Children's Use of Ulterior Motive Information

BUTZIN, CLIFFORD A., and DOZIER, MARY. Children's Use of Ulterior Motive Information. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1986, 57, 1375-1385. In 3 experiments we examined developmental differences in the use of ulterior motive information. Mature use of such information requires making inverse postdictions. That is, stronger ulterior motives result in lower judgments of niceness for an already completed action. It was proposed that it is the logical form of this question that proves difficult for young children. In a first experiment, young children (5-year-olds) differed from older children (9year-olds) in using a direct, rather than an inverse, rule for ulterior motive information. This effect was found for ulterior motive information involving reward from parents, as well as hunger. In a second experiment, the youngest children demonstrated that they understood the causal effects of the motive manipulation on behavior, that they were making a realistic interpretation of the stimulus situation, and that they shared the adult evaluative distinction between ulterior and superior motives. Finally, a third experiment suggested that the direct rule may be specific to the moral judgment context.