The child's understanding of commitment.

We investigated 5- to 10-year-old children's understanding of the conditions under which a person becomes committed to carrying out an intended action in a series of three experiments. We asked subjects to pass moral judgment on story protagonists for not carrying out an action that, if it were carried out, would have prevented a friend's misfortune. In a commitment story the protagonist agreed to act, whereas in a no-commitment story the protagonist only predicted that he would act without understanding that his friend would later rely on this action. Up to the age of 9 years children thought both protagonists equally reprehensible for not acting. By varying the no-commitment story, a developmental sequence emerged in the understanding of when failure to act need not be reprehensible. Even the youngest children did not blame the protagonist if he never had the intention to act or if he was prevented from acting by external force. By the age of 7 years, they did blame the protagonist if he kept his intention to act a secret. Although children from a very early age have the concept of commitment, the understanding of the interpersonal conditions for becoming committed develops later. The idea of committing oneself by entering into an agreement or contract or by making a promise is a very powerful concept in our society and it has been the subject of much discussion in the fields of law (Atiyah, 1981), political science, philosophy (Robins, 1984), and linguistics (Searle, 1969). It is surprising, therefore, that the concept of commitment has received such scant attention from psychology and that its development in children has scarcely been investigated. In asking about children's understanding of commitment we are asking, in effect, a broader question about young children's understanding of the moral implications of social conventions such as giving one's word. In this respect, our theoretical standpoint continues the Piagetian tradition of looking at children's moral judgments from a social-cogniti ve perspective. Indeed, the concept of commitment may illustrate the two moralities that Piaget believed to coexist during childhood (Piaget, 1932/ 1965). Understanding of the formal expression of "I promise" may exemplify the heteronomous stage, derived from respect for rules emanating from parental authority (i.e., "If you promise something you always have to do it!"), whereas a more sophisticated understanding of commitment may spring from the mutual respect and cooperation between peers in the autonomous stage.