Children's moral judgments influenced by presumption of innocence.
The study aimed to understand how children determine if a behavior was intentional or unintentional when it leads to both good and bad outcomes. 132 preschoolers were divided into three groups: no intention, good intention, and bad intention. They were presented with a story where a character's actions had both good and bad consequences, and they had to judge if the bad outcome was intentional, if the character should have done the behavior, and if the behavior was right. The results showed that children distinguished between unintentional and intentional actions based on the presumption of innocence, viewing good outcomes as intentional and bad outcomes as unintentional.