The Development Of Moral Judgment By Children Aged Between 4 And 6

Theory of mind is an important individual skill to know others’mind which is often used to understand the mental states of oneself and others, and thus to predict and explain the behavior of others. Theory of mind contains the mental states of desire, belief, intention and so on.but research on the understanding of children’s intention judgment is relatively little, and it’s also lack of systematic. Moral judgment means the evaluation of moral events and behaviors.The relationship between theory of mind and moral judgment has received more and more attention from researchers. The understanding of intention is not only the important content in the field of theory of mind, but also the concern of the research field of moral judgment.It is generally believed that theory of mind is the basis of moral judgment, and grasp the psychological state of the person in moral events will affect his view of the incident. However, some people think that moral evaluation of the event will affect the judgment of the mental state of the person.In this study, according to the different desires, beliefs and the result, the researcher prepared eight kinds of story to examine 274 4-6 years old children’s developmental characteristics of moral judgment and intentions judgment, and analysis of children’s different moral judgment and intention judgment on these stories. And also discovery what kind of information did they rely on to make these judgments, that is to say whether did they consider the mental states of the protagonist of the story. The results of the study found that even after controlling for age. moral judgment. intention judgment and belief, desire, result were correlated significantly, and the relationship of intention judgment and moral judgment was significantly negatively.The influence of different mental states on children’s moral judgment and intention judgment is different.In summary.the results of this research show that:(1) 4-6 years old children’s moral judgment and intention judgment abilities increased with age;(2) 4 years old children’s moral judgment is easily effected by the information of results,while neglecting of mental states information (especially in unexpectedly good results moral cases); while older children can gradually integrate desires, beliefs and other mental state information, and at the same time consider the behavior’s results and will use more social norms and personalized reasons as a moral judgment basis;(3) 4 years old children’s understanding of the intention has not yet been formed, when results of desire and behavior are consistent and the clues are obvious, they can make more accurate judgments; 5-6 years old children begin to consider the mental states such as belief and desire to make the judgment of intention.