“You Have the River to Throw It Away”: Colombian Children's Reasoning About Transgressions to Nature in Contexts of Economic Performance and Communitarian Needs

Abstract

This study explored the reasoning, expectations, and judgments concerning prototypical transgressions to nature and contextualized situations entailing conflict of interest between conservation of nature and economic performance or communitarian needs. The authors interviewed 71 children from three grade levels (mean ages first grade = 5.91, fifth grade = 10.17, ninth grade = 14.48 years) who belong to two schools in Bogotá, Colombia, that are located in a zone with polluted rivers and wetlands with high levels of environmental risk. Results showed that children construct moral reasoning regarding prototypical and contextualized environmental transgressions, and their judgments vary due to informational assumptions. Children are very concerned about environmental transgressions as they recognize their impact on human welfare and the intrinsic value of nature, especially when they believe that there is a correspondence between humans and nature. Whereas young children focus on welfare, older children are also able to consider justice and harmony in their moral evaluations. Surprisingly, children of all ages tend to expect people to damage the environment even when there is no conflict of interest, and this could be related to exposure to degraded environments.