Conscience and theory of mind in children aged 4 to 7 years

Abstract

Associations between three dimensions of early conscience-moral reasoning, the capacity to experience guilt, and the moral self-and theory of mind (ToM) were examined in children aged 4-7 years (N = 80). Participants were administered a task assessing their understanding of the intentions and actions of a transgressor in situations entailing intentional and accidental wrongdoing, a moral self scale, and a battery of first-order and second-order false belief tasks. Children's capacity to experience guilt was measured via parent report. Expressive vocabulary was also measured. Repeated-measures analysis of covariance with ToM, age, and their interaction as covariates revealed that children who had higher ToM scores attributed more positive intentions to the accidental transgressor than to the intentional transgressor and judged the intentional transgressor's action as more wrongful than children who scored lower on these tasks. Ηierarchical regression analyses also indicated that a more advanced ToM performance predicted higher levels of guilt and the moral self after accounting for age and expressive vocabulary.

Keywords: Children; Early conscience; Guilt; Moral reasoning; Moral self; Theory of mind.