The development of guilt and shame attributions to moral and conventional norm transgressors

Children distinguish between moral and conventional norms very early. Past research points to the role of emotions in children's understanding of and distinguishing between different social norms such as moral and conventional norms. The present study investigated the development of guilt and shame attributions to moral and conventional norm violations. Five-6- and 9-10-year-olds (Experiment 1, n = 133) and adults (Experiment 2, n = 177) were randomly assigned to moral or conventional norm transgression conditions. Participants were asked (1) to rate how much guilt and (2) shame the transgressor should feel using a 5-point scale, (3) to choose which of the two emotions (guilt vs. shame) the transgressor should feel more and (4) to rate how bad and (5) how shameful (ayıp) the violations are. Results suggested that all age groups had higher ratings regarding emotions (guilt and shame) and badness and shamefulness to moral compared to conventional violations. Although emotion ratings did not differ across guilt and shame, 5-6, and 9-10-year-olds and adults distinguished guilt and shame in forced-choice attributions. As expected, older children attributed more guilt to moral, but more shame to conventional norm transgressors. Younger children ascribed more guilt to moral, and adults ascribed more shame to conventional transgressors, but other attributions did not differ. Affective empathy was also found to play a role in children's ability to distinguish the emotions these norms violations elicit.