Is it wrong to pretend to kick or pretend to steal? The current experiment examined whether preschoolers extend their moral principles from reality into pretense and whether this transfer depends on the proximity of the pretend world to the real world. Children are known to transfer their knowledge of object properties, causality, and problem solutions between pretend and real worlds. However, do children maintain their real-world moral reasoning in pretense? Preschoolers (N = 63) judged the acceptability of antisocial behaviors in pretend, fantastical, or non-pretend scenarios. Children found antisocial behaviors to be equally unacceptable in both pretend and non-pretend situations but found antisocial behaviors to be more acceptable in the fantastical situations. These results imply that children extend their real-world representations of morality in pretense, but more so for pretend scenarios that are similar to the real world. Implications for children's understanding of the reality-fantasy boundary and moral reasoning are discussed.

中文翻译：

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学龄前儿童将现实世界的道德推理转化为伪装

假装踢或假偷窃是错误的吗？当前的实验检验了学龄前儿童是否将他们的道德原则从现实扩展到假装，以及这种转移是否取决于假装世界与现实世界的接近程度。众所周知，儿童会在假装世界和真实世界之间转移他们对物体属性、因果关系和问题解决方案的知识。然而，孩子们会假装保持他们真实世界的道德推理吗？学龄前儿童 (N = 63) 在假装、幻想或非假装场景中判断反社会行为的可接受性。儿童发现反社会行为在假装和非假装情况下同样不可接受，但在幻想情况下反社会行为更容易接受。这些结果意味着儿童在假装中扩展了他们在现实世界中的道德表征，但对于与现实世界相似的假装场景更是如此。讨论了对儿童理解现实-幻想边界和道德推理的影响。