Being Hurt And Hurting Others: Children's Narrative Accounts And Moral Judgements Of Their Own Interpersonal Conflicts

Being Hurt And Hurting Others: Children's Narrative Accounts And Moral Judgements Of Their Own Interpersonal Conflicts

The research reported in this Monograph documents the narrative accounts and moral evaluations that children between the ages of 5 and 16 made of incidents in which they had been the targets of their peersrsquo; unfair or harmful actions and incidents in which they had been those inflicting harm on their peers. By systematically examining childrenrsquo;s construals of social interactions, this research brings to the fore the role of interpretation in moral thinking. By moving beyond the assessment of moral judgments made from an uninvolved third-person perspective, it underscores the possibility that children apply their moral concepts differently when they judge instances of harm or injustice from the victimrsquo;s or the perpetratorrsquo;s perspectives. Together, these issues bear on how childrenrsquo;s moral concepts are applied and develop within their actual social interactions, especially those interactions that appear to violate those very moral concepts. By contributing to our understanding of childrenrsquo;s moral thinking as it is manifested in their everyday interactions, this research also brings us a step closer to better conceptualizing the study of childrenrsquo;s moral behavior.