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What makes Voldemort tick? Children's and adults' reasoning about the nature of villains.
Cognition. 2023 04; 233:105357.C

Abstract

How do children make sense of antisocial acts committed by evil-doers? We addressed this question in three studies with 434 children (4-12 years) and 277 adults, focused on participants' judgments of both familiar and novel fictional villains and heroes. Study 1 established that children viewed villains' actions and emotions as overwhelmingly negative, suggesting that children's well-documented positivity bias does not prevent their appreciation of extreme forms of villainy. Studies 2 and 3 assessed children's and adults' beliefs regarding heroes' and villains' moral character and true selves, using an array of converging evidence, including: how a character felt inside, whether a character's actions reflected their true self, whether a character's true self could change over time, and how an omniscient machine would judge a character's true self. Across these measures, both children and adults consistently evaluated villains' true selves to be more negative than heroes'. Importantly, at the same time, we also detected an asymmetry in the judgments, wherein villains were more likely than heroes to have a true self that differed from their outward behavior. More specifically, across the ages studied participants more often reported that villains were inwardly good, than that heroes were inwardly bad. Implications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed in light of our expanding understanding of the development of true self beliefs.

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Publisher Full Text (DOI)

Authors+Show Affiliations

Umscheid VA
Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1043, USA. Electronic address: umscheid@umich.edu.
Smith CE
Hatcher Graduate Library, University of Michigan, 913 South University Ave, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1190, USA.
Warneken F
Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1043, USA.
Gelman SA
Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1043, USA.
Wellman HM
Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1043, USA.

MeSH

HumansChildAdultProblem SolvingJudgmentEmotionsMoralsCharacter

Pub Type(s)

Journal Article
Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

Language

eng

PubMed ID

36543028

Citation

Umscheid, Valerie A., et al. "What Makes Voldemort Tick? Children's and Adults' Reasoning About the Nature of Villains." Cognition, vol. 233, 2023, p. 105357.
Umscheid VA, Smith CE, Warneken F, et al. What makes Voldemort tick? Children's and adults' reasoning about the nature of villains. Cognition. 2023;233:105357.
Umscheid, V. A., Smith, C. E., Warneken, F., Gelman, S. A., & Wellman, H. M. (2023). What makes Voldemort tick? Children's and adults' reasoning about the nature of villains. Cognition, 233, 105357. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105357
Umscheid VA, et al. What Makes Voldemort Tick? Children's and Adults' Reasoning About the Nature of Villains. Cognition. 2023;233:105357. PubMed PMID: 36543028.
* Article titles in AMA citation format should be in sentence-case
TY - JOUR T1 - What makes Voldemort tick? Children's and adults' reasoning about the nature of villains. AU - Umscheid,Valerie A, AU - Smith,Craig E, AU - Warneken,Felix, AU - Gelman,Susan A, AU - Wellman,Henry M, Y1 - 2022/12/19/ PY - 2019/12/15/received PY - 2022/12/01/revised PY - 2022/12/04/accepted PY - 2022/12/22/pubmed PY - 2023/2/14/medline PY - 2022/12/21/entrez KW - Antisocial behavior KW - Children KW - Positivity bias KW - Social cognition KW - Trait attribution KW - True self SP - 105357 EP - 105357 JF - Cognition JO - Cognition VL - 233 N2 - How do children make sense of antisocial acts committed by evil-doers? We addressed this question in three studies with 434 children (4-12 years) and 277 adults, focused on participants' judgments of both familiar and novel fictional villains and heroes. Study 1 established that children viewed villains' actions and emotions as overwhelmingly negative, suggesting that children's well-documented positivity bias does not prevent their appreciation of extreme forms of villainy. Studies 2 and 3 assessed children's and adults' beliefs regarding heroes' and villains' moral character and true selves, using an array of converging evidence, including: how a character felt inside, whether a character's actions reflected their true self, whether a character's true self could change over time, and how an omniscient machine would judge a character's true self. Across these measures, both children and adults consistently evaluated villains' true selves to be more negative than heroes'. Importantly, at the same time, we also detected an asymmetry in the judgments, wherein villains were more likely than heroes to have a true self that differed from their outward behavior. More specifically, across the ages studied participants more often reported that villains were inwardly good, than that heroes were inwardly bad. Implications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed in light of our expanding understanding of the development of true self beliefs. SN - 1873-7838 UR - https://www.unboundmedicine.com/medline/citation/36543028/What_makes_Voldemort_tick_Children's_and_adults'_reasoning_about_the_nature_of_villains_ DB - PRIME DP - Unbound Medicine ER -