Speaker: Dr. Tamar Kushnir (Professor in the Department of Psychology & Neuroscience at Duke University)

Abstract: As caregivers and educators, we are often concerned with nurturing children’s emerging moral agency: we not only want children to learn right from wrong, but we also want them to deliberate on options, independently and skillfully make good moral choices, take responsibility, and accept the consequences of their actions. In this talk I explore developments in moral agency, beginning in toddlerhood and early childhood with the emergence of prosocial behavior, and intent-based moral judgment, and increasing self-regulation skills. But these developments are not the end of the story – key conceptual changes in middle childhood (especially in concepts of choice and free will) lead children to understand that moral actions are not determined by circumstances, but rather are “up to” the person themselves. I’ll end by speculating on mechanisms by which this change occurs, and the consequences of this emerging understanding for moral education and the development of moral character. 

Bio: Dr. Tamar Kushnir is a Professor in the Department of Psychology & Neuroscience at Duke University, and the director of the Early Childhood Cognition Laboratory. She received her M.A. in Statistics and Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan, and was previously on the faculty in the Department of Human Development at Cornell University. Kushnir’s research examines learning and conceptual change in young children with a focus on social learning and social cognition. Her work is motivated by a long-standing curiosity about the developing mind, and in particular by how children learn about themselves and others from actively exploring the world around them. Research topics include: mechanisms of causal learning, the developmental origins of our beliefs in free will and agency, cultural influences on early social and moral beliefs, normative reasoning, and epistemic trust, and the role of imagination in social cognition, motivation and decision making.