Children's intention-based moral judgments of helping agents

- We reported an outcome-to-intent shift in moral goodness attribution.
- Goodness and badness judgments of accidents showed similar developmental changes.
- In judging attempts, intent-based goodness develops prior to intent-based badness judgment.

During preschool years, children's disapprovals of harming actions increasingly rely on intention rather than outcome. Here we studied for the first time whether a similar outcome-to-intent shift occurs in judgments of helping actions. Children aged four-to-eight (N = 404) were asked to evaluate the goodness and deserved reward of attempted and accidental help (Experiment 1), and the badness and punishability of attempted and accidental harm (Experiment 2). We found an outcome-to-intent shift both in goodness and badness evaluations. In judging failed attempts, children's intent-based attribution of goodness develops prior to the intent-based attribution of badness. We discuss the implications of the present findings for recent theories on conceptual change and cognitive architecture underlying the development of moral judgment.