Moral Judgment and Generosity in Children

Abstract

Three sets of moral judgment stories and a measure of generosity were taken from 21 middle-class girls aged 8 to 11 yr. The moral judgment stories assessed the child's conception of Piagetian intentionality, Piagetian distributive justice, and Kohlbergian principled morality. While the three sets of stories showed some degree of interrelatedness, only the measure of distributive justice showed a positive (but marginal) relationship to children's generosity. Age and IQ effects were also assessed.