Moral character and competence judgments of sexual harassers and fraudsters in academic and business contexts.

Fraud and sexual harassment have been haunting academia for years. While the scientific community proposed strategies to overcome misconduct in research, the problem of sexual harassment seems unresolved. One reason for this might be a difference between men and women in the perception of the moral character and competence of sexual harassers.

Unmasking Moral Hypocrisy: How Preschoolers Perceive and Judge Moral Hypocrites.

Many previous studies indicate that children are highly sensitive to the immoral behavior of others, preferring prosocial over antisocial characters. Accordingly, children avoid transgressors from a very early age. A special kind of transgressor is the moral hypocrite, who not only acts immorally but also acts in contrast to what they preach.

What do children value more in a collaborator-Problem-solving capacity or fair sharing?

Collaboration requires individuals to find partners who are adept at problem-solving and act fairly when sharing the spoils of joint labor. Given that individuals might vary along both dimensions, it can create a dilemma with the challenging decision of whether to prioritize a potential partner's capacity to perform a task or the partner's level of fairness in sharing obtained resources. Here we tested whether young children can solve this dilemma when two potential partners have opposing qualities: One partner is high in the capacity to solve a problem but less likely to share fairly, whereas the other partner is lower in capacity but fair.

Hypocrisy moderates self-interest bias in moral character judgments.

Self-interest bias describes an observer's tendency to judge moral transgression leniently when they benefit from it. However, what factors moderate the self-interest bias is an open empirical question. Here, we investigated to what extent hypocrisy moderates the self-interest bias.

Eating pigs, not Peppa Pig: The effect of identifiability on children's propensity to humanize, befriend, and consume edible animals.

This research aimed to provide experimental evidence on whether identifying an edible animal by a name and specific preferences encourages children to perceive the animal as more similar to humans, increases their willingness to befriend the animal, and makes them less willing to consume it. In two pre-registered studies involving 208 preschool children, participants were presented with pictures of pigs (Study 1) and chickens (Study 2). In the identifiability condition, one animal was depicted with individual qualities such as a name and personal preferences, while in the non-identifiability condition, animals were portrayed with characteristics representative of the entire species.

Is helping always morally good? Study with toddlers and preschool children.

Young children from a very early age not only prefer those who help others but also those who engage in altruistic helping. This study aims to test how children assess helping when the goal of the helping behavior is immoral. We argue that younger children consider only the helping versus hindering behavior, but older children distinguish their judgments depending on the goal to which the helping leads.

The boundary conditions of the liking bias in moral character judgments.

Recent research has shown that moral character judgments are prone to the liking bias-well-liked people are seen as morally superior to disliked or neutral ones. However, whether moral information about their past behavior would moderate the liking bias is still an open empirical question addressed in present studies. In Study 1 (N = 653), participants updated their biased moral character impressions when moral information about the target was introduced after the liking induction.

Friends are not to be eaten: Children are reluctant to eat cookies that share physical and psychological human features due to their desire to relate to the food.

Children's food marketers very often use anthropomorphism in advertising as if it is an effective technique aimed at increasing food consumption. However, the evidence supporting this effect is mixed. In this research, we propose that while a food product's humanlike appearance (physical anthropomorphism) may increase consumption, attribution of mental states and emotions (psychological anthropomorphism) to a physically anthropomorphized food product discourages consumption because it facilitates the formation of a social-like relationship with the food.

Partner in crime: Beneficial cooperation overcomes children's aversion to antisocial others.

Young children display strong aversion toward antisocial individuals, but also feel responsible for joint activities and express a strong sense of group loyalty. This paper aims to understand how beneficial cooperation with an antisocial partner shapes preschoolers' attitudes, preferences, and moral judgments concerning antisocial individuals. We argue that although young children display a strong aversion to antisocial characters, children may overcome this aversion when they stand to personally benefit.