TY - JOUR
T1 - The Nature of Responsibility
T2 - Children's Understanding of “Your Job”
AU - Warton, Pamela M.
AU - Goodnow, Jacqueline J.
PY - 1991
Y1 - 1991
N2 - The present study starts from the argument that research on responsibility will benefit from defining it in terms of some specific principles. The 3 principles considered deal with the sharing or distribution of work. They are (a) direct‐cause responsibility (e.g., people should fix problems they have created), (b) self‐regulation (e.g., you should not expect to be reminded), and (c) continuing responsibility (e.g., a job remains “yours” even when someone else agrees to do it). These principles were embedded in vignettes and a sorting task, all related to household work, with children of 8, 11, or 14 years of age commenting on the fairness of various work arrangements. The results show differential developmental paths for the 3 principles rather than a unitary sense of responsibility. The redefinition emerges as providing both a way to generate new research on responsibility and a link to studies of distributive norms dealing with rewards or rights.
AB - The present study starts from the argument that research on responsibility will benefit from defining it in terms of some specific principles. The 3 principles considered deal with the sharing or distribution of work. They are (a) direct‐cause responsibility (e.g., people should fix problems they have created), (b) self‐regulation (e.g., you should not expect to be reminded), and (c) continuing responsibility (e.g., a job remains “yours” even when someone else agrees to do it). These principles were embedded in vignettes and a sorting task, all related to household work, with children of 8, 11, or 14 years of age commenting on the fairness of various work arrangements. The results show differential developmental paths for the 3 principles rather than a unitary sense of responsibility. The redefinition emerges as providing both a way to generate new research on responsibility and a link to studies of distributive norms dealing with rewards or rights.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84989405930&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/j.1467-8624.1991.tb01521.x
DO - 10.1111/j.1467-8624.1991.tb01521.x
M3 - Article
VL - 62
SP - 156
EP - 165
JO - Child Development
JF - Child Development
SN - 0009-3920
IS - 1
ER -