Is helping always morally good? Study with toddlers and preschool children.

Abstract

Young children from a very early age not only prefer those who help others but also those who engage in altruistic helping. This study aims to test how children assess helping when the goal of the helping behavior is immoral. We argue that younger children consider only the helping versus hindering behavior, but older children distinguish their judgments depending on the goal to which the helping leads. In the study involving 727 European children aged 2-7 years (354 girls, M = 53.82 months, SD = 18.76), we found that children aged 2-4 years assessed helping as always morally good and hindering as morally bad, no matter the recipient's intention. Only children aged 4.5-7 years assessed helping in an immoral act as immoral and hindering in an immoral act as moral. We also found that younger children liked the helper regardless of the goal that their helping behavior led to, but from the age of 5, children preferred characters who hindered in an immoral act rather than those who helped. Our study extends the previous research, showing how children's moral judgments of helping behavior develop and become more complex as children get older. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).