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The abstract concepts good and bad are loaded with evaluative meaning. Evaluation is important as an ingredient of attitude learning, and the child's understanding of good and bad is also significant in early personality development. 50 children, aged 2-6 were shown 12 sets of multiple-choice pictures. Each set of 4 alternatives contained 1 good activity, or 1 bad activity, or all neutral activities. The growth in the ability of the child to select the loaded pictures is a regular curve starting at chance near age 2 and approaching the point of all correct near age 6. Bad pictures are more readily identified than good at all ages beyond 2 years, 5 months. The results are discussed in relation to the children's language capacity. It is suggested that bad is acquired before good because early socialization provides a concept-formation environment more fitting to the learning of bad.
Rhine et al. (Fri,) studied this question.