Actions, Actors, and Affiliations: Divergent moral and intergroup influences on different forms of social judgment

This study examined how children integrate moral and intergroup information across three dimensions of social judgments: evaluating behaviors, evaluating actors, and deciding whether to interact with an actor. Children aged 4-8 years (N = 128; 50 % female; 76.9 % White) were randomly assigned to one of two novel "minimal" groups. They then listened to stories depicting morally good and bad intergroup (between-group condition) and intragroup interactions (within-group condition). Results showed that children draw on moral and group information in different ways across the three judgment types. Moral valence strongly shaped all three judgments: prosocial behaviors and actors were evaluated more positively than antisocial ones, and this valence effect strengthened with age. Group membership, however, exerted its clearest influence on interaction decisions, and children relied on this cue less as they got older. These findings provide new evidence concerning how children incorporate moral and intergroup information into a broad range of everyday social judgments and how this integration develops.