Katherine Mcauliffe
Biographic Data
| ID | 227472 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Katherine Mcauliffe |
| GIVEN NAMES | Katherine |
| FAMILY NAME | Mcauliffe |
| SIGNATURE | MCAULIFFE K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Boston College |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1314-0139 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 37 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Children consider what others did not know as well as what they could not do when judging their actions
146) aged between 5 and 10. We told children stories about three characters who either (a) had a choice and caused a bad outcome, (b) had no choice but to cause a bad outcome, or (c) do not know they had a choice and caused a bad outcome. Broadly, we find that children across all countries are more lenient of bad actions when characters in the story did not know they had another choice available. Overall, these findings provide evidence that chil…
Children are more tolerant of partiality in asking for help than in providing help
As children grow older, they become increasingly critical of group-based partiality in providing help. However, the developmental trajectory of how children evaluate partiality in asking for help is largely unknown. Our study investigates evaluations and expectations of group-based partiality in providing versus asking for help in 5- to 10-year-old children ( n = 164; 54.3% girls, 45.7% boys) from the New England region of the United States. In t…
Motivational context does not influence children’s third-party punishment in intergroup contexts
Children punish to reciprocate harm (retributive motives) and to prevent future wrongdoing (consequentialist motives). Building on this idea, we wanted to examine whether different motivational contexts are more likely to produce ingroup versus outgroup punishment. Specifically, we predicted that retributive motives would drive outgroup punishment, while consequentialist motives would drive ingroup punishment. To test this, we studied 257 Chinese…
Older children’s third-party punishment decisions are more sensitive to severity than younger children’s
Maintaining cooperation requires responding to wrongdoing by, for example, punishing transgressors. However, we do not respond to all transgressions similarly: as adults, we are more likely to pursue the punishment of certain transgressions compared to others. This study ( N = 213) looked at how presenting different transgressions may shape the developmental trajectory of third-party punishment behavior in children. Specifically, we tested whethe…
The power of prompts: Encouraging children to think about fairness promotes the costly rejection of unfairness
Children in the United States have an early-emerging understanding that resources should be divided fairly among agents, yet their behavior does not begin to reflect this understanding until later in development. Why does this gap between knowledge and behavior exist, and how can we close it? Here, we tested the role of explicit prompts in closing the gap, asking whether prompting 4- to 9-year-olds to make fair decisions would promote the costly …
Unraveling the gender gap in negotiation: How children’s perceptions of negotiation and of themselves relate to their bargaining outcomes
Women tend to negotiate less than men, which-along with other well-documented interpersonal and structural factors-contributes to persistent gender gaps in pay for equal work. Here, we explore the developmental origins of these gender differences in negotiation. Across three studies ( N = 462), we investigated 6- to 12-year-old girls' and boys' perceptions of negotiation (e.g., how common and permissible it is to negotiate) and gave children oppo…
Children's Evaluations and Expectations of Forgiveness Following Second- and Third-Party Interventions
Following a transgression, forgiveness can restore power imbalances and repair damaged bonds, helping maintain important relationships. Yet, we know little about which kinds of responses to transgression best foster forgiveness. Across two studies, with 5- to 9-year-olds in the United States (N = 302; 159 female, 64.2% White, tested in 2022 and 2023), we explore children's evaluations of intervention strategies and their expectations of forgivene…
How retributive motives shape the emergence of third-party punishment across intergroup contexts
This study examines how retributive motives—the desire to punish for the purpose of inflicting harm in the absence of future benefits—shape third-party punishment behavior across intergroup contexts. Six- to nine-year-olds (N = 151, M age = 8.00, SDage = 1.15; 54% White, 18% mixed ethnicities, 17% Asian American; 46% female; from the USA) could punish ingroup, outgroup, or non-group transgressors by removing positive resources and allocating nega…
Developing conceptions of forgiveness across the lifespan
Understanding how to respond to transgressions is central to cooperation, yet little is known about how individuals understand the consequences of these responses. Accordingly, the current study explored children's (ages 5–9), adolescents' (ages 11–14), and adults' (N = 544, predominantly White, ~50% female, tested in 2021) understandings of three such responses—forgiveness, punishment, and doing nothing. At all ages, participants differentiated …
Remembering Lawrence Solan 7 May 1952–2 March 2024
Parent and community political orientation predicts children's health behaviours
Does political partisanship extend to childhood? To what degree are children, a largely non‐political population, impacted by parents’ and communities’ political orientations? We examined children's behaviours and attitudes during a politically divisive event – the COVID‐19 pandemic. Children (4‐ to 12‐year‐olds; N = 313) of liberal (vs. conservative) parents reported greater preventive COVID‐19 behaviours, such as mask wearing and physical dista…
People update their injunctive norm and moral beliefs after receiving descriptive norm information
How do descriptive norms shape injunctive norm beliefs, and what does this tell us about the cognitive processes underlying social norm cognition? Across six studies ( N = 2,671), we examined whether people update their injunctive norm beliefs-as well as their moral judgments and behavioral intentions-after receiving descriptive norm information about how common (or uncommon) a behavior is. Specifically, we manipulated the descriptive normativity…
The influence of friendship on children's fairness concerns in three societies
When not helping is nice: Children’s changing evaluations of helping during Covid-19
A key aspect of children's moral and social understanding involves recognizing the value of helpful behaviors. COVID-19 has complicated this process; behaviors generally considered praiseworthy were considered problematic during the COVID-19 pandemic. The present study examined whether 6- to 12-year-olds ( N = 228; residing in the United States) adapt their evaluations of helpful behavior in response to shifting norms. Specifically, we presented …
Children use common knowledge to solve coordination problems
Recent work suggests that common knowledge is an important cognitive mechanism for coordinating prosocial behavior, in part because it reduces uncertainty about others' cooperative behavior. However, it remains unclear whether children also rely on common knowledge to solve coordination problems. Here we examined whether 6- to 9-year-old children ( N = 133) from the United States were more likely to attempt to coordinate when they had common know…
Common knowledge promotes cooperation in the threshold public goods game by reducing uncertainty
Children strategically conceal selfishness
Can children exploit knowledge asymmetries to get away with selfishness? This question was addressed by testing 6- to 9-year-old children (N = 164; 81 girls) from the Northeastern United States in a modified Ultimatum Game. Children were assigned to the roles of proposers (who offered some proportion of an endowment) and responders (who could accept or reject offers). Both players in the Informed condition knew the endowment quantity in each tria…
Punishment is strongly motivated by revenge and weakly motivated by inequity aversion
Children in the United States and Peru Pay to Correct Gender-Based Inequality
We explore the developmental origins of intervention against gender-based pay inequality in 4- to 9-year-old children in the United States (N = 123; Study 1) and Peru (N = 115; Study 2), two countries characterized by different norms surrounding gender pay equity. We presented children with scenarios that featured gender-based pay inequality, and they could intervene at a cost to redistribute the earnings. We examined whether children favor equal…
Trustworthiness is distinct from generosity in children
Interpersonal trust is a key component of cooperation, helping support the complex social networks found across societies. Trust typically involves two parties, one who trusts by taking on risk through investment in a second party, who can be trustworthy and produce mutual benefits. To date, the developmental literature has focused primarily on the trustor, meaning we know little about the ontogeny of trustworthiness. Whereas trusting can be moti…
Third-party punishment promotes fairness in children
Third-party punishment can promote fair behavior. However, the mechanisms by which this happens are unclear. Third-party punishment may increase fair behavior by providing direct feedback, helping shape the behavior of those punished, or through an influence on reputation, by encouraging the transgressor to behave appropriately before a third-party audience. Investigating whether and how third-party punishment leads to fairness in children during…
Cross-cultural, developmental psychology: Integrating approaches and key insights
Ingroup bias does not influence inequity aversion in children
Ingroup favoritism influences third-party norm enforcement: Third-party punishers are more lenient when an ingroup member has been unfair. By contrast, in 2-party contexts, where punishers are the victims of unfairness, group bias effects are absent or inconsistent. Thus, group bias appears to be particularly influential when enforcing fairness among others, but less so when protecting oneself from unfairness. This would have implications for the…
Costly fairness in children is influenced by who is watching
Advantageous inequity aversion emerges relatively late in child development, yet the mechanisms explaining its late emergence are poorly understood. Here, we ask whether children begin to reject advantageous inequity, a costly form of fairness, once reputational concerns are in place. Specifically, we examine the role of peer monitoring in promoting fair behavior. In Study 1 ( N = 212 pairs; Ages 6 to 9), we test whether children are less likely …
Formulaic metadiscursive signalling devices in judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union
This paper investigates how paragraph initial metadiscursive lexical items serve as signalling devices in text organisation of judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ). The results of that investigation demonstrate that those metadiscursive items both shape a particular method of reasoning used by the ECJ, and have an impact on how readers process those texts. Based on assumptions grounded in linguistics/legal linguistics tha…
The developmental foundations of human fairness
Does Inequity Aversion Motivate Punishment? Cleaner Fish as a Model System
Costly fairness in children is influenced by who is watching
Advantageous inequity aversion emerges relatively late in child development, yet the mechanisms explaining its late emergence are poorly understood. Here, we ask whether children begin to reject advantageous inequity, a costly form of fairness, once reputational concerns are in place. Specifically, we examine the role of peer monitoring in promoting fair behavior. In Study 1 ( N = 212 pairs; Ages 6 to 9), we test whether children are less likely …
When not helping is nice: Children’s changing evaluations of helping during Covid-19
A key aspect of children's moral and social understanding involves recognizing the value of helpful behaviors. COVID-19 has complicated this process; behaviors generally considered praiseworthy were considered problematic during the COVID-19 pandemic. The present study examined whether 6- to 12-year-olds ( N = 228; residing in the United States) adapt their evaluations of helpful behavior in response to shifting norms. Specifically, we presented …
Ingroup bias does not influence inequity aversion in children
Ingroup favoritism influences third-party norm enforcement: Third-party punishers are more lenient when an ingroup member has been unfair. By contrast, in 2-party contexts, where punishers are the victims of unfairness, group bias effects are absent or inconsistent. Thus, group bias appears to be particularly influential when enforcing fairness among others, but less so when protecting oneself from unfairness. This would have implications for the…
People update their injunctive norm and moral beliefs after receiving descriptive norm information
How do descriptive norms shape injunctive norm beliefs, and what does this tell us about the cognitive processes underlying social norm cognition? Across six studies ( N = 2,671), we examined whether people update their injunctive norm beliefs-as well as their moral judgments and behavioral intentions-after receiving descriptive norm information about how common (or uncommon) a behavior is. Specifically, we manipulated the descriptive normativity…
The Limitations of a Multilingual Legal System
Unraveling the gender gap in negotiation: How children’s perceptions of negotiation and of themselves relate to their bargaining outcomes
Women tend to negotiate less than men, which-along with other well-documented interpersonal and structural factors-contributes to persistent gender gaps in pay for equal work. Here, we explore the developmental origins of these gender differences in negotiation. Across three studies ( N = 462), we investigated 6- to 12-year-old girls' and boys' perceptions of negotiation (e.g., how common and permissible it is to negotiate) and gave children oppo…
Trustworthiness is distinct from generosity in children
Interpersonal trust is a key component of cooperation, helping support the complex social networks found across societies. Trust typically involves two parties, one who trusts by taking on risk through investment in a second party, who can be trustworthy and produce mutual benefits. To date, the developmental literature has focused primarily on the trustor, meaning we know little about the ontogeny of trustworthiness. Whereas trusting can be moti…
Third-party punishment promotes fairness in children
Third-party punishment can promote fair behavior. However, the mechanisms by which this happens are unclear. Third-party punishment may increase fair behavior by providing direct feedback, helping shape the behavior of those punished, or through an influence on reputation, by encouraging the transgressor to behave appropriately before a third-party audience. Investigating whether and how third-party punishment leads to fairness in children during…
“I had so much it didn’t seem fair”: Eight-year-olds reject two forms of inequity
Does Inequity Aversion Motivate Punishment? Cleaner Fish as a Model System
The Limitations of a Multilingual Legal System
Costly third-party punishment in young children
The ontogeny of fairness in seven societies
The developmental foundations of human fairness
Formulaic metadiscursive signalling devices in judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union
This paper investigates how paragraph initial metadiscursive lexical items serve as signalling devices in text organisation of judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ). The results of that investigation demonstrate that those metadiscursive items both shape a particular method of reasoning used by the ECJ, and have an impact on how readers process those texts. Based on assumptions grounded in linguistics/legal linguistics tha…
Cross-cultural, developmental psychology: Integrating approaches and key insights
Ingroup bias does not influence inequity aversion in children
Ingroup favoritism influences third-party norm enforcement: Third-party punishers are more lenient when an ingroup member has been unfair. By contrast, in 2-party contexts, where punishers are the victims of unfairness, group bias effects are absent or inconsistent. Thus, group bias appears to be particularly influential when enforcing fairness among others, but less so when protecting oneself from unfairness. This would have implications for the…
Costly fairness in children is influenced by who is watching
Advantageous inequity aversion emerges relatively late in child development, yet the mechanisms explaining its late emergence are poorly understood. Here, we ask whether children begin to reject advantageous inequity, a costly form of fairness, once reputational concerns are in place. Specifically, we examine the role of peer monitoring in promoting fair behavior. In Study 1 ( N = 212 pairs; Ages 6 to 9), we test whether children are less likely …
Punishment is strongly motivated by revenge and weakly motivated by inequity aversion
Children in the United States and Peru Pay to Correct Gender-Based Inequality
We explore the developmental origins of intervention against gender-based pay inequality in 4- to 9-year-old children in the United States (N = 123; Study 1) and Peru (N = 115; Study 2), two countries characterized by different norms surrounding gender pay equity. We presented children with scenarios that featured gender-based pay inequality, and they could intervene at a cost to redistribute the earnings. We examined whether children favor equal…
Trustworthiness is distinct from generosity in children
Interpersonal trust is a key component of cooperation, helping support the complex social networks found across societies. Trust typically involves two parties, one who trusts by taking on risk through investment in a second party, who can be trustworthy and produce mutual benefits. To date, the developmental literature has focused primarily on the trustor, meaning we know little about the ontogeny of trustworthiness. Whereas trusting can be moti…
Third-party punishment promotes fairness in children
Third-party punishment can promote fair behavior. However, the mechanisms by which this happens are unclear. Third-party punishment may increase fair behavior by providing direct feedback, helping shape the behavior of those punished, or through an influence on reputation, by encouraging the transgressor to behave appropriately before a third-party audience. Investigating whether and how third-party punishment leads to fairness in children during…
Common knowledge promotes cooperation in the threshold public goods game by reducing uncertainty
Children strategically conceal selfishness
Can children exploit knowledge asymmetries to get away with selfishness? This question was addressed by testing 6- to 9-year-old children (N = 164; 81 girls) from the Northeastern United States in a modified Ultimatum Game. Children were assigned to the roles of proposers (who offered some proportion of an endowment) and responders (who could accept or reject offers). Both players in the Informed condition knew the endowment quantity in each tria…
The influence of friendship on children's fairness concerns in three societies
When not helping is nice: Children’s changing evaluations of helping during Covid-19
A key aspect of children's moral and social understanding involves recognizing the value of helpful behaviors. COVID-19 has complicated this process; behaviors generally considered praiseworthy were considered problematic during the COVID-19 pandemic. The present study examined whether 6- to 12-year-olds ( N = 228; residing in the United States) adapt their evaluations of helpful behavior in response to shifting norms. Specifically, we presented …
Children use common knowledge to solve coordination problems
Recent work suggests that common knowledge is an important cognitive mechanism for coordinating prosocial behavior, in part because it reduces uncertainty about others' cooperative behavior. However, it remains unclear whether children also rely on common knowledge to solve coordination problems. Here we examined whether 6- to 9-year-old children ( N = 133) from the United States were more likely to attempt to coordinate when they had common know…
How retributive motives shape the emergence of third-party punishment across intergroup contexts
This study examines how retributive motives—the desire to punish for the purpose of inflicting harm in the absence of future benefits—shape third-party punishment behavior across intergroup contexts. Six- to nine-year-olds (N = 151, M age = 8.00, SDage = 1.15; 54% White, 18% mixed ethnicities, 17% Asian American; 46% female; from the USA) could punish ingroup, outgroup, or non-group transgressors by removing positive resources and allocating nega…
Developing conceptions of forgiveness across the lifespan
Understanding how to respond to transgressions is central to cooperation, yet little is known about how individuals understand the consequences of these responses. Accordingly, the current study explored children's (ages 5–9), adolescents' (ages 11–14), and adults' (N = 544, predominantly White, ~50% female, tested in 2021) understandings of three such responses—forgiveness, punishment, and doing nothing. At all ages, participants differentiated …
Remembering Lawrence Solan 7 May 1952–2 March 2024
Parent and community political orientation predicts children's health behaviours
Does political partisanship extend to childhood? To what degree are children, a largely non‐political population, impacted by parents’ and communities’ political orientations? We examined children's behaviours and attitudes during a politically divisive event – the COVID‐19 pandemic. Children (4‐ to 12‐year‐olds; N = 313) of liberal (vs. conservative) parents reported greater preventive COVID‐19 behaviours, such as mask wearing and physical dista…
People update their injunctive norm and moral beliefs after receiving descriptive norm information
How do descriptive norms shape injunctive norm beliefs, and what does this tell us about the cognitive processes underlying social norm cognition? Across six studies ( N = 2,671), we examined whether people update their injunctive norm beliefs-as well as their moral judgments and behavioral intentions-after receiving descriptive norm information about how common (or uncommon) a behavior is. Specifically, we manipulated the descriptive normativity…
Motivational context does not influence children’s third-party punishment in intergroup contexts
Children punish to reciprocate harm (retributive motives) and to prevent future wrongdoing (consequentialist motives). Building on this idea, we wanted to examine whether different motivational contexts are more likely to produce ingroup versus outgroup punishment. Specifically, we predicted that retributive motives would drive outgroup punishment, while consequentialist motives would drive ingroup punishment. To test this, we studied 257 Chinese…
Psychology (26 works) · Social Psychology (26 works) · Developmental psychology (19 works) · Child and Animal Learning Development (11 works) · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (11 works) · Social Psychology (11 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (8 works) · Inequality (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · PsycINFO (7 works)