Do young children accept responsibility for the negative actions of ingroup members?

This study investigated whether young children accept responsibility for the negative actions of ingroup members. Five-year-old children watched a transgressor break someone else's valued possession. Depending on condition, this transgressor either belonged to the same group as the child or a different group from the child. Coding of children's nonverbal behaviour indicated that they displayed more signs of guilt (but not other negative emotions) when the transgressor belonged to their own group than the other group. Furthermore, when the transgressor belonged to their own group, children were more likely to say that their own group should apologise for the damage and that they themselves should try to repair the broken object. Children's connections to their groups are thus so profound that they appear to feel responsible for the negative actions of their group members even when they had no personal involvement in the harm those actions caused.

Duke Scholars

Author Michael Tomasello Psychology & Neuroscience