Cristine H. Legare

Department of Psychology, Center for Applied Cognitive Science
The University of Texas at Austin

Cristine Legare is a professor of psychology and the director of the Center for Applied Cognitive Science at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research examines how the human mind enables us to learn, create, and transmit culture. She conducts comparisons across age, culture, and species to address fundamental questions about cognitive and cultural evolution. Cristine’s core areas of expertise include global public health, international education, child development, and cognitive science.

Keynote Address

Title

How Children Learn to Be Moral: The Development and Diversity of Cumulative Cultural Learning

Abstract

How do children become competent moral members of their cultural communities? Morality is a product of cumulative cultural learning: moral norms, values, and practices are transmitted across generations through the same capacities that make human culture possible. Drawing on cross-cultural data from globally representative communities, I show that the capacities children use to acquire and enforce moral norms develop universally yet are profoundly shaped by cultural context. Caregivers socialize morality in different ways across communities. Formally educated caregivers teach right and wrong through questioning, explanation, and explicit instruction, whereas caregivers with less formal education embed moral learning in demonstration and guided participation in everyday practice and ritual. Schooling also increases children’s reliance on abstract rules and verbalized justification. This suggests that explicit moral reasoning, the primary measure of moral development in psychological research, is a culturally shaped cognitive tool. Understanding moral development requires studying the diversity of how morality is learned across the world’s cultural communities.