How relevant is childhood on judgement?
University of Missouri-Columbia
In a recent study, University of Missouri
researchers discovered why someone's childhood adversity influences how others
judge their behavior.
The finding contributes to a growing body of evidence
that suggests judgments of praise and blame are "asymmetrically
sensitive" to certain types of information about someone's life history,
said Philip Robbins, associate professor and chair of the Department of Philosophy.
"In the case of negative or anti-social behavior, we see the actions of people with adverse childhood experiences as less of a reflection of their fundamental moral character, and more as a reflection of the environment they were raised in, so we blame them less for those actions," Robbins said.
"On the other hand, when someone has
experienced adversity in childhood and does something good, we tend to think of
that behavior as more reflective or expressive of who the person is deep down,
so we praise them more for it."
The research, based on statistical analysis of survey
results from 248 participants, suggests that struggling with adversity in early
life can be a "deformative experience," reshaping an individual's
moral development.
"Experiences deform people's behavior in the sense
that adverse experiences can pull people away from who they really are on a
deeper level by pushing them onto an 'alternative' track of anti-sociality that
they otherwise wouldn't be on," Robbins said.
The research conducted by Robbins and Fernando Alvear, a doctoral candidate in philosophy at MU, builds upon earlier work by Robbins and other colleagues, including Paul Litton, dean of the MU School of Law.
Previously, Robbins and his colleagues found that people tend to think of a violent criminal as less culpable and less deserving of punishment when told that the accused had suffered serious harm in childhood.
They also found that people
tend to give more praise to someone for their good deeds as an adult after
discovering that person had to overcome adversity or suffering earlier in life,
such as abuse and neglect as a child.
The current study by Robbins and Alvear aimed to address
a largely unanswered question from the earlier work about why this kind of
information has this effect on people's judgements.
"This has all sorts of implications for people's social interactions," Robbins said.
"Moral judgment is tremendously
important for how we relate to others as people because they form an essential
part of social judgment. The current research is part of a larger project aimed
at understanding how moral judgment works. This understanding could potentially
reorient people's thinking in ways that could have positive effects on the
everyday practice of blaming and praising."
Robbins believes there is a natural "track" for
a person's development, and people who haven't experienced challenging life
events, including loss, trauma or other social disadvantages, do not typically
develop strong anti-social tendencies later in life.
"People generally learn to behave in morally
appropriate ways toward other people, such as not hurting, harming or speaking
ill of them," Robbins said. "When people don't learn these lessons,
they are pulled off-track from the natural path of development. People may not
be saints or heroes, but most of us aren't villains either."
In future work, Robbins plans to explore the role that gender stereotyping may play in determining how judgments of blame and praise are affected by information about a person's life history.
