Conceptual continuity in the development of intent-based moral judgment

When asked to say whether an agent is morally good or bad, younger preschoolers tend to rely more on the outcomes of agents’ actions than on agents’ intentions, whereas older children show the opposite bias. Children aged 3 to 5 years were examined with a novel task that facilitated the selection and expression of response by means of response generation training. In two experiments, we found that 3-year-olds succeeded in generating intent-based judgments when the task was simplified, whereas older preschoolers succeeded also without the help of response generation training. Results are inconsistent with views positing a conceptual change occurring in the moral domain at about 4 years of age and provide support for alternative accounts positing conceptual continuity.