Would you be a Tattle-tale? Age Differences in Moral Evaluations of Tattling

Tattling –reporting to second parties norm violations committed by third parties – is frequent but little-studied among peers. We examined how 5 and 9-year-old children evaluate stories involving transgressors and observers,to understand whether both groups consider reporting peers’ transgressions to adults a bad act, regardless of type or perceived seriousness of transgressions; likeability for transgressors and observers. We hypothesized that: both groups would positively evaluate reporting more serious transgressions; only younger children would positively evaluate reporting less serious transgressions; as children grewolder, liking for tattlers would decrease. Italian children (N=76) were presented with 4 two-part-stories: in the first part, a child committed a more or less serious transgression, unaware of being observed by a peer; in the second part, the observer reported or didn’t report to the teacher. After reading each part, the interviewer asked participants to indicate: whether the action of the protagonist was good or bad on a 5-point scale from “very good” to “very bad”; whether participants liked or disliked the protagonist on a 5-point “feeling face scale”; what participants would have done in place of the observer. A t test has been performed on data from the 5-point scales with age and genderas independent factors. Older children have significantly judged accidental damage as less serious than an intentional offence (t=4.586; p=.000), the transgressor as more likeable (t=3.850; p=.000), tattling on that as worse (t=3.850; p=.000) and the tattler as more unlikeable (t=-4.542; p=.000). Males have also significantly judged tattling as worse (t=2.525; p=.005). Younger children and females declared that they would have tattled more frequently. We conclude that, as their age increases, children in Italy start to consider tattling of minor transgressions less appropriate and tattlers less likeable. This seems to occur more prominently in males than in females. We will be including groups of English and Colombian participants to investigate cross-cultural similarities and differences.