Does Distance Matter? How Physical and Social Distance Shape Our Perceived Obligations to Others

Debates within moral philosophy have long centered on the question of whether we are more obligated to help those close to us compared to those who are farther away. Despite these debates, we have little understanding of our psychological intuitions about these issues. In the current study, we presented adults and children (5- to 9-year-olds) in the United States (N = 406) with hypothetical scenarios involving pairs of socially and physically close and far strangers and asked about their obligations to help one another. In general, younger children (∼6-year-olds) were more inclined to describe strangers as obligated to help one another compared to older children (∼8-year-olds) and adults. For physical distance, we documented an age-related trend where younger children were less inclined to consider physical distance when ascribing obligations to help compared to older children and adults. For social distance, we found different results depending on how social distance was manipulated. In Study 1, where social distance was manipulated via mere similarity, we found an age-related effect where adults, but not younger or older children, judged that individuals are more obligated to help socially close others relative to far ones. In Study 2, where social distance was manipulated via explicit group membership, we did not find an age trend. Instead, participants generally described individuals as more obligated to help an ingroup member relative to an outgroup one. These results demonstrate that the tendency to deny obligations towards distant others is a belief that emerges relatively late in development.