as well as adults, often judge that the side effects of the actions of an uncaring story agent have occurred on purpose if the effects are harmful but not if these are beneficial. This pattern has been termed the “side-effect” effect (SEE). However, a substantial number of children do not show a SEE and to date the presence of a SEE has not been shown at all in 3-year-olds. The present investigation sought to examine whether 3- to 5-year-olds can be induced to display a more pronounced SEE in their responses to vividly illustrated story events presented simultaneously on a laptop computer. Under these conditions, even many 3-year-olds showed a clear SEE, especially bilingual children aged 3 years who did not differ from monolingual 4- to 5-year-olds in the extent to which they produced a SEE pattern. These results are discussed in terms of the proposal that the SEE is one indication of an early moral sense in preschoolers.