Abstract
When a group engages in immoral behavior, group members face the whistleblower's dilemma: the conflict between remaining loyal to the group and standing up for other moral concerns. This study examines the developmental origins of this dilemma by investigating 5-year-olds' whistleblowing on their in- vs. outgroup members' moral transgression. Children (n = 96) watched puppets representing their ingroup vs. outgroup members commit either a mild or a severe transgression. After the mild transgression, children tattled on both groups equally often. After the severe transgression, however, they were significantly less likely to blow the whistle on their ingroup than on the outgroup. These results suggest that children have a strong tendency to act on their moral concerns, but can adjust their behavior according to their group's need: When much is at stake for the ingroup (i.e., after a severe moral transgression), children's behavior is more likely to be guided by loyalty.
Highlights
During recent years, high profile cases of whistleblowing have garnered enormous public attention and caused controversy in politics and the international media
An interesting pattern of results emerged: Rather than tattling more on outgroup members across the board, children showed a complex weighting of loyalty and moral considerations
Children acted on their moral considerations: They tattled on both groups at high rates
Summary
High profile cases of whistleblowing have garnered enormous public attention and caused controversy in politics and the international media. Recently, the former CIA contractor Edward Snowden, who revealed top-secret information about surveillance programs run by the US National Security Agency, was extensively both reviled and lauded in equal measure for being a whistleblower. Whistleblowers experience a dilemma in which they have to decide whether to act on their feelings of group loyalty or on other moral principles (Waytz et al, 2013). According to Haidt and colleagues, loyalty is one of five moral foundations (Haidt and Joseph, 2007) and requires preferential treatment for members of one’s own group. The group may be punished externally, and the whistleblower may be punished by the group as a traitor, and maybe even excluded or banned
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