Moral Development in Toddlerhood

All 5 Terms & Definitions

Empathy-Related Responding

The capacity to perceive and share another person's emotional state, accompanied by a motivation to reduce their distress. Distinguishable from personal distress (self-focused) by its other-directed quality. Emerges in recognisable form between 12 and 18 months: toddlers comfort distressed others, offer comfort objects, and seek help on another's behalf. Closely associated with later prosocial behaviour and moral reasoning.

Norm Sensitivity

The awareness that actions can be correct or incorrect independent of their consequences for the observer. Demonstrated in toddlers by their protests at third-party norm violations — in peer interactions, game contexts, and object-use situations. Toddlers distinguish between actions that are merely unwanted (preference violations) and actions that are wrong (norm violations), responding with protest rather than simple avoidance.

Spontaneous Sharing

The voluntary distribution of resources to another in the absence of external pressure. Increases across toddlerhood and is modulated by relationship (more with familiar others), resource type, and context. By 24–30 months, toddlers begin to share spontaneously with unfamiliar recipients, though sharing declines when it requires sacrificing a valued resource from one's own supply.

Ownership Understanding

The grasp that objects belong to persons and that prior possession, creation, or designation confers ownership rights. Develops across the second and third years. Toddlers understand that taking another's property without permission is wrong, can track ownership across transformations (an owner's object remains theirs even after it is changed), and distinguish borrowing from taking.

Prosocial Behaviour

Actions that benefit others, including helping, sharing, comforting, and informing. Increases substantially across toddlerhood. Felix Warneken and Michael Tomasello distinguished instrumental helping (helping someone achieve a practical goal) from sharing (distributing resources) and found that instrumental helping develops earlier and is more robust. Prosocial behaviour is both biologically prepared and scaffolded by socialisation.