How do children think about bullies?

Matthew Osterholzer

Pronouns: He/Him/His

Research Mentor(s): Valerie Umscheid
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Psychology / LSA
Program: UROP
Session: Session 5 (2:40pm – 3:30pm)
Authors: Matthew Osterholzer, Valerie Umscheid

Abstract

To what extent do children see the moral character of their peers as stable, and are their judgements influenced by their peers’ behaviors? Prior research has shown that children have a tendency to assume a morally good “true self”, which suggests that positive moral change may be seen as more continuous (Umscheid et al., 2023). This study examined the moral reasoning of 170 children between the ages of 7-12 years old, by exposing them to descriptions of an overtly aggressive bully and prosocial child, and asking them to make judgements about the characters’ actions, motivations, and “true selves”. Children were 39.25 times more likely to say that the prosocial character would act the same in the future as compared to the bully character, which is consistent with the established tendency to assume people have a morally good “true self”. These findings extend the work on children’s moral evaluations of others, and help in generalizing prior findings to peer relationship contexts.

Humanities