The Consideration of Cost in Evaluations of Moral Praiseworthiness Among Chinese Children

Recent research has revealed developmental changes in how US children consider physical and psychological costs in their judgements of moral praiseworthiness. However, we know less about how this may occur in other cultures. In this study, we examined how children in China consider physical and psychological costs in moral evaluation, and compared the findings to existing US data. Across two studies, Chinese children (N = 180, 4.02–9.99 years, 94 girls and 86 boys) and adults (N = 200, 132 females and 68 males) were asked to compare a character who incurred a higher cost (psychological in Study 1, physical in Study 2) to perform a moral action with another character who incurred a lower cost. Our findings reveal important developmental changes, similar to those observed among US children. By age 6, Chinese children recognised the moral praiseworthiness of incurring physical costs to do the right thing; and by age 8, they also recognised the moral praiseworthiness of incurring psychological costs. We also observed some cultural differences in children's explanations for their social evaluations: Chinese children were more likely to refer to cost in their explanations when evaluating scenarios involving psychological costs. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding children's moral cognition across cultures.