Children's appraisals of antisocial acts:: A Piagetian perspective

This study examines developmental aspects of children's appraisals of antisocial acts by integrating the two micromodels Piaget used at different points in his research programme to describe and explain the child's transition from pre-operational to operational thought. One model guided by game theory involves a cost-gain evaluation, and is mainly a functional model (Piaget, 1957); the other, based on equilibration theory, appeals to the initial priority of affirmations over negations, and is mainly a structural model (Piaget, 1975). The integration of these two models leads to the prediction that while younger children tend to perceive antisocial acts in terms of gain-perception and affirmation, older children tend to think of them in terms of cost-construction and negation. The participants were 96 children from three age levels (32 5-6-year-olds, 32 7-8-year-olds, and 32 10-11-year-olds). They were first confronted with four hypothetical antisocial scenarios and were then asked to engage in a task measuring gain-perception/cost-construction for each one. Children's responses showed that they are more likely with age to consider prototypical antisocial acts (e.g. stealing, pushing) in terms of cost-construction and negation than gain-perception and affirmation. In addition to supporting the hypothesized prediction, this finding may turn out to be of value in the design of further research and provide a better understanding of some developmental aspects reported in the literature on children's antisocial behaviour.