Consistency and retribution in children's immanent justice decisions.

72 children in kindergarten and 2nd and 4th grades were asked to evaluate behavior/accidental event sequences that represented all possible combinations of good or bad prior behavior followed by a lucky or unlucky event. Differences were found for grade level, for story type, and for their interaction. Stories describing bad behavior or those depicting evaluatively consistent events (behavior and accident both negative or both positive) evoked immanent justice responses at the kindergarten level; consistent stories evoked immanent justice interpretations at the Grade 2 level; and only the classic Piagetian story (bad behavior/unlucky outcome) tended to evoke immanent justice responses at the Grade 4 level. It is concluded that the child's judgment reflects both the need for punishment or retribution and the expectation of consistency. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)