In his account of the ontogeny of our human sense of moral obligation, Tomasello pinpoints its origin in early joint intentional action and describes two developments in the preschool years: the first regarding interpersonal obligation between collaborative partners and the second regarding norm-based morality within a cultural group. Tomasello invokes extensive support from cleverly designed experimental studies of young children's behavior (e.g., Gräfenhain et al. Reference Gräfenhain, Behne, Carpenter and Tomasello2009; Rekers et al. Reference Rekers, Haun and Tomasello2011), which have the dual virtues of bypassing young children's verbal limitations and facilitating cross-species comparisons. But Tomasello's reliance on experimental findings raises the question of how well the account tallies with real-life observations.
I suggest that complementary evidence is available in observations of children's everyday interactions, especially conversations about morality. To be clear, Tomasello does incorporate research involving language, such as his own finding that children react to transgression with protest that reflects normativity (Rakoczy et al. Reference Rakoczy, Warneken and Tomasello2008). But a different perspective is afforded by observations of children's real-life interactions. For instance, in exploring emerging moral sensitivity as revealed in two children's at-home talk with adults (Wright & Bartsch Reference Wright and Bartsch2008), we noted patterns that accord intriguingly with Tomasello's account. We examined 1,333 conversations involving moral terms (e.g., “good,” “wrong,” “mean”) sampled from “Abe” and “Sarah” as they aged from 2.5 to 5 years (Wright & Bartsch Reference Wright and Bartsch2008), utilizing archived transcriptions from the CHILDES database (MacWhinney Reference MacWhinney2000). Surprisingly, such conversations were most frequent, relative to other talk, when children were 2.5–3, compared to 4–5, years of age. We speculated that the early intensity of such talk reflected the new autonomy, mobility, and active participation associated with the “terrible twos,” noting also its coincidence with frequent talk about the desires of the children and adults, a recognized milestone in theory-of-mind development (e.g., Bartsch & Wellman Reference Bartsch and Wellman1995). Tomasello's proposal expands the explanation: Perhaps as 2- and 3-year-olds, Abe and Sarah were constructing with their collaborators (here, conversational partners) the hypothesized second-personal morality that constitutes initial sensitivity to obligation. The ensuing decline in such conversation, relative to other talk, perhaps reflected the second phase when an acquired understanding of group norms reduced explicit reference to moral rules, now assumed to be universally recognized (e.g., Mamman et al. Reference Mamman, Koymen and Tomasello2018).
Another characteristic of Abe's and Sarah's early moral conversations that tallies with Tomasello's account is the active role played by children in such discussions (Wright & Bartsch Reference Wright and Bartsch2008). Far from being passive recipients, both children surpassed their adult interlocuters in initiating moral conversations and did so as though they were exploring the rules and roles of those involved. Even as 2- and 3-year-olds, Abe and Sarah used moral terms frequently to give and request reasons (e.g., “because he's nice to nice people,” Wright & Bartsch Reference Wright and Bartsch2008, p. 61) more than for other purposes, such as to communicate feelings or to disapprove of actions, a functional disparity that increased with age. Abe at age 3, for instance, said, “You could have put it on the floor for me. I asked you so you should have done it” (Wright & Bartsch Reference Wright and Bartsch2008, p. 61).
Young children are not only surprisingly active in everyday moral conversation, as fits with Tomasello's proposition that they are constructing a sense of moral obligation, but their favored topics also accord with the account. Abe's and Sarah's conversations focused on mostly internal as opposed to external motivations, specifically on dispositions and behavior, primarily those of other people, and especially on bad behavior (Wright & Bartsch Reference Wright and Bartsch2008). Other researchers have similarly reported young children's fascination with others’ dispositions and transgressions, observing, for instance, that children focus more on a sibling's, than on their own, transgression (e.g., Dunn & Munn Reference Dunn and Munn1986; Ross & den Bak-Lammers Reference Ross and den Bak-Lammers1998). Dunn (Reference Dunn, Kagan and Lamb1987), who conducted comprehensive and systematic longitudinal studies of conversation among family trios consisting of a parent, a toddler, and an older sibling, reported that by age 2, children communicated openly about both obligation and blame with respect to family social rules and others’ feelings. These observations accord with Tomasello's characterization of emergent obligation, adding perspective and detail from the child's actual context and voice.
Observations of children's everyday conversations may also provide clues about individual differences in a developing sense of moral obligation. For example, although both Abe and Sarah initiated most moral discussions, Abe was active in 80% of conversations compared to Sarah at 60%, rates maintained throughout the several years (Wright & Bartsch Reference Wright and Bartsch2008). Conversation content also differed: For Abe, feelings and others’ welfare was the modal topic, characterizing 25% of moral conversations, while for Sarah issues of obedience and punishment were modal at 50% (Wright & Bartsch Reference Wright and Bartsch2008). These differences hint at divergent paths in moral focus and maybe in a sense of obligation. Evidence across studies suggests that contexts may figure importantly in individual trajectories. For Abe and Sarah, most moral conversations concerned immediate interpersonal interests rather than impersonal and abstract topics such as social rules (Wright & Bartsch Reference Wright and Bartsch2008), consistent with Tomasello's characterization of the earliest sensibility regarding obligation. Dunn (Reference Dunn, Kagan and Lamb1987), however, reported an increase over toddlerhood in the frequency with which mothers and older siblings spoke to toddlers about social rules and broken or flawed objects. It may matter whether early interactions involve only the child and parent, as in the observations of Abe and Sarah, as opposed to involving the child, a parent, and an older sibling, as in Dunn's (Reference Dunn, Kagan and Lamb1987) research. Such comparisons highlight the role of context, a factor acknowledged by Tomasello in his discussion of cross-cultural variation. Intensive observations of conversations suggest that, even across families, who is talking and what is talked about matter. For instance, pretend play has been observed to be a common context for moral discussion, although an activity that differs across families (e.g., Dunn Reference Dunn, Kagan and Lamb1987; Wright & Bartsch Reference Wright and Bartsch2008). These examples suggest that extant and future observational studies can contribute not only specificity regarding the nature of critical early interactions but also to an understanding of emergent individual differences as they relate to a developing sense of moral obligation.
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In his account of the ontogeny of our human sense of moral obligation, Tomasello pinpoints its origin in early joint intentional action and describes two developments in the preschool years: the first regarding interpersonal obligation between collaborative partners and the second regarding norm-based morality within a cultural group. Tomasello invokes extensive support from cleverly designed experimental studies of young children's behavior (e.g., Gräfenhain et al. Reference Gräfenhain, Behne, Carpenter and Tomasello2009; Rekers et al. Reference Rekers, Haun and Tomasello2011), which have the dual virtues of bypassing young children's verbal limitations and facilitating cross-species comparisons. But Tomasello's reliance on experimental findings raises the question of how well the account tallies with real-life observations.
I suggest that complementary evidence is available in observations of children's everyday interactions, especially conversations about morality. To be clear, Tomasello does incorporate research involving language, such as his own finding that children react to transgression with protest that reflects normativity (Rakoczy et al. Reference Rakoczy, Warneken and Tomasello2008). But a different perspective is afforded by observations of children's real-life interactions. For instance, in exploring emerging moral sensitivity as revealed in two children's at-home talk with adults (Wright & Bartsch Reference Wright and Bartsch2008), we noted patterns that accord intriguingly with Tomasello's account. We examined 1,333 conversations involving moral terms (e.g., “good,” “wrong,” “mean”) sampled from “Abe” and “Sarah” as they aged from 2.5 to 5 years (Wright & Bartsch Reference Wright and Bartsch2008), utilizing archived transcriptions from the CHILDES database (MacWhinney Reference MacWhinney2000). Surprisingly, such conversations were most frequent, relative to other talk, when children were 2.5–3, compared to 4–5, years of age. We speculated that the early intensity of such talk reflected the new autonomy, mobility, and active participation associated with the “terrible twos,” noting also its coincidence with frequent talk about the desires of the children and adults, a recognized milestone in theory-of-mind development (e.g., Bartsch & Wellman Reference Bartsch and Wellman1995). Tomasello's proposal expands the explanation: Perhaps as 2- and 3-year-olds, Abe and Sarah were constructing with their collaborators (here, conversational partners) the hypothesized second-personal morality that constitutes initial sensitivity to obligation. The ensuing decline in such conversation, relative to other talk, perhaps reflected the second phase when an acquired understanding of group norms reduced explicit reference to moral rules, now assumed to be universally recognized (e.g., Mamman et al. Reference Mamman, Koymen and Tomasello2018).
Another characteristic of Abe's and Sarah's early moral conversations that tallies with Tomasello's account is the active role played by children in such discussions (Wright & Bartsch Reference Wright and Bartsch2008). Far from being passive recipients, both children surpassed their adult interlocuters in initiating moral conversations and did so as though they were exploring the rules and roles of those involved. Even as 2- and 3-year-olds, Abe and Sarah used moral terms frequently to give and request reasons (e.g., “because he's nice to nice people,” Wright & Bartsch Reference Wright and Bartsch2008, p. 61) more than for other purposes, such as to communicate feelings or to disapprove of actions, a functional disparity that increased with age. Abe at age 3, for instance, said, “You could have put it on the floor for me. I asked you so you should have done it” (Wright & Bartsch Reference Wright and Bartsch2008, p. 61).
Young children are not only surprisingly active in everyday moral conversation, as fits with Tomasello's proposition that they are constructing a sense of moral obligation, but their favored topics also accord with the account. Abe's and Sarah's conversations focused on mostly internal as opposed to external motivations, specifically on dispositions and behavior, primarily those of other people, and especially on bad behavior (Wright & Bartsch Reference Wright and Bartsch2008). Other researchers have similarly reported young children's fascination with others’ dispositions and transgressions, observing, for instance, that children focus more on a sibling's, than on their own, transgression (e.g., Dunn & Munn Reference Dunn and Munn1986; Ross & den Bak-Lammers Reference Ross and den Bak-Lammers1998). Dunn (Reference Dunn, Kagan and Lamb1987), who conducted comprehensive and systematic longitudinal studies of conversation among family trios consisting of a parent, a toddler, and an older sibling, reported that by age 2, children communicated openly about both obligation and blame with respect to family social rules and others’ feelings. These observations accord with Tomasello's characterization of emergent obligation, adding perspective and detail from the child's actual context and voice.
Observations of children's everyday conversations may also provide clues about individual differences in a developing sense of moral obligation. For example, although both Abe and Sarah initiated most moral discussions, Abe was active in 80% of conversations compared to Sarah at 60%, rates maintained throughout the several years (Wright & Bartsch Reference Wright and Bartsch2008). Conversation content also differed: For Abe, feelings and others’ welfare was the modal topic, characterizing 25% of moral conversations, while for Sarah issues of obedience and punishment were modal at 50% (Wright & Bartsch Reference Wright and Bartsch2008). These differences hint at divergent paths in moral focus and maybe in a sense of obligation. Evidence across studies suggests that contexts may figure importantly in individual trajectories. For Abe and Sarah, most moral conversations concerned immediate interpersonal interests rather than impersonal and abstract topics such as social rules (Wright & Bartsch Reference Wright and Bartsch2008), consistent with Tomasello's characterization of the earliest sensibility regarding obligation. Dunn (Reference Dunn, Kagan and Lamb1987), however, reported an increase over toddlerhood in the frequency with which mothers and older siblings spoke to toddlers about social rules and broken or flawed objects. It may matter whether early interactions involve only the child and parent, as in the observations of Abe and Sarah, as opposed to involving the child, a parent, and an older sibling, as in Dunn's (Reference Dunn, Kagan and Lamb1987) research. Such comparisons highlight the role of context, a factor acknowledged by Tomasello in his discussion of cross-cultural variation. Intensive observations of conversations suggest that, even across families, who is talking and what is talked about matter. For instance, pretend play has been observed to be a common context for moral discussion, although an activity that differs across families (e.g., Dunn Reference Dunn, Kagan and Lamb1987; Wright & Bartsch Reference Wright and Bartsch2008). These examples suggest that extant and future observational studies can contribute not only specificity regarding the nature of critical early interactions but also to an understanding of emergent individual differences as they relate to a developing sense of moral obligation.