Hao Jian, Liu Yanchun
Beijing Key Laboratory of Learning and Cognition, Department of Psychology, College of Education, Capital Normal University Beijing, China.
Youth Work Department, China Youth University of Political Studies Beijing, China.
Front Psychol. 2016 Aug 23;7:1261. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01261. eCollection 2016.
The rationalistic theories of morality emphasize that reasoning plays an important role in moral judgments and prosocial behavior. Theory of mind as a reasoning ability in the mental domain has been considered a facilitator of moral development. The present study examined whether theory of mind was consistently positively associated with morality from middle childhood to late adulthood. Two hundred and four participants, including 48 elementary school children, 45 adolescents, 62 younger adults, and 49 older adults, completed theory of mind, moral judgment and prosocial behavior tasks. Theory of mind was measured with strange stories that tapped into an understanding of lies, white lies, double bluffs, irony, and persuasion. Moral judgments were measured with variants of the trolley dilemma. Prosocial behavior was measured through participants' performance in an interactive situation in which a helping request was made. The results indicated specific rather than similar developmental trajectories of theory of mind, moral judgments, and prosocial behavior. There was a quadratic trend in theory of mind, a combination of quadratic and cubic trends in deontological moral judgments and a linear decline in helping behavior. It is thus suggested that theory of mind may not be associated with morality in an unchanging way during development. Further results indicated that theory of mind and deontological moral judgments were negatively correlated for children, adolescents, and older adults but positively correlated for younger adults. Theory of mind and helping behavior were positively correlated for children but negatively correlated for adolescents. However, the relationships disappeared in adulthood. In sum, the present study reveals that theory of mind may be a nice tool for its facilitation of deontological moral judgments and prosocial behavior, but it may also be a nasty tool for its blocking of deontological moral judgments and prosocial behavior. Moreover, theory of mind may be a permanent tool for moral judgment development but a temporary tool for prosocial behavior development. Thus, the present study enriches the rationalistic theories of morality from a developmental perspective. Different relationships between theory of mind and morality from middle childhood to late adulthood are discussed.
道德理性主义理论强调推理在道德判断和亲社会行为中发挥着重要作用。心理理论作为心理领域的一种推理能力，被认为是道德发展的促进因素。本研究考察了从童年中期到成年后期，心理理论是否始终与道德呈正相关。204名参与者，包括48名小学生、45名青少年、62名年轻人和49名老年人，完成了心理理论、道德判断和亲社会行为任务。心理理论通过一些奇怪的故事来衡量，这些故事涉及对谎言、善意的谎言、双重虚张声势、讽刺和说服的理解。道德判断通过电车困境的变体来衡量。亲社会行为通过参与者在提出帮助请求的互动情境中的表现来衡量。结果表明，心理理论、道德判断和亲社会行为的发展轨迹是特定的而非相似的。心理理论呈二次趋势，道义论道德判断呈二次和三次趋势的组合，帮助行为呈线性下降。因此，研究表明，在发展过程中，心理理论可能不会以不变的方式与道德相关联。进一步的结果表明，心理理论与道义论道德判断在儿童、青少年和老年人中呈负相关，但在年轻人中呈正相关。心理理论与帮助行为在儿童中呈正相关，但在青少年中呈负相关。然而，这些关系在成年期消失了。总之，本研究表明，心理理论可能是促进道义论道德判断和亲社会行为的好工具，但也可能是阻碍道义论道德判断和亲社会行为的坏工具。此外，心理理论可能是道德判断发展的永久工具，但却是亲社会行为发展的临时工具。因此，本研究从发展的角度丰富了道德理性主义理论。讨论了从童年中期到成年后期心理理论与道德之间的不同关系。
