Effects of the salience of intention and consequence on children's moral judgments.

Conducted a study with 96 middle-class students in 3 age groups (6-7, 8-9, and 10-11 yrs) to examine the extent to which the recency effect is a factor in children's moral judgments. The E read 4 stories which were centered around 2 themes, one depicting a child dropping cups and the other a child spilling glue, and which combined each of 2 levels of intent (accidental and purposeful) with each of 2 levels of consequence (light and heavy damage). Within each age group, the 32 Ss were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 conditions: intent-consequence (I-C), with intent first, followed by consequence; or consequence-intent (C-I), with consequence first, followed by intent. Results support the hypothesis that moral judgments are affected by the relative salience of cues, as manipulated by order presentation. However, the influence of order was complex and varied with the age of Ss. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)