Does Distance Matter? How Physical and Social Distance Shape Our Perceived Obligations to Others.

Debates within moral philosophy have long centered on the question of whether we are more obligated to help those close to us compared to those who are farther away. Despite these debates, we have little understanding of our psychological intuitions about these issues. In the current study, we presented adults and children (5- to 9-year-olds) in the United States (N = 406) with hypothetical scenarios involving pairs of socially and physically close and far strangers and asked about their obligations to help one another. In general, younger children (∼6-year-olds) were more inclined to describe strangers as obligated to help one another compared to older children (∼8-year-olds) and adults. For physical distance, we documented an age-related trend where younger children were less inclined to consider physical distance when ascribing obligations to help compared to older children and adults. For social distance, we found different results depending on how social distance was manipulated. In Study 1, where social distance was manipulated via mere similarity, we found an age-related effect where adults, but not younger or older children, judged that individuals are more obligated to help socially close others relative to far ones. In Study 2, where social distance was manipulated via explicit group membership, we did not find an age trend. Instead, participants generally described individuals as more obligated to help an ingroup member relative to an outgroup one. These results demonstrate that the tendency to deny obligations towards distant others is a belief that emerges relatively late in development.

Meat and morality: The moral foundation of purity, but not harm, predicts attitudes toward cultured meat.

Cultured meat (also referred to as cultivated, cell-based, or cell-cultured meat) is a novel food technology that is presented as a method of meat production without reliance on large-scale industrial farming. The pro-cultured meat narrative rests, in part, on a moral foundation: cultured meat is purported to alleviate the environmental and animal welfare harms associated with farmed meat. Despite this narrative, no research has examined which moral values underpin attitudes towards cultured meat. To examine this, we surveyed 1861 participants from the United States and Germany about their moral foundations and their attitudes towards cultured meat. In line with predictions, people who more strongly endorse moral values about purity (i.e., had higher scores on the purity subscale of the moral foundations scale) held more negative attitudes towards cultured meat. However, this relationship was much more consistent among participants from the United States than participants from Germany. Against predictions, attitudes towards cultured meat were not reliably associated with the extent to which people focus on harm as a moral foundation. The latter finding was particularly surprising in light of harm-reduction narratives around cultured meat. These findings demonstrate the need for a more nuanced discussion about, and understanding of, consumer concerns around cultured meat and the values that underpin them.

Children Value Animals More Than Adults Do: A Conceptual Replication and Extension.

Recent psychological research finds that U.S. American children have a weaker tendency than U.S. American adults to value humans more than animals. We aimed to conceptually replicate and extend this finding in a preregistered study (N = 412). We investigated whether 6- to 9-year-old Polish children (Study 1a) are less likely to prioritize humans over animals than Polish adults are (Studies 1b and 1c). We presented participants with moral dilemmas where they had to prioritize either humans or animals (dogs or chimpanzees) in situations that involved harming (i.e., a trolley problem) or benefiting (i.e., giving a snack). We found that Polish children prioritized humans over animals less than Polish adults did. This was the case both in dilemmas that involved preventing harm and in dilemmas that involved providing snacks. Both children and adults prioritized humans over chimpanzees more than humans over dogs.

The Relative Importance of Target and Judge Characteristics in Shaping the Moral Circle.

People's treatment of others (humans, nonhuman animals, or other entities) often depends on whether they think the entity is worthy of moral concern. Recent work has begun to investigate which entities are included in a person's moral circle, examining how certain target characteristics (e.g., species category, perceived intelligence) and judge characteristics (e.g., empathy, political orientation) shape moral inclusion. However, the relative importance of target and judge characteristics in predicting moral inclusion remains unclear. When predicting whether a person will deem an entity worthy of moral consideration, how important is it to know who is making the judgment (i.e., characteristics of the judge), who is being judged (i.e., characteristics of the target), and potential interactions between the two factors? Here, we address this foundational question by conducting a variance component analysis of the moral circle. In two studies with participants from the Netherlands, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia (N = 836), we test how much variance in judgments of moral concern is explained by between-target differences, between-judge differences, and by the interaction between the two factors. We consistently find that all three components explain substantial amounts of variance in judgments of moral concern. Our findings provide two important insights. First, an increased focus on interactions between target and judge characteristics is needed, as these interactions explain as much variance as target and judge characteristics separately. Second, any theoretical account that aims to provide an accurate description of moral inclusion needs to consider target characteristics, judge characteristics, and their interaction.

Who gives? Characteristics of those who have taken the Giving What We Can pledge.

OBJECTIVE: In the current project, we focus on another group of unusual altruists: people who have taken the Giving What We Can (GWWC) pledge to donate at least 10% of their income to charity. Our project aims to understand what is unique about this population. BACKGROUND: Many people care about helping, but in recent years there has been a surge of research examining those whose moral concern for others goes far beyond that of the typical population. These unusual altruists (also termed extraordinary or extreme altruists or moral exemplars) make great personal sacrifices to help others-such as donating their kidneys to strangers or participating in COVID-19 vaccine challenge trials. METHOD: In a global study (N = 536) we examine a number of cognitive and personality traits of GWWC pledgers and compare them to a country-matched comparison group. RESULTS: In accordance with our predictions, GWWC pledgers were better at identifying fearful faces, more morally expansive and higher in actively open-minded thinking, need for cognition and two subscales of utilitarianism and, tentatively, lower in social dominance orientation. Against our predictions, they were lower in maximizing tendency. Finally, we found an inconclusive relationship between pledger status and empathy/compassion that we believe warrants further examination. CONCLUSIONS: These findings offer initial insights into the characteristics that set apart those who have made the decision to donate a substantial portion of their income to help others.

Testing the bounds of compassion in young children.

Extensive research shows that, under the right circumstances, children are highly prosocial. Extending an already published paradigm, we aimed here to determine what factors might facilitate and inhibit compassionate behaviour. Across five experiments (N = 285), we provide new insight into the bounds of 4- to 5-year-old children's compassionate behaviour. In the first three experiments, we varied cost of compassion by changing the reward (Study 1), using explicit instructions (Study 2) and ownership (Study 3). In the final two experiments, we varied the target of the compassionate behaviour, examining adults compared with puppet targets (Study 4), and whether the target was an in-group member (Study 5). We found strong evidence that cost reduces compassionate responding. By contrast, the recipient of compassion did not appear to influence responding: children were equally likely to help a human adult and a puppet, and an in-group member and neutral agent. These findings demonstrate that for young children, personal cost appears to be a greater inhibitor to compassionate responding than who compassion is directed toward.

I may not like you, but I still care: Children differentiate moral concern from other constructs.

In industrialized societies, adults exhibit stable preferences for the types of people, animals, and entities they feel moral concern for (Crimston et al., 2016). Only one published study to date has utilized the moral circles paradigm to examine these preferences in children, finding that as children age, their preferences shift to become more similar to adults' (Neldner et al., 2018). However, it is currently unclear whether children's conceptualization of moral concern differs from that of other related social constructs. The aim of the current study was twofold: first, to test the moral circles paradigm in a new sample of children to see whether published patterns of moral concern could be replicated and, second, to investigate whether children distinguish moral concern from the related constructs of liking and familiarity. Australian children aged 4 to 10 years old (N = 281; 143 boys, 138 girls; predominantly middle class) placed 24 pictures of human, animal, and environmental entities on a stratified circle according to how much they cared, liked, or knew about the targets. We found similar patterns of moral prioritization to previous research (Neldner et al., 2018), replicating both stable preferences and age-related changes in children's moral concern for others. Crucially, we extend these findings by showing that children distinguish how much they care about entities from their levels of liking and knowing about them. This suggests children differentiate between moral concern and other social constructs early in development and display distinct patterns of prioritization when evaluating everyday entities according to these judgments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Children prefer natural food, too.

Adults often prefer things that they believe are natural, including natural foods. This preference has serious implications, such as the rejection of cultured meat and other sustainable technologies. Here we explore whether children also prefer natural foods. We conducted two preregistered studies with 374 adults and children from the United States. In Study 1, children's (N = 120) ages ranged from 6-10 years, with 57% of the sample identifying as female identifying as White/European American, whereas adults (N = 120) had a mean age of 30 years and 4 months, with 48.7% identifying as female, and 69.2% identifying as White/European American. In Study 2, children's (N = 63) aged ranged from 5-7 years, with 57% identifying as female and 66% identifying as White/European American, whereas adults (N = 64) had a mean age of 29 years and 11 months, with 60.7% of the sample identifying as female and 59% of participants identifying as White/European American. We found that, like adults, American children of these ages prefer natural over unnatural foods. This was found across two domains (fruit, juice) and a range of measures (tastiness, safety, unnaturalness, desire to consume). This preference was found in children as young as 5 years of age. Overall, we provide evidence that, at least in the United States, our tendency to prefer natural food is present even in childhood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Promoting prosocial behavior in an unequal world.

Amid a global pandemic and the climate crisis, there is an increasing need to understand how to promote largescale, coordinated action between different groups. Yet certain factors such as inequality can hinder cooperation. We aimed to establish how to orient groups toward a superordinate goal when they have unequal resources. Participants were divided into two 'countries' and asked to assemble LEGO bricks into food (by building pieces in a certain order) to prevent starvation among 'the people'. One 'country' had few LEGO bricks whereas the other had an abundance, and the only way to maximize food creation was for the groups to work together. We assessed the efficacy of three diverse interventions on superordinate behavior and attitudes: compassion meditation training (Study 1), lower inequality (Study 2), and the introduction of a pro-sharing group norm by a confederate (Study 3). Compassion meditation training and altering the degree of inequality between groups did not have a clear effect on collaborative action. Only the introduction of a pro-sharing group norm enhanced sharing behavior, made participants feel more cooperative and reduced fears of being compassionate toward others. Our findings speak to the importance of leadership in promoting coordinated action to address challenges that face the superordinate group.

Does helping now excuse cheating later? An investigation into moral balancing in children.

We often use our previous good behaviour to justify current immoral acts, and likewise perform good deeds to atone for previous immoral behaviour. These effects, known as moral self-licensing and moral cleansing (collectively, moral balancing), have yet to be observed in children. Thus, the aim in the current study was to investigate the developmental foundations of moral balancing. We examined whether children aged 4-5 years (N = 96) would be more likely to cheat on a task if they had previously helped a puppet at personal cost, and less likely to cheat if they had refused to help. This hypothesis was not supported, suggesting either that 4-5-year-old children do not engage in moral balancing or that the methodology used was not appropriate to capture this effect. We discuss implications and future research directions.

How economic inequality affects prosocial behavior in children across development.

Research has linked economically unequal environments to lower prosocial behavior in adults. However, we know little about how inequality affects children's prosociality. Here, 4- to 9-year-old children (N = 128) played a series of games with several puppets where points were awarded. The distribution of points was characterized by either high inequality or low inequality. Children's donation behavior (i.e., the number of stickers they donated to a poor child), resource division behavior (i.e., how they divided extra points among poor and rich puppets), and fairness perceptions (i.e., how fair they perceived the game to be) were measured in response. Although the experimental manipulation of inequality did not affect children's donations, exploratory analyses revealed that higher inequality in children's home suburb was linked to lower donation rates. Furthermore, with age, children distributed points with increasing concern for poorer individuals, and negative judgments of the inequality were linked to distributing resources to poorer individuals. Here we present the first comprehensive analysis of children's prosocial reactions to high and low inequality across development.

Children Prioritize Humans Over Animals Less Than Adults Do.

Is the tendency to morally prioritize humans over animals weaker in children than adults? In two preregistered studies (total N = 622), 5- to 9-year-old children and adults were presented with moral dilemmas pitting varying numbers of humans against varying numbers of either dogs or pigs and were asked who should be saved. In both studies, children had a weaker tendency than adults to prioritize humans over animals. They often chose to save multiple dogs over one human, and many valued the life of a dog as much as the life of a human. Although they valued pigs less, the majority still prioritized 10 pigs over one human. By contrast, almost all adults chose to save one human over even 100 dogs or pigs. Our findings suggest that the common view that humans are far more morally important than animals appears late in development and is likely socially acquired.

What does it mean to say that cultured meat is unnatural?

Cultured meat offers a potential alternative to factory farming and its associated problems. Despite this, public opinion about cultured meat is mixed. One concern cited by many potential consumers is that cultured meat is "unnatural". Although there has been much interest in this perspective, there has been virtually no research exploring the psychological factors that motivate this view. The current study (N = 904) examines the beliefs, worldviews, and attitudes associated with the conclusion that cultured meat is unnatural. We found little evidence that naturalness perceptions flowed from a process of analytic reasoning; rather, ratings of unnaturalness appear to be grounded in affective mechanisms such as disgust and fear. This suggests that acceptance strategies that target analytic processing (e.g. information) may have limited success, which has indeed been the case with the strategies tested to date. Our findings are informative for research programs and cultured meat marketing strategies going forward.

Children's perceptions of the moral worth of live agents, robots, and inanimate objects.

This study examined children's moral concern for robots relative to living and nonliving entities. Children (4-10 years of age, N = 126) watched videos of six different entities having a box placed over them that was subsequently struck by a human hand. Children were subsequently asked to rate the moral worth of each agent relating to physical harm. Children afforded robotic entities less moral concern than living entities but afforded them more moral concern than nonliving entities, and these effects became more pronounced with age. Children's tendency to ascribe mental life to robotic and nonliving entities (but not living entities) predicted moral concern for these entities. However, when asked to make moral judgments relating to giving the agent away, children did not distinguish between nonliving and robotic agents and no age-related changes were identified. Moreover, the tendency to ascribe mental life was predictive of moral concern only for some agents but not others. Overall, the findings suggest that children consider robotic entities to occupy a middle moral ground between living and nonliving entities and that this effect is partly explained by the tendency to ascribe mental life to such agents. They also demonstrate that moral worth is a complex multifaceted concept that does not demonstrate a clear pattern across different ontological categories.

A cross-cultural investigation of children's willingness to imitate prosocial and antisocial groups.

Extensive research has documented that the antisocial behavior of others influences children's perceptions of and behavior toward them. In general, children report liking antisocial agents less, allocate them fewer resources, and are less likely to help them. Despite this, no research to date has explored how antisocial behavior may influence another socially driven behavior-imitation. Moreover, no research has addressed this question cross-culturally. To explore this, children were shown groups behaving prosocially or antisocially and were subsequently given the chance to imitate causally opaque actions (employed to highlight their normative framework) performed by these groups. Children from two cultures in Australia were included in the sample: Brisbane, a medium to large metropolitan city, and Borroloola, a remote indigenous community. Results revealed no impact of prosocial or antisocial behavior on imitative actions in either culture. However, we did identify differences in imitation rates between communities. Specifically, children from Borroloola persisted with imitation at far higher rates than children from Brisbane, highlighting the need for further nuanced research to unpack cross-cultural differences in social learning proclivities.

Testing potential psychological predictors of attitudes towards cultured meat.

Cultured meat is an emerging food technology that has the potential to resolve many of the social, environmental and ethical issues surrounding traditional factory farming practices. Recently, research has begun to explore consumer attitudes to the product, revealing a number of barriers and demographic predictors. However, our understanding of the psychological mechanisms that underpin attitudes to cultured meat remains limited. In the current study, we draw on an attitude roots model (Hornsey & Fielding, 2017) to explore a range of psychological mechanisms that may underpin attitudes to cultured meat. In terms of negative attitudes and intentions toward cultured meat, the most powerful predictors were food neophobia, political conservatism, and distrust of food scientists. When it comes to absolute opposition to cultured meat - defined by the unconditional belief that it should never be allowed under any circumstances - the strongest predictors were food and hygiene disgust sensitivity subscales, food neophobia, and conspiratorial ideation. A number of presumed mechanisms held no relationships to cultured meat attitudes, including social dominance orientation, speciesism, and naturalness bias. The null results on naturalness bias are of particular interest given recent research identifying concerns about naturalness as a key barrier to consumer acceptance. These results demonstrate the need for a more nuanced understanding of the psychological mechanisms that contribute to cultured meat attitudes and engagement.

Young Children From Three Diverse Cultures Spontaneously and Consistently Prepare for Alternative Future Possibilities.

This study examined future-oriented behavior in children (3-6 years; N = 193) from three diverse societies-one industrialized Western city and two small, geographically isolated communities. Children had the opportunity to prepare for two alternative versions of an immediate future event over six trials. Some 3-year-olds from all cultures demonstrated competence, and a majority of the oldest children from each culture prepared for both future possibilities on every trial. Although there were some cultural differences in the youngest age groups that approached ceiling performance, the overall results indicate that children across these communities become able to prepare for alternative futures during early childhood. This acquisition period is therefore not contingent on Western upbringing, and may instead indicate normal cognitive maturation.

Developmental changes in young children's willingness to copy the antisocial actions of ingroup members in a minimal group context.

Children hold strong ingroup biases from a young age, liking ingroup over outgroup members and preferring them as social learning models. Simultaneously, children are also highly prosocial-both in their own helping behaviors and their avoidance of those who behave antisocially. This study explores how children of 2 age groups (4-5 and 7-8 years) react when these biases conflict; that is, when children's ingroup behaves antisocially. Children were assigned to a group and given a premeasure of liking to assess ingroup bias. They were then shown videos of the ingroup behaving antisocially and the outgroup behaving prosocially (or neutral controls). Children were then given the opportunity to choose which group to imitate and whether they wanted to change groups and then again given a measure of liking. Results revealed that older children were highly sensitive to pro- and antisocial behavior; when their ingroup was antisocial they were less likely to imitate them, reported liking them less, and were more likely to want to change groups. In contrast, younger children imitated the ingroup and reported liking them more regardless of their behavior and actually reported wanting to change groups less when their group was antisocial. This demonstrates a clear developmental jump between younger and older children in their capacity to weigh multiple strands of information when making decisions, and in particular it highlights the emergence of strong prosocial concern that persists over a drive to affiliate with an ingroup. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The developmental origins of moral concern: An examination of moral boundary decision making throughout childhood.

Prominent theorists have made the argument that modern humans express moral concern for a greater number of entities than at any other time in our past. Moreover, adults show stable patterns in the degrees of concern they afford certain entities over others, yet it remains unknown when and how these patterns of moral decision-making manifest in development. Children aged 4 to 10 years (N = 151) placed 24 pictures of human, animal, and environmental entities on a stratified circle representing three levels of moral concern. Although younger and older children expressed similar overall levels of moral concern, older children demonstrated a more graded understanding of concern by including more entities within the outer reaches of their moral circles (i.e., they were less likely to view moral inclusion as a simple in vs. out binary decision). With age children extended greater concern to humans than other forms of life, and more concern to vulnerable groups, such as the sick and disabled. Notably, children's level of concern for human entities predicted their prosocial behavior. The current research provides novel insights into the development of our moral reasoning and its structure within childhood.

Children imitate antisocial in-group members.

Children demonstrate a pervasive in-group bias, preferring their in-group across a range of contexts that encompass measures of liking, imitation, and, in some cases, resource allocation. A growing number of studies have begun to explore whether antisocial in-group behavior reduces the robustness of this bias. However, these studies have focused on transgression evaluations, with only two studies focusing on social learning and none explicitly on imitation. This, therefore, limits the extent to which children's responses to interaction between in-group bias and antisocial behavior can be fully understood. The current research expands on the prevailing literature, utilizing imitation as a behavioral measure to explore the reactions of children aged 4-5 and 7-8 years in response to antisocial in-group behavior. Consistent with previous literature, antisocial in-group behavior reduced in-group liking ratings. Surprisingly, however, children's behavioral imitation preferences were guided solely by group membership, disregarding prosocial or antisocial behavior. These results indicate that children's explicitly reported social preferences and imitative preferences may be motivated by two independent drives.