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African American Children’s Affective Attributions andConsequences Regarding Sociomoral Events
Marisha L. Humphries
Department of Educational Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago
Research Findings: This study examined 56 young (prekindergarten through 2nd grade)
urban-dwelling African American children’s understanding of the affective attributions and conse-
quences of 3 types of sociomoral rule systems: prosocial, active, and inhibitive morality. It also
tested the relationship of affective attributions and consequences to children’s behavior. As expected,
children’s affective responses differed by sociomoral rule system and character role type, supporting
the notion of a ‘‘happy victimizer’’ and a subtle attributional shift. Children provided affective attri-
butions that attempted to resolve the dilemmas presented in the different sociomoral vignettes regard-
less of the affect associated with the vignette. The relationship of children’s affective attributions and
consequences to their behavior in school was partially supported. Children’s affective attributions
were significantly associated with their prosocial behavior. However, contrary to predictions, no
other significant associations emerged between children’s affective attributions and negative beha-
vior or between children’s affective consequences and behavior. Practice or Policy: Those workingwith young African American children should consider the reasoning behind children’s emotional
and behavioral reactions and not just focus on the correct or appropriate response to understand
and promote children’s positive development. There are implications for supporting African
American children’s competence development at school through a behavior promotion approach.
Children’s social interactions typically occur within emotional contexts (Eisenberg, Fabes,
Carlo, & Karbon, 1992). A child who is able to successfully analyze and negotiate emotionally
charged interpersonal interactions and regulate these emotional experiences is said to be
emotionally competent (Saarni, 1990). Emotional competence includes one’s knowledge of
the affective consequences of interpersonal interactions that center on morally right or wrong
behavior (e.g., Saarni, 1997) or sociomoral events. These sociomoral events are often emotion-
ally charged interactions (Arsenio & Lover, 1995). It is necessary for children to develop such
affective knowledge and skills to help them successfully negotiate emotionally charged socio-
moral events like sharing, helping, and hitting, events that children experience almost daily with
siblings and=or with peers in day care and school settings. As a result, emotions play a critical
role in children’s social functioning (e.g., Eisenberg et al., 1995; Garner, 1996; Halberstadt,
Denham, & Dunsmore, 2001; Saarni, 1990). There has been great interest in understanding
Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to Marisha L. Humphries, PhD, Educational Psychology
(MC 147), College of Education, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1040 West Harrison Street, Chicago, IL 60607-7133.
E-mail: [email protected]
Early Education and Development, 24: 212–232
Copyright # 2013 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1040-9289 print/1556-6935 online
DOI: 10.1080/10409289.2011.647610
the relationship between affect and sociomoral reasoning and its subsequent impact on or
relationship with children’s behavior. For instance, social emotional competence and character
development are said to be critical to children’s prosocial behavior, academic success, cit-
izenship, and positive classroom environments (Elias, 2009). However, research has largely
focused on children’s aggressive behavior, with less attention given to exclusively examining
prosocial or normative development and minority populations.
Some research with African American children has indicated that these children are unfortu-
nately more likely to be exposed to conditions that can compromise their emotional and social
development (Burchinal, Roberts, Zeisel, Hennon, & Hooper, 2006; McLoyd, 1990; Mendez,
Fantuzzo, & Cicchetti, 2002). However, most African American children from urban and=orlow-income or impoverished backgrounds do not develop emotional and social problems
(Gabalda, Thompson, & Kaslow, 2010; Garner, 2006). There is a need to understand the norma-
tive development of African American children who experience challenging situations and con-
texts (American Psychological Association, 2008) from a within-group design. It is important to
understand the factors related to positive emotional and social development in order to maximize
African American children’s optimal development. The present study examined young
urban-dwelling African American children’s affective attributions and consequences of socio-
moral events and how this is related to their behavior with peers.
SOCIOMORAL AFFECT
Hoffman (1983) contended that children’s emotional states and their understanding of their emo-
tions are an important part in the internalization of moral norms; they are thought to be crucial in
the developmental of moral knowledge (Wiersma & Laupa, 2000). A moral sense and emotional
competence are integrated concepts, in that being emotionally competent entails making morally
correct behavioral choices (Saarni, 1997). Specifically, when emotional skills are separated from
a moral sensibility, an individual cannot be emotionally competent. Children’s knowledge of the
emotional or affective consequences of moral transgressions is a part of the situational determi-
nants of emotions (Nunner-Winkler & Sodian, 1988).
Sociomoral events or acts refers to social interactions that provide a context for defining what
is morally right or good (Gibbs, Widaman, & Colby, 1982). Intense emotional responses are
often evoked in those experiencing or witnessing such sociomoral events. These events focus
on the distribution of resources, social conventions, and victimization (Arsenio, 1988) and in
the current study are represented by prosocial, active, and inhibitive morality rule systems. Pro-
social morality is identified as the use of private resources to benefit the outcomes of others
(Eisenberg, 1982). This includes behaviors like sharing and cooperating. Active morality implies
intervention on behalf of someone being victimized or witnessing a transgression (Tisak & Ford,
1986). Behaviors like helping someone who has been treated unfairly and comforting someone
in distress represent active morality in the current study. Deliberately victimizing others and
depriving people of their rights is inhibitive morality (Tisak & Ford, 1986). Stealing and hitting
are examples of inhibitive morality (Tisak & Ford, 1986) that have been studied in other research
examining harm (e.g., Goldstein, Tisak, & Boxer, 2002; Smetana, Campione-Barr, & Yell,
2003; Tisak, Nucci, & Jankowski, 1996). These sociomoral behaviors are particularly germane
to young children because of the prevalence of such behaviors among young children who are
ATTRIBUTIONS AND CONSEQUENCES 213
learning to navigate their ever-expanding social world. This becomes especially relevant as
young children begin to attend some form of schooling or out-of-home care.
Children develop general sociomoral principles by integrating their knowledge about affect-
ive attributions and consequences from various situations. It has been found that children use
affective information to infer sociomoral events (Arsenio, 1988). For example, a child who does
not like how it feels when someone hits her may conclude from her own experiences that her
friends and other peers will also not like how it feels to be hit by others. This contributes to
a fairly general moral principle about specific emotions associated with being hit and hitting
others.
Jagers, Bingham, and Hans (1996) found among a sample of inner-city African American
kindergartners that not sharing was viewed differently than other moral transgressions. However,
some research (Nucci & Herman, 1982) has not yielded race differences when comparing nor-
mal and behaviorally disordered African American and White children’s conceptions of moral,
social convention, and personal domains. Like Jagers and colleagues, other research with young
non–African American children (Malti, Gasser, & Buchmann, 2009; Smetana, Schlagman, &
Adams, 1993) has reported that children were less likely to view not sharing as a moral trans-
gression compared to hitting or stealing. This finding is surprising given the communal cultural
orientation associated with the African American community, whereby there is a sense of inde-
pendence and emotional connection to others. This conception of communalism, which is
defined and assessed from an Afrocultural worldview, implies an awareness of the fundamental
interdependence of people with a premium placed on social bonds and obligations (Boykin,
Jagers, Ellison, & Albury, 1997). Previous research has found a significant relationship between
communalism and morality from middle childhood through adolescence (Humphries & Jagers,
2009; Humphries, Parker, & Jagers, 2000; Woods & Jagers, 2003). Furthermore, a communal
orientation is thought to facilitate empathy (Kuther & Wallace, 2003). Examining the emotional
expectations associated with different sociomoral events may help to explain African American
children’s judgments regarding moral events or behaviors. Perhaps African American children
perceive and respond to moral transgressions differently than other non–African American
children given their cultural orientation, racial status, and position within the United States.
There is a great concern regarding children exhibiting or witnessing inhibitive morality beha-
viors, like hitting and stealing, and their reasoning about these behaviors (e.g., Arsenio &
Lemerise, 2004; Goldstein et al., 2002; Smetana et al., 2003; Tisak, 1986; Tisak et al., 1996;
Tisak & Turiel, 1988). Inhibitive morality has received a great deal of attention in terms of
the affective attributions that children ascribe to the victimizer (e.g., Arsenio, 1988; Smetana
et al., 2003). Previous research studies showed that a racially and ethnically diverse group of
young children who were behaviorally disruptive viewed the victimizer as feeling positive about
the transgressions (Arsenio & Fleiss, 1996; Arsenio & Lover, 1995; Barden, Zelko, Duncan, &
Masters, 1980; Lourenco, 1997; Nunner-Winkler & Sodian, 1988; Ramos-Marcuse & Arsenio,
2001; Wiersma & Laupa, 2000). Young children linked the victimizer’s positive emotions to
securing a desired object or reaching an obtained goal, not to the act of victimization. This con-
cept is known as the ‘‘happy victimizer’’ and is common among preschoolers (Arsenio & Lover,
1995; Nunner-Winkler & Sodian, 1988).
There is a developmental shift from viewing victimization strictly in terms of an obtained
object or goal to viewing victimization from victims’ perspectives and considering external
social standards, which leads to attributing more negative affect to transgressors. However, there
214 HUMPHRIES
is disagreement in the literature as to when this developmental shift occurs. Nunner-Winkler and
Sodian (1988) found in their research that the developmental shift occurred around the age of 8,
in that 4- to 6-year-olds expected the victimizer to be happy and 8-year-olds expected negative
affect. However, Arsenio and Kramer (1992) and Lourenco (1997) found that the majority of
8-year-olds were ascribing mixed emotional consequences, both positive and negative, to the
victimizer as opposed to strictly negative emotions, suggesting a subtle moral attributional shift
among 8-year-olds. Given this developmental shift, the current study examined grade effects for
the happy victimizer effect among African American children.
AFFECTIVE CONSEQUENCES AND BEHAVIOR
Children’s knowledge about emotional consequences is thought to mediate their sociomoral
behavior, in that such knowledge aids them in predicting the outcomes of different actions
and planning their own behavior (Arsenio, 1988). African American preschool children from
low- to middle-income backgrounds who had greater emotional knowledge and provided less
violent responses to interpersonal conflict were identified as being more liked by their peers
(Smith, 2001). Ramos-Marcuse and Arsenio (2001) found similar findings among a sample of
normal and clinically referred young, largely African American and Latino, children. Specifi-
cally, children who reported more aggressive responses to moral narratives were rated by their
teachers or clinicians as having higher externalizing behavior scores. However, children who
discussed themes of reparations were less likely to be rated as having externalizing behaviors.
In a sample of ethnically diverse school-age children, these children’s aggressive attributions
were related to their negative peer interactions (Garner, 1996). Children’s affective knowledge
about sociomoral narratives or situations appears to be related to their behavior with others.
Although previous research has examined the link between affective attributions and behavior
for a racially and ethnically diverse sample, there has been less attention to the examination of
African American children’s affective attributions and consequences. It is important to further
explore this line of research with a sample of African American children to examine
within-group variability. Furthermore, the burgeoning use of social and emotional competence
programs targeted at African American children in urban schools calls for the need to understand
the typical development of these children in order to create and implement effective programs.
AGE AND GENDER
As children develop they have increased opportunities as they age to engage in social interac-
tions. Engagement in these interactions places more demands on their use and development
of social and emotional skills. There are marked changes in children’s emotional and social
development, especially during the preschool years and as children transition into the primary
grades. Thus, older children typically have more sophisticated sociomoral reasoning (Humphries
et al., 2000; Smetana et al., 2003) and competence skills (Denham, Mitchell-Copeland, Strand-
berg, Auerbach, & Blair, 1997) than younger children. However, Garner (1996) found no age
(grade) effects in a diverse sample of third and fourth graders’ affective moral attributions
and prosocial behavior. In addition to grade or age differences, gender differences have also been
noted. It has often been acknowledged that girls and boys can be socialized differently regarding
ATTRIBUTIONS AND CONSEQUENCES 215
emotions and respond to and express emotions differently. Girls typically are identified as exhi-
biting greater affective skills (Bocknek, Brophy-Herb, & Banerjee, 2009; Garner & Waajid,
2008) and express emotions differently (Chaplin, Cole, & Zahn-Waxler, 2005) than boys. In
a study by Smith (2001), African American preschool girls were rated as exhibiting more empa-
thy behaviors than boys.
THE CURRENT STUDY
The purpose of this study was to examine young African American children’s understanding of
the affective attributions and consequences of sociomoral events and its association with their
behavior in the school context. I hypothesized the following: (a) Children will differentiate their
emotional responses across three types of sociomoral events (i.e., prosocial, active, and inhibi-
tive) and characters (i.e., actor and recipient), (b) children whose affective attributions and conse-
quences focus on beneficial outcomes for others will be rated by teachers as being prosocial with
their classmates, and (c) children whose affective attributions and affective consequences are con-
cerned with transgressions or personal gain will be rated as being more aggressive with and
excluded by their classmates. Given past findings and developmental differences, gender and grade
differences were also assessed. Finally, it was anticipated that (d) children in first and second grades
would vary in terms of affective valence, attributions, and consequences, including the happy
victimizer effect, in comparison to children in prekindergarten and kindergarten.
METHODS
Participants
A total of 56 African American children (29 boys and 27 girls) participated in this research study
with parental consent. The children attended a public elementary school in a large midwestern
city. This school was a public–private partnership initiative. According to school demographics,
100% of the student body was African American, and 79% of the children were from
low-income backgrounds (i.e., received free or reduced lunch). The children ranged in age from
3 to 8 years old. The original sample consisted of 66 children; however, during the course of this
study, six children dropped out of the study because of either attrition or exclusion. Four of these
six children transferred to new schools. The other two children were excluded because they
denied assent, despite parental consent, at the time of the interview. Four additional children
were not included in the analyses because their audiotaped interviews were inaudible. Therefore,
the final sample for this study consisted of 56 children: 13 prekindergartners (7 girls and 6 boys),
8 kindergartners (2 girls and 6 boys), 12 first graders (9 girls and 3 boys), and 23 second graders
(9 girls and 14 boys).
Procedures
The study was presented to the school staff at a teacher staff meeting and to parents at parent
meetings at the beginning of the school year. Parental consent forms were distributed in each
216 HUMPHRIES
classroom and sent home with the children. The consent forms asked for the child to partici-
pate in a study about children’s social and emotional learning and development. Consent
forms were returned to the teachers and collected by the research assistants. All children
who returned their consent forms received a small treat, regardless of whether their parents
gave or denied consent. Each participating child received an educational workbook for being
in the study.
A research team of three African American women interviewed the children. To increase the
children’s familiarity and comfort with the interviewers, the research team interacted with the
participants during class, lunch, and recess prior to beginning data collection. Individual inter-
views were conducted in a separate room in the school during regular school hours. The children
were audiotaped during these sessions. A professional transcription company transcribed the
audiotaped interviews verbatim.
The teachers were asked to complete the Child Behavior Scale (Ladd & Profilet, 1996) for
each of the children in the study. This measure was distributed at the close of the school year
in order to obtain a full assessment of each child’s behavior. Teachers were paid $2 for each
rating form they completed.
Measures
Situational sociomoral affective vignettes. Children were presented with a series of six
short vignettes reflective of three types of sociomoral events. Two vignettes were developed
for each type of morality: prosocial, active, and inhibitive morality. Prosocial morality vignettes
reflected the use of private resources to provide beneficial outcomes for others (e.g., sharing and
cooperating; Eisenberg, 1982). Vignettes for active morality featured interventions on behalf of
someone who was being victimized (e.g., helping and comforting; Tisak, 1986; Tisak & Ford,
1986). Inhibitive morality vignettes focused on victimizing others and unfairly depriving the
rights of others (e.g., stealing and hitting; Tisak & Ford, 1986; Turiel, 1983). Each vignette
was two to three sentences in length and was represented by two to three 8� 11’’ colored picture
cards featuring two African American child characters, an actor and a recipient. Sample vignettes
for the three moralities are as follows:
Malik brought his favorite transformer to school. He wanted to play with it during free play. When it
came time for free play, Dave asked to play with the transformer. (Prosocial)
Jasmine was walking home from school. She sees another child picking on Sharon. Jasmine
stops the child from picking on Sharon. (Active)
Lisa and Mya are running for the last swing. Mya gets to the swing first. Lisa pushes her down
and gets in the swing. (Inhibitive)
The characters did not have facial features so as not to lead the children in how they responded
to the vignettes. The gender of the characters matched the gender of the responding child.
After the children were read and shown the vignette picture cards, they were asked to identify
(a) how they would feel if they were the actor and the recipient in the vignettes (i.e., affective
valence), (b) why they would feel that emotion (i.e., affective attribution), (c) the intensity of the
emotion, and (d) what should happen next in the story (i.e., affective consequence). Consistent
with Arsenio (1988), scoring for the labeling or identification of emotions was as follows:
ATTRIBUTIONS AND CONSEQUENCES 217
negative valence emotions (i.e., anger, fear, and sadness) were scored as�1, neutral emotions
(i.e., okay and fine) as 0, and positive emotions (i.e., happiness) as þ1. After labeling the emo-
tion, the children were asked to identify the intensity of that emotion (e.g., How [insert emotion
given by child] would you be?) while being presented with an emotional intensity card.
Emotional intensity was represented by five faces of varying emotional intensity on two separate
cards (one positive and one negative emotion) and scored on a 5-point scale, with 1 being low
emotional intensity and 5 being high emotional intensity.
Children’s qualitative responses regarding affective attributions (i.e., why the character felt a
particular emotion) and affective consequence (i.e., story completion) responses were coded
based on the social cognitive coding categories of Tisak (1986), Smetana et al. (2003), and
Arsenio and Fleiss (1996). Children’s affective attribution and consequence responses to each
morality vignette were read in their entirety before being coding for the following categories:
(a) Other’s Welfare—act involves creating negative outcomes for others, including violation
of one’s rights; (b) Rule Orientation=Authority—acts regulated by rules or authority;
(c) Order=Pragmatic Concerns—acts or justifications focused on social concerns, expectations,
and order; (d) Beneficial Outcomes—act involves creating positive outcomes for another; (e)
Hedonistic=Personal Gain—act involves gains or concern for one person over another; (f) Per-
sonal Business—involves an act or issue that is seen as the actor’s own personal business; (g)
Unelaborated—acts justified for no specific reason; and (h) Uncodable (see Table 1). The attri-
butions and consequences were coded categorically with 1 indicating endorsement of the cate-
gory and 0 indicating that a category was not endorsed. The average proportion of endorsements
of each attribution and consequence was obtained for each participant.
The scoring of the story completion task (e.g., affective attributions) was not only based on
these social cognitive categories but was also based on a 3-point story completion scoring sys-
tem by Dunn, Brown, and Maguire (1995). Story completions were scored according to who
attempted to resolve the conflict or dilemma in the sociomoral vignette: the actor and recipient
TABLE 1
Coding Categories for Affective Attributions and Consequences
Coding Category Response Types
Other’s Welfare Physical and emotional aggression
Transgressions
Rule Orientation=Authority Violation of norms, family, and classroom
Order=Pragmatic Concerns Courteous behavior
Tit-for-tat behavior
Beneficial Outcomes Intervention
Prosocial behavior
Hedonistic=Personal Gain Possession
Competition
Personal Business Missed opportunity
Play
Unelaborated Behavior continues or ceases
Characteristics of target object or character
Uncodable Missing data
Inaudible
218 HUMPHRIES
resolved the conflict together or separately (2 points), the conflict was resolved by an external
influence (1 points), or there was no resolution or no story completion provided (0 point).
Piloting of these vignettes with children ages 3 to 11 years old supported the use of these
vignettes and interview procedure. Along with a second coder, an advanced female graduate stu-
dent, I read and coded all of the children’s interviews. The second coder participated in all
phases of coding in order to create stability and reliability during the coding process. Interrater
reliability for the coding of the affective attributions and affective consequences (i.e., the story
completion task) was 92.13% utilizing Miles and Huberman’s (1994) method.
Child behavior scale. This is a 35-item teacher rating scale that asks how often a child
exhibits a broad range of behaviors with his or her peers in school (Ladd & Profilet, 1996).
In the present study, three subscales, each composed of seven items, were utilized: aggressive
with peers (e.g., ‘‘This child fights’’), prosocial with peers (e.g., ‘‘This child helps’’), and
excluded by peers (e.g., ‘‘This child is excluded from peer activities’’). Each of the items
was responded to on a 3-point scale (1¼ rarely applies, 2¼ applies somewhat, and 3¼ certainly
applies). Subscale scores were obtained by averaging items in each subscale. For this study, the
aggressive and excluded subscales were combined to create one negative behavior subscale.
Cronbach’s alphas using the data from the current study ranged from .87 to .92.
RESULTS
The data analysis strategies presented here were used to test the following hypothesized relation-
ships among children’s affective attributions of emotions, their affective consequences, and their
behavior at school: (a) Children will differentiate their emotional responses across three types of
sociomoral events (i.e., prosocial, active, and inhibitive) and characters (i.e., actor and recipient),
(b) children whose causal attributions and affective consequences focus on beneficial outcomes
will be rated by teachers as being prosocial with their classmates, (c) children whose affective
attributions and affective consequences are concerned with transgressions or personal gain will
be rated as displaying more aggressive and negative behaviors with their classmates, and (d)
children in first and second grades will vary in terms of affective valence, attributions, and con-
sequences, including the happy victimizer effect, in comparison to children in prekindergarten
and kindergarten.
When testing for grade effects, I combined prekindergartners and kindergartners into one
group (n¼ 21) and combined first and second graders to create a second group (n¼ 35) as
opposed to examining each grade individually, given the small sample size. The means and stan-
dard deviations for all study variables are presented in Table 2. Affective valence, affective
intensity, and story completion represent the mean response ratings provided by participants.
Affective attributions and consequences represent the mean ratings of coding categories ident-
ified by participants across characters and sociomoral events.
Affective Valence—Character Role by Sociomoral Rule Systems
It was hypothesized that children would differentiate their emotional responses across the three
types of sociomoral events (i.e., prosocial, active, and inhibitive). Grade effects were tested by
ATTRIBUTIONS AND CONSEQUENCES 219
comparing prekindergartners and kindergartners to first and second graders. To test this hypoth-
esis, I conducted a 2 (grade)� 2 (character role)� 3 (sociomoral event) repeated measures
analysis of variance on affective valence scores (positive, negative, or neutral emotion). Signifi-
cant main effects emerged for both character role, F(1, 52)¼ 56.41, p< .001; and sociomoral
rule system, F(2, 51)¼ 44.33, p< .001. Children’s affective valence scores differed in terms
of the characters (e.g., actors and recipients) and the sociomoral vignettes. However, there
was no significant main effect for grade.
Post hoc comparisons revealed that children’s affective valence of the prosocial sociomoral
rule system differed significantly from that of the inhibitive rule system, F(1, 52)¼ 56.41,
p< .001. The prosocial events were characterized by positive affect, whereas the inhibitive
events were characterized by negative affect. There was no significant difference between the
affective valence of the active and inhibitive sociomoral events. Results also revealed that actors’
and recipients’ affective valence differed between the prosocial and inhibitive sociomoral events,
F(1, 52)¼ 21.78, p< .001; and between the active and inhibitive sociomoral events, F(1,52)¼ 11.69, p< .01. The actors in the active sociomoral events were characterized with more
negative affect than the actors in the inhibitive sociomoral event.
It was hypothesized that children would vary their affective valence by character role for the
sociomoral events. There was a significant interaction of character role (actor and recipient) and
sociomoral event on affective valence, F(2, 51)¼ 10.68, p< .001. This indicated that children’s
affective valence for actors and recipients differed by the sociomoral event (i.e., prosocial,
active, and inhibitive morality). Figure 1 presents the mean affective valence scores by character
role and sociomoral event. This figure shows the affective valence that children assigned to each
TABLE 2
Mean Scores
Variable M SD Range
Affective valence �0.16 0.34 �1.00 to 0.50
Affective intensity 3.35 0.83 1.75–5.00
Story completion: Solver 1.25 0.45 0–2.00
Affective attributions
Other’s Welfare 0.30 0.16 0–0.58
Rule Orientation 0.04 0.07 0–0.33
Order=Pragmatic Concerns 0.08 0.09 0–0.33
Beneficial Outcomes 0.13 0.12 0–0.50
Hedonistic=Personal Gain 0.16 0.11 0–0.42
Personal Business 0.11 0.09 0–0.33
Affective consequences
Other’s Welfare 0.05 0.10 0–0.50
Order=Pragmatic Concerns 0.17 0.15 0–0.67
Beneficial Outcomes 0.36 0.23 0–1.00
Hedonistic=Personal Gain 0.03 0.07 0–0.33
Personal Business 0.08 0.11 0–0.33
Child Behavior Scale scores
Prosocial behavior 2.54 0.46 1.29–3.00
Negative behavior 1.37 0.41 1.00–2.46
220 HUMPHRIES
character across the three sociomoral events. Children assigned more positive affect to both char-
acters in the prosocial morality vignettes and negative affect to both characters in the active mor-
ality vignettes. Unlike the affect assigned to the characters in the prosocial and active morality
vignettes, there was a difference in the affect assigned to the characters in the inhibitive morality
vignette. Actors were assigned affect that was more neutral to positive, whereas recipients were
assigned more negative affect.
Based on these findings, t tests were performed to determine whether the characters differed
in terms of the affective valence assigned to them. The recipient (M¼�0.90) in the inhibitive
morality vignettes was characterized with a more negative affective valence than the actor
(M¼ 0.15), t(55)¼�18.02, p< 001. The mean valence rating alone does not completely illus-
trate children’s responses to the inhibitive morality vignette, especially in relation to the happy
victimizer effect. Specifically, half (53.6%) of the children characterized the actor with positive
affect, whereas the other half (41.1%) reported negative affect. Upon further examination of
these findings, it was found that the majority (61.9%) of children who characterized the actor
with positive affect were young children (prekindergartners and kindergartners). The older chil-
dren (first and second graders) equally assigned positive and negative affect to the actor. Figure 2
presents affective valence by grade, morality type, and character role.
Affective Attributions
To better understand the reasons why children assigned emotions to each of the characters in the
vignettes, I analyzed children’s qualitative responses to their affective attributions. Two cate-
gories, Other’s Welfare and Hedonistic=Personal Gain, supported more than two thirds of the
children’s explanations of the cause of emotions for both actors and recipients in the inhibitive
events. Those children who characterized the actor with negative affect largely focused on the
welfare of the character. An example of a response that represents the category Other’s Welfare
was ‘‘Because somebody pushed me out of the way and just took the swing that I [she] was
going to get’’ (first-grade girl). Those children who characterized the actor with positive affect
FIGURE 1 Mean ratings for affective valence by character role and morality type. (Color figure available online.)
ATTRIBUTIONS AND CONSEQUENCES 221
often provided responses that focused on acts involving gains or concerns for the actor over the
recipient. This supported the Hedonistic=Personal Gain category.
Both actors and recipients in the prosocial vignettes were overwhelmingly characterized with
positive affect. Most responses focused on the Beneficial Outcomes and Order=Pragmatic Con-
cerns categories. Children who reasoned that the character’s feeling state was due to another
character or someone else engaging in a positive behavior (e.g., ‘‘[She’s happy] because she
let her see my baby doll,’’ prekindergarten girl) supported the Beneficial Outcomes category.
A representative response by a prekindergarten girl for the Order=Pragmatic Concerns category
was ‘‘ ‘Cause she didn’t let Kelly [recipient] see it.’’
Themes most frequently provided by children for active morality supported the Other’s
Welfare, Beneficial Outcomes (only for actors), and Hedonistic=Personal Gain categories.
Responses that supported the Beneficial Outcomes category were ‘‘Because, my friend was cry-
ing. And I’m not happy if my friend’s not happy’’ (second-grade girl) and ‘‘Because he gave
him a hug’’ (kindergarten boy).
Affective Consequences
By examining the affective consequences of each vignette, I was able to understand how chil-
dren may or may not attempt to resolve the conflicts in the sociomoral events. The percentages
of children’s responses for affective consequences for both characters across the three morality
types by coding category are presented in Table 3. Children provided affective consequences
that typically represented the Beneficial Outcomes category in the prosocial and inhibitive mor-
ality vignettes. They provided affective consequences that created positive outcomes for the
characters. A second-grade boy indicated in his affective consequence to a prosocial morality
vignette that ‘‘He let him see it [transformer] and they played together.’’ In response to an inhi-
bitive morality vignette, a prekindergarten girl stated, ‘‘She says sorry and lets her get in the
swing. To share.’’ This was a similar response provided by other children in regard to the
FIGURE 2 Mean ratings for affective valence by grade for character role and morality type. A¼ actor; R¼ recipient;
PreK¼ prekindergarten; K¼ kindergarten. (Color figure available online.)
222 HUMPHRIES
TABLE
3
PercentagesofAffectiveConsequencesandSolvers
ofAffectiveConsequencesAcrossSociomoralRule
Systems
Morality
Affective
Consequences(%
)So
lversof
Dilem
ma(%
)
Other’s
Welfare
Order=
Pragm
atic
Concerns
Beneficial
Outcomes
Hedon
istic=
Persona
lGain
Persona
lBusiness
Unelabo
rated
Uncodab
leActor=Recipient
Together
orSepa
rately
Outside
Intervener
No
Resolution
Prosocial
5.35
31.25
40.2
8.05
3.6
4.45
5.35
69.65
2.7
25.2
Active
1.8
1.8
26.75
1.8
17.85
33.95
14.3
45.55
23.9
27.7
Inhibitive
8.9
17
41.95
02.7
14.25
12.25
39.3
25.9
29.5
223
inhibitive morality vignette. Children attempted to correct an inappropriate or negative behavior.
However, some children’s responses to the inhibitive morality vignette introduced another indi-
vidual into the vignette to assist in creating positive outcomes. For instance, a kindergarten boy
responded, ‘‘He told the teacher, and the teacher said give him that truck and, he gave him the
truck and then the teacher give it back.’’
Children provided affective consequences to the active morality vignettes that typically repre-
sented the Unelaborated and Beneficial Outcomes categories. The Unelaborated category repre-
sented responses that did not provide an explanation for why the behavior ceased. For instance,
in the helping vignette for active morality, children would have the victimizer walk away from
the recipient after the actor told him or her to stop picking on the recipient. In addition to the
Beneficial Outcomes category, the Order=Pragmatic Concerns category was also representative
of attribution consequences provided for prosocial morality vignettes. Children’s responses
focused on maintaining social order.
Also included in Table 3 is who the child identified as the solver of the dilemma in each
sociomoral type (i.e., the actor or recipient together or separately, an outside intervener, or no
resolution or story completion). Children were more likely to indicate that the actor or the recipi-
ent either would solve the dilemma individually or would work together to solve the dilemma
across all three morality types.
Teacher-Rated Children’s Behavior
It was hypothesized that children’s affective attributions and consequences would be associated
with children’s behavior. Specifically, children whose affective attributions and affective conse-
quences focused on positive outcomes for others or social concerns and expectations would be
rated by teachers as being prosocial with their peers. In contrast, children whose affective attribu-
tions and affective consequences were concerned with transgressions or personal gain would be
rated as being more aggressive and excluded.
A median split was conducted on children’s prosocial and negative behavior scores because
of the lack of variability in children’s scores in the mid-range (e.g., children were rated at the
extreme ends of the Child Behavior Scale). The median split scores for prosocial and negative
behavior were utilized in subsequent analyses.
A series of 2 (grade)� 2 (gender) analyses of variance were conducted to examine possible
differences in teacher ratings of children’s prosocial behavior and negative behavior variables.
These analyses yielded nonsignificant findings for both grade and gender. No grade or gender
differences emerged for children’s behavior. Thus, grade and gender were not included in sub-
sequent analyses.
Correlation analyses. Correlation coefficients were computed among the affective and
behavior variables (see Table 4). Children’s Beneficial Outcomes theme of affective attribution
was positively related to teacher-rated prosocial behavior (r¼ .39, p< .01). However, there was
a significant negative relationship between children’s Personal Business affective attribution and
prosocial behavior (r¼�.31, p< .05; see Table 2). Children who were rated as prosocial were
less likely to provide affective attributions that focused on the actors own personal domain. No
other significant relationships emerged regarding children’s behavior.
224 HUMPHRIES
TABLE
4
CorrelationsofEmotio
nalVariablesandChildren’s
Behavior
Variable
12
34
56
78
910
1112
1314
1.Affectivevalence
—
Affectiveattributions
2.Other’s
Welfare
�.27�
—
3.Rule
Orientation
�.20
�.21
—
4.Order=Pragmatic
Concerns
�.08
.02
.12
—
5.BeneficialOutcomes
.36�
�.16
.02
�.08
—
6.Hedonistic=Personal
Gain
.23
�.21
.00
�.01
�.12
—
7.Personal
Business
�.05
�.02
.22
�.20
�.22
.07
—
Affectiveconsequences
8.Other’s
Welfare
�.03
.11
�.09
�.22
.04
�.23
�.04
—
9.Order=Pragmatic
Concerns
�.39��
.20
.24
.12
�.20
�.15
.08
�.21
—
10.BeneficialOutcomes
.28�
.04
.04
.21
.17
.24
�.03
�.09
–.31�
—
11.Hedonistic=Personal
Gain
.17
�.06
�.13
�.08
.02
.20
.15
�.24
�.14
�.11
—
12.Personal
Business
�.06
.22
�.09
�.11
�.07
.12
.11
�.13
�.07
�.14
.11
—
Behavior
13.Prosocial
behavior
.04
.19
.17
�.10
.39��
�.12
�.31�
�.03
.12
.12
�.24
04
—
14.Negativebehavior
.26
�.12
�.09
.23
�.11
.08
.15
.23
�.18
�.01
.21
.00
�.44��
—
� p<.05;��p<.01.
225
Regression analyses. Standard multiple regressions were conducted to determine whether
children’s affective attributions (Other’s Welfare, Rule Orientation, Order=Pragmatic Concerns,
Beneficial Outcomes, Hedonistic=Personal Gain, and Personal Business) and emotional conse-
quences (Other’s Welfare, Order=Pragmatic Concerns, Beneficial Outcomes, Hedonis-
tic=Personal Gain, and Personal Business) were associated with teacher reports of their
behavior. There was no theoretical orientation for the ordering of the affective attributions
and consequences in the regression equation, and as a result they were entered together in
one step. Separate regression equations were computed for children’s prosocial and negative
behaviors, affective attributions, and affective consequences, respectively.
The first regression equation examined whether affective attributions were predictive of chil-
dren’s prosocial behavior. The overall regression model for children’s prosocial behavior was
significant, F(5, 40)¼ 3.29, p< .01, and explained 29% of the variance (R2¼ .29). The effect
size was large (Cohen’s f2¼ 0.41). As predicted, the Beneficial Outcomes (b¼ 1.47, p< .01)
along with the Personal Business (b¼�1.60, p< .05) attributions were significant predictors
of children’s prosocial behavior. Children who provided affective attributions that focused on
beneficial outcomes for others were rated by their teachers as exhibiting prosocial behavior,
whereas children who provided affective attributions that centered on one’s personal business
were less likely to be rated as prosocial by their teachers.
A second regression equation examined the predictive ability of affective attributions on
negative behavior. Findings did not support affective attributions as predictors of children’s
negative behavior, F(5, 40)¼ 1.12, ns.To determine whether children’s emotional consequence themes (Other’s Welfare,
Order=Pragmatic Concerns, Beneficial Outcomes, Hedonistic=Personal Gain, and Personal
Business) were significant predictors of behavior, I conducted two standard multiple regressions
for prosocial and negative behavior. Contrary to my prediction, children’s emotional conse-
quences were not significantly associated with either prosocial or negative behavior.
DISCUSSION
This study examined young (prekindergarten through second grade) African American chil-
dren’s affective attributions and consequences for characters in different sociomoral events
and their relationship to their behavior at school. Consistent with the proposed hypothesis, chil-
dren’s affective responses were informed by sociomoral rule systems. Specifically, children
attributed positive affective valence to characters in the prosocial morality events while associ-
ating more negative affect to characters in both the active and inhibitive morality events. Chil-
dren’s affective attributions and consequences also varied by sociomoral event and character
role. Regardless of the type of sociomoral event, children attempted to resolve the dilemmas pre-
sented in the different sociomoral vignettes. Their solutions often had either both characters’
needs being met or the recipient being vindicated, indicating awareness of the moral dilemma.
Although the actors and recipients in the prosocial morality rule system were characterized
with positive affect, some children reported negative affect being associated with acts of sharing
and cooperating. The affective attributions children provided to explain the actors’ negative
affect focused on not wanting to share or cooperate (Beneficial Outcomes) or not having the
chance to use the object that the recipient had requested (e.g., Personal Business category).
226 HUMPHRIES
The negative affect assigned to the recipient centered on the recipient’s request being denied or
refused by the actor (Order=Pragmatic Concerns). It may be inappropriate to expect all young
children to be happy for the opportunity to share. Despite the negative affect associated with
prosocial morality, the majority of the children provided affective consequences that had the
characters engage in prosocial morality behaviors (e.g., sharing and cooperating behaviors).
Children often had the actor and the recipient work together to resolve the dilemma presented
in the sociomoral event. This finding differs from prior research in which 6- to 11-year-old
middle-class, majority Caucasian children relied on an authority figure when dealing with active
and inhibitory events (Tisak & Ford, 1986). It is unclear whether the difference in the present
findings and the aforementioned study’s finding is one of race, age, socioeconomic status,
or an intersection of these variables. This illustrates that children are cognizant of and largely
conform to social norms around sharing and cooperating, despite their negative affect about
the situation. Future research might focus on how African American children of different socio-
economic statuses (e.g., low income, working class, middle class) and older children reconcile
their emotions and behaviors regarding sociomoral events.
The examination of the affective attributions and consequences provides a better understand-
ing of how African American children think about sociomoral situations and how they use this
information. If there had been a focus on only the affective labels and not on the reasoning
behind children’s responses, the children in this study may have appeared to be lacking socio-
moral or social-emotional competence skills. Instead, it appears that these African American
children are quite aware and knowledgeable of sociomoral rules, as evidenced by attempts to
rectify the sociomoral dilemmas despite having conflicting or uncomfortable feelings about
the events. This provides support for understanding of the contributors to African American
children’s social competence (American Psychological Association, 2008).
There has been significant discussion regarding children’s tendency to attribute positive affect
to actors in inhibitive events. This happy victimizer phenomenon focuses on positive affect due
to gaining material resources. Similar to previous research with racially diverse samples of
young children (e.g., Arsenio & Kramer, 1992; Nunner-Winkler & Sodian, 1988; Smetana
et al., 2003; Wiersma & Laupa, 2000), the younger African American children (e.g., prekinder-
gartners and kindergartners) tended to conform to this pattern. About half of the older children
characterized the actor with negative affect, whereas the remaining children characterized the
actor with positive affect (e.g., the happy victimizer). A more subtle developmental shift
occurred for the older African American children in the current study. Specifically, 8-year olds
presented a more mixed emotional characterization of the victimizer, equally identifying both
positive and negative emotions. It appears that first and second graders may be experiencing
a developmental shift whereby victimization is no longer strictly viewed in terms of the material
gain. Rather, they are beginning to acknowledge the negative emotional experiences of the vic-
tims (i.e., the recipient). These findings support a more subtle moral attributional shift proposed
by other researchers (e.g., Arsenio & Kramer, 1992; Arsenio & Lover, 1995; Lourenco, 1997),
but among an African American sample.
Some children, however, suggested retaliatory actions in their affective consequences (i.e.,
story completion task) to inhibitive sociomoral rule systems. These children appeared to be
attempting to right a wrong that had occurred within the vignette. For instance, the recipient
would engage in a retaliatory behavior of hitting in order to re-obtain an object that was unfairly
taken from them. This finding is consistent with the notion that although children understand the
ATTRIBUTIONS AND CONSEQUENCES 227
immorality of inhibitive behaviors, some children view retaliation in nonfamily relationships as a
necessary form of reciprocal justice (Astor, 1994: Herzberger & Hall, 1993; Jagers, 2001; Ward,
1988). This finding has practical implications for social and emotional competence. Helping
children understand culturally and contextually acceptable ways to right a wrong without retali-
ation is very promising, especially for positive behavior promotion and negative behavior
reduction among young African American children. However, there may be some contexts
for African American children, especially those characterized with limited resources and
environmental risks, in which certain acts of retaliation may be deemed an appropriate response.
There needs to be an understanding of African American children’s cultural and socioeconomic
context and how this influences children’s behavior and conceptions of moral events.
The hypothesized association between children’s knowledge of affective attributions and con-
sequences to children’s behavior was partially supported. Specifically, the Beneficial Outcomes
and Personal Business affective attributions were associated with children’s prosocial behavior.
Children who reasoned that the cause of emotions was due to the creation of positive outcomes
for others and issues that were seen as private to the person were more likely to be rated as exhi-
biting prosocial behaviors. However, no affective attribution themes were associated with nega-
tive behavior with peers. In addition, children’s reasoning about affective consequences was not
associated with either prosocial or negative behavior. These inconsistent findings are surprising
given that several studies have found a significant relationship between other emotional and
social competence abilities and behavior (Arsenio, Cooperman, & Lover, 2000; Garner,
Dunsmore, & Southam-Gerrow, 2008; Garner, Jones, & Miner, 1994; Schultz, Izard, Ackerman,
& Youngstrom, 2001). Similar to other research (Garner, 1996), there were no grade and gender
differences among this sample of African American children.
Perhaps the relationship between affective consequences and behavior did not emerge
because I only examined a direct relationship between affective consequences and behavior.
The relationship between affect and behavior may be an indirect one that is mediated by chil-
dren’s actual emotional experiences or the social context. The absence of a relationship between
affective consequences and behavior may also be partially due to an exclusive reliance on tea-
cher reports. It might be more informative to include multiple raters (e.g., peers, family mem-
bers, and observers) to gain a more diverse and possibly more accurate assessment of
children’s behavior (Humphries, Keenan, & Wakschlag, 2010). The use of multiple informants
may allow for a more comprehensive view of African American children’s behavior and have
greater predictive power for emotional competence abilities.
Limitations
This study utilized a small sample with a cross-sectional design to examine African American
children’s affective attributions and consequences to sociomoral events. However, this type of
design does not provide information on how children’s affective knowledge develops over time,
and thus only inferences can be made regarding developmental changes. Future research should
also utilize a longitudinal design to study African American children from diverse backgrounds
to see how their affective knowledge changes over time as a function of age and social experi-
ences. Information obtained from this and future research also could and should be utilized to
benefit and inform clinical and education practice and prevention or intervention programs.
228 HUMPHRIES
Specifically, this information could inform the cognitions and behaviors that prevention
and intervention programs target to support and possibly maximize African American children’s
prosocial behavior.
Before researchers begin to create social and emotional competence curricula and programs
targeted at young African American children, children from other minority backgrounds, and=orchildren from economically stressed environments, there needs to be an understanding of not
only the classroom environment but also the individual variability of social and emotional com-
petence among these populations in order to understand which behaviors and=or cognitions
should be targeted for promotion or intervention. There is a call for more strengths-based assess-
ments of low-income children’s competence abilities in order for competence curricula and=orintervention programs to target the appropriate emotional and social competence skills for this
population (McWayne, Hampton, Fantuzzo, Cohen, & Sekino, 2004). Programs with the inten-
tion of promoting the positive and optimal development of African American children from
economically stressed backgrounds should be based on the normal development of these chil-
dren as opposed to their deviant or compromised development, as prosocial behavior is not
merely the absence of aggressive or negative behavior (Malti et al., 2009).
Despite initial empirical support for the association among affective attributions, conse-
quences, and behavior, there is still much to be explored regarding African American children.
Given that children’s development is influenced by their race, socioeconomic status, and gender,
it is important to understand African American children’s development from their own perspec-
tives. It is also important to acknowledge that children can often identify appropriate ways to
behave but have a difficult time enacting the desired behavioral repertoire in school and peer
environments. Despite this, the link between children’s affective attributions and behavior
may be a promising one for prevention scientists. This is evident in the increase in the number
of prevention and intervention programs that are developed to target emotional and social com-
petence (e.g., PATHS, Smart Kids, and Second Step) and character development (e.g., Character
Counts, Voices Reading, Lions Quest) among children and adolescents. These programs focus
on promoting competence and character development to increase children’s prosocial behaviors
with their peers and decrease negative, aggressive, and=or disruptive behaviors, as well as
increase academic engagement and success. The findings from the current research point to
the need to truly understand the reasoning that African American children use when they experi-
ence a sociomoral event in order to best support the development of the emotional and social
competence of these children. This may provide both teachers and clinicians who work with
young children an understanding of how to support and effectively promote African American
children’s prosocial development (Malti et al., 2009), in particular around sociomoral behaviors
that are often present in classroom peer interactions.
Future research can be used to inform the creation and implementation of more effective
social and emotional competence programs and curricula for African American children. Thus,
there is a need to promote the development of problem-solving skills within the context of emo-
tions or affect among African American children during social interactions in which moral beha-
viors like sharing, comforting, and hitting are experienced and witnessed. It may not be
sufficient to exclusively focus on the emotion children ascribe in various sociomoral interactions,
but there needs to be an understanding of how children rectify their emotional knowledge and
reasoning when dealing with provocative events. Perhaps competence promotion programs can
help children understand that engaging in contextually appropriate behavior may generate mixed
ATTRIBUTIONS AND CONSEQUENCES 229
emotions (i.e., sharing can produce sadness and happiness in the sharer) and that this mixed
emotional experience is appropriate. More research is needed to continue to examine the link
between affective attributions and consequences and African American children’s behavior.
Experts need to understand the developmental processes that allow for children’s social suc-
cess (Raver & Zigler, 1997). This is especially relevant if they are interested in developing pre-
vention and intervention programs that are effective. There is a need to understand the multiple
components of competence, including its cultural, cognitive, and behavioral components, and
their positive impact on African American children’s lives. The field must make certain that
the developmental process of competence for children from diverse racial=ethnic and socioeco-
nomic environments is represented.
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