CAREER: Children's and Adults' Perceptions of Redemption

If someone commits an infraction, violating rules or norms of a group, then members of that group will typically apply negative evaluations to that person. If the individual is caught and punished for the infraction, in some cases the person is seen as having earned redemption, for instance if they are seen as having 'paid their debt to society.' In other cases, however, society does not perceive the person as redeemed, but rather as someone with inherent failings. These different perceptions may depend on whether the punishment is seen as 'action-oriented' or 'person-oriented.' Philosophers and scientists have discussed the moral and social judgments associated with this reasoning for centuries. This proposal aims to approach a better understanding through the lens of developmental science.

The current proposal unites developmental, social, and cognitive psychology, as well as related fields, to examine how people make judgments about redemption and what consequences these judgments hold for (im)moral behavior. Adults and children will engage with a wide range of scenarios in which people break rules and receive different kinds of punishments. The researchers will then assess how study participants morally evaluate the rule-breaking individual. By delineating the distinction between action-oriented and person-oriented punishments, this work will clarify the relation between punishment and moral evaluation. Further, by testing participants from different age groups in the same paradigm, the proposed research will illuminate cognitive developmental mechanisms (e.g., changes in optimistic judgments regarding human nature) that are expected to underlie the predicted effects. Finally, by testing the behavioral outcomes of judgments concerning redemption, this work will increase understanding of when and why people transgress.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.