Would you be a Tattle-tale? age differences in moral evaluation 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.