Dahl Audun, Schmidt Marco F H
Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA.
International Junior Research Group Developmental Origins of Human Normativity, Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU) Munich, 80802 München, Germany.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2018 Jan;165:85-100. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2017.07.015. Epub 2017 Aug 18.
Hypothetical norms apply only when agents have specific goals, whereas categorical norms apply regardless of what agents want. Deciding whether a rule is hypothetical or categorical is crucial for navigating many social situations encountered by children and adults. The current research investigated whether preschoolers viewed instrumental norms (about how to accomplish practical tasks), prudential norms (pertaining to agent welfare), and moral norms (pertaining to others' welfare) as hypothetical or categorical. A second main question was whether preschoolers draw distinctions between instrumental and other norms. Participants were interviewed about norm violations in which the agent did or did not have the relevant goal. The goal manipulation had no effect on children's judgments of permissibility; most children treated all three norm types as categorical. Nevertheless, children distinguished instrumental events from prudential and moral events along several dimensions. In contrast, participants in two adult samples treated instrumental norms, and some prudential norms, as hypothetical, but treated moral norms as categorical (applicable regardless of agent goal). These findings suggest that preschoolers do not yet reliably distinguish between hypothetical and categorical norms, yet do view rules of instrumental rationality as a distinct type of norms.
假设性规范仅在行动者有特定目标时适用，而绝对规范无论行动者想要什么都适用。判断一条规则是假设性的还是绝对的，对于应对儿童和成人遇到的许多社会情境至关重要。当前的研究调查了学龄前儿童是否将工具性规范（关于如何完成实际任务）、审慎规范（与行动者的福祉相关）和道德规范（与他人的福祉相关）视为假设性的或绝对的。第二个主要问题是学龄前儿童是否能区分工具性规范和其他规范。研究人员就违反规范的情况对参与者进行了访谈，其中行动者有或没有相关目标。目标操纵对儿童关于可允许性的判断没有影响；大多数儿童将所有三种规范类型都视为绝对的。然而，儿童在几个维度上区分了工具性事件与审慎和道德事件。相比之下，两个成人样本中的参与者将工具性规范以及一些审慎规范视为假设性的，但将道德规范视为绝对的（无论行动者目标如何都适用）。这些发现表明，学龄前儿童尚未可靠地区分假设性规范和绝对规范，但确实将工具理性规则视为一种独特的规范类型。
