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AbstractFar from being unthinking energies or irrational impulses that control or push people around, emotions are intricately connected to the way people perceive, understand, and think about the world. As such, emotions are also an inextricable part of people's moral lives. As people go about making moral judgments and decisions, they do not merely apply abstract principles in a detached manner. Their emotions—their loves and sympathies, angers and fears, grief and sadness, guilt and shame—are inseparable from how they make sense of and evaluate their own and others' actions, the way things are, and the ways things ought to be. While this is not to say that emotions have a privileged role in morality, it does mean that emotions cannot be reasonably sidelined from the study of people's moral lives. Thus, an important part of formulating a theory of moral development is to articulate a framework for capturing children's relevant emotional experiences in the context of morally laden events. Such a framework should also help us understand how these sometimes turbulent or bewildering experiences inform, enrich, and change children's thinking about what is right and wrong and about themselves as moral agents. This article considers the research on the relation between emotion and moral thinking, offers a perspective that aims to broaden and elaborate our understanding of the connections between emotion and morality in adolescence, and sets a new agenda for research on this topic.

AbstractThis study examined associations between children's descriptions of sibling conflicts and their resolutions during a structured negotiation task. A sample of 58 sibling dyads (older sibling M age = 8.39 years, younger sibling M = 6.06 years) were privately interviewed about an actual conflict. Each child provided a narrative that was coded for conflict issues, identified who was at fault, and described each sibling's conflict emotions. Children's subsequent conflict negotiations were coded for whether compromise outcomes were reached. Compromises were more likely when conflicts implicated physical harm and children reported experiencing sadness during their fights. Compromises were less likely when children believed that their sibling was solely culpable for a fight or they attributed more anger to self than to their sibling. Results also revealed various birth order, age group, and gender effects. Findings are discussed in light of moral domain theory, children's interpretive understanding of conflict, and goal‐based theories of emotions.

AbstractThis study investigated associations between preschoolers' conversations about internal states and their spontaneous appraisals of self and sibling. Thirty‐two preschoolers (M age = 3.9 years) were observed during naturalistic home interactions with mothers and younger siblings. Various features of mothers' and children's internal state language were coded. Children who talked about internal states to the baby and who talked more about the baby's perspective tended to appraise their sibling negatively relative to self. In contrast, mothers' references to internal states, as well as their promotion and encouragement of the child's own internal state talk, were negatively related to the differences between children's negative appraisals of self and sibling. These results support the social‐constructivist notion that the quality of children's interactions with family members is related to how they construe themselves in comparison to their siblings.

In a sample of 95 urban Colombian mid‐adolescents, this mixed‐method study examined how youths' retaliatory desires and actions were juxtaposed with forgiveness and nonforgiveness in their narrative accounts of peer conflict. Quantitative analyses examined how retaliatory desire and action were associated with variations in youths' lifetime exposure to violence (ETV) and recent victimization by peers at school. These measures of violence exposure were related to revenge only in the context of unforgiven harms. Qualitative analyses explored aspects of youths' narrative accounts that may underlie the observed associations. Overall, findings suggest that ETV may interfere with youths' capacity to reflect on revenge in ways that recognize their own fallibility and thus open the door to forgiveness.

AbstractThis study examined children's and adolescents' descriptions of wanting and seeking revenge in peer conflicts. A total of 100 youth divided into three age groups (7‐, 11‐, and 16‐year‐olds) were interviewed about experiences in which they wanted to get back at a peer who harmed them. Most youth recalled experiencing retaliatory desires, but typically indicated that such desires were not acted out; 7‐year olds were less likely than older youth to describe carrying out their retaliatory desires. Youths' reasons for seeking revenge versus containing their retaliatory desires revealed age effects in their thinking about their own retaliation. Younger children's reasoning focused on the undesirability of harming others and potential punishments that could ensue, but they generally did not coordinate these concerns with the fact that they themselves had just been harmed. In contrast, older youth described their own retaliatory actions as driven by goals stemming from being deeply hurt, but such goals were balanced against their self‐protective motives, sensitivity to the particularities of transgressions, and self‐reflective moral commitments. Findings underscore that desires for revenge can be considered to be a part of children's experiences of conflict, but also crucially, that youth recognize their own capacities to contain and redirect these desires.

AbstractThis study investigated how six‐ to eight‐year‐old children interpret ambiguous provocation from their siblings. In particular, we examined how children's attributions of their siblings' intent (1) differed from those for their peers, (2) varied as a function of the structural features of the sibling relationship, and (3) were associated with the affective qualities of the sibling relationship. A total of 121 children were presented with ambiguous provocation scenarios in which three groups of agemates were described as the perpetrators of harm (siblings, friends, and disliked peers). Scenarios were designed to assess children's attributions of hostile, instrumental, and accidental intent. Children attributed more hostile intent to disliked peers than to siblings and less hostile intent to friends than to siblings. Accidental and instrumental intent attributions were equally likely for friends and siblings but less common for disliked peers. Children attributed more hostile intent to older siblings, and more instrumental intent to laterborn siblings who were chronologically younger. Children's attributions of siblings' intent were related to both parents' and children's reports of the affective features of siblings' interactions. Results provide new insight into how children's construals of others' actions are grounded in the unique features of their relationships with particular interaction partners.

AbstractThis study examined children's and adolescents' narrative accounts and evaluations of an instance when they forgave a peer and an instance when they did not forgive, as well as their definitions of what it means to forgive. The sample included 100 participants in three age groups (7‐, 11‐, and 16‐year olds). Regardless of age, forgiveness and non‐forgiveness accounts differed in interpersonal features, such as how they responded when hurt and whether the peer apologized. The psychological features of the experiences involving their own thoughts and feelings also distinguished between events that were forgiven and those that were not, but did so for 16‐year olds and, sometimes, for 11‐year olds, but never for 7‐year olds. The distinct ways in which younger and older children narrated their experiences also were reflected in their evolving definitions of what it means to forgive, though children's definitions revealed aspects of their thinking not captured in their narratives. Finally, children at all ages judged forgiving favorably but, with age, their evaluations of not forgiving became less negative. These findings challenge the narrow conceptual and methodological lenses through which forgiveness had been examined, and underscore meaningful age differences in the ways children make sense of and evaluate forgiveness and non‐forgiveness.

AbstractThis study investigated the moral socialization strategies that mothers use in conversations about their children's experiences of harming their siblings as compared with their friends. The sample included 101 mothers and their 7‐, 11‐, or 16‐year‐old children; each dyad discussed events when the child (a) harmed a younger sibling and (b) harmed a friend (order counterbalanced). Analyses indicated that when children harmed their siblings, mothers were more likely to emphasize their children's wrongdoings, the effects of harm, insights about the self and de‐escalatory strategies. In contrast, when children harmed their friends, mothers mitigated their responsibility for harm, focused on consequences for the relationship, and discussed reparative strategies. These patterns were not typically moderated by age; that is, distinctions in socialization strategies across relationships were largely maintained across middle childhood and adolescence. Findings provide empirical support for recent theorizing that parents respond flexibly to children's varied experiences of harm, and suggest that moral socialization practices take into account the unique features of children's relationships with different types of age‐mates (e.g., the relatively uninhibited quality of sibling harm and the voluntary nature of children's friendships).

This mixed‐methods study examined how adolescents understand and evaluate different ways to address intergroup harms in schools. In individual interviews, 77 adolescents (M age = 16.49 years; 39 girls, 38 boys) in Bogotá, Colombia, responded to hypothetical vignettes wherein a rival group at school engaged in a transgression against their group. Adolescents reported that students who were harmed should and would talk to school authorities, but also noted they would likely retaliate. In terms of teacher‐sanctioned responses to harm, youth endorsed compensation most strongly, followed by apologies, and rated suspension least positively. Youths' explanations for their endorsement of different disciplinary practices reflected varied concerns, including their perceptions of how justice is best achieved and how restoration could be attained.

AbstractThe goal of this study was to better understand similarities and differences in preschool children's expression of needs and prosocial responsiveness to peers' needs across two culturally distinct contexts. Preschoolers were observed in a semi‐naturalistic design across rural Mexico and urban Canada, wherein they were instructed to build a tower with blocks. Three‐ to 6‐year‐olds (N = 306; 48% female) were divided into 64 peer groups. We coded for children's expression of needs (instrumental, material, or emotional), responses to prosocial opportunities (prosociality, denial, or no response), prosociality without an apparent need (spontaneous prosociality), and types of prosocial behavior (helping, sharing, or comforting). While instrumental and material needs were expressed similarly across both samples, Tzotzil Maya children expressed fewer emotional needs than Canadian children. Failing to respond to others' needs, followed by denial, were the most frequent need‐provoked response in both countries; surprisingly, only 9% of needs received a prosocial response. Though need‐provoked prosociality was rare in both cultural contexts, children engaged in considerable spontaneous prosociality which varied as a function of age, gender, and cultural context. Lastly, Canadian more than Tzotzil Maya children denied emotional and instrumental needs (but not material needs). The findings inform how cultural practices may shape the presentation of needs and prosocial responsiveness in peer interactions.

AbstractThis study investigated mothers' and children's constructions of meaning about responsibility for harm in conversations about two experiences when children were hurt by a peer and felt they had either contributed or not contributed to the situation. The sample included 105 Canadian mothers (75% White) and their children (53 girls, 52 boys) across three age groups (M ages = 6.92, 11.14, 15.89 years). Overall, mothers and children emphasized different aspects of responsibility; mothers made more evaluations of acts and discussed the avoidability of harm whereas children referred more to hurtful acts, consequences, reasons, and subsequent responses. Discussions of the child's and peer's responsibility were responsive to the child's perspective on events. The child's responsibility for self‐protection was particularly emphasized by mothers and when the child felt they had not contributed to the situation. Children more often mitigated their responsibility as compared to their mothers, and older children referred more to their own and their peer's responsibility for harm. Findings illuminate how conversations with mothers may inform children's judgments of their own and others' roles in peer conflict.

AbstractIn childhood, musical play is an important part of home life and, potentially, sibling play. Considering the social–emotional relevance of musical activities, siblings' engagement in musical play may also be associated with social development. The current longitudinal study examined musical play in 39 pairs of siblings during naturalistic home play at two time points: (a) when siblings were 2 and 4 years old (T1), and (b) 2 years later when siblings were 4 and 6 years old (T2). Musical play, especially singing and dancing, was more prevalent at T2. Birth order effects were also revealed; 4‐year‐old second‐borns (T2) engaged in more solo musical play than 4‐year‐old firstborns (T1), but 4‐year‐old firstborns initiated joint musical play more often than 4‐year‐old second‐borns. Associations between musical play and prosociality also emerged. Specifically, both older and younger siblings' rates of prosociality correlated positively with older sibling musical play at each time point. These findings reveal intriguing effects of age and birth order on both solo and joint musical play between siblings, and highlight a potential link between spontaneous musical play in the home and social development.