Preschool children show an emerging sensitivity to biocentric intentionsThis experimental study assessed five-year-olds' choices between two different ethical ways of judging human actions affecting the natural environment. An anthropocentric orientation focuses on preserving nature to meet human needs and interests; a biocentric orientation seeks to preserve nature because of its intrinsic value.
Twenty-nine Italian children participated in this study through one-on-one interactions with the researchers. After listening to four different illustrated stories, children evaluated the moral rightness or wrongness of an action taken by a character in the story. Children also indicated whether the character deserved a reward or a punishment for having caused -- as a side-effect of his actions -- damage to or an improvement to the environment. The stories were created to depict either an anthropocentric or biocentric intention on the part of the character and either a harmful or helpful environmentally-related outcome.
Children answered four follow-up questions to each of the stories: two comprehension questions relating to the character’s intent and nature of the outcome and two calling for a judgment about rightness or wrongness of the action and deserved punishment or reward. The children’s responses were recorded as reflecting either an anthropocentric or biocentric view.
For stories with positive environmental outcomes, children tended to judge the character’s actions as being more right and the character as being more worthy of a reward than for stories with environmentally harmful outcomes. The children also judged the character more worthy of a reward when he acted with a biocentric versus an anthropocentric intention. However, the children did not judge the decisions taken with biocentric intentions more or less right than the decisions taken with anthropocentric intentions, indicating that there was no effect of intention on how they judged the wrongness and punishability of actions.
Overall, this research indicates that even in the preschool years, children begin to show an emerging preference for biocentric intentions. While this tendency may emerge spontaneously in young children, education may play a crucial role in promoting or inhibiting this tendency. The researchers offer several recommendations for future research.
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