Abstract
This paper addresses recent x-phi research on children's concept of personal identity. It is inspired by earlier studies showing that there is a strong connection between the folk concept of personal identity and preference for positive moral traits with interpersonal connotations.
In order to explore these concepts also in developmental context we conducted an interview study in 2017 on Czech children and teenagers (N=217; 56,4% female; age range 6-15; average age=11). Respondents were randomly recruited at a public family event.
Interviewer introduced each participant to a scenario in which a person undergoes various changes after being closed in a special sci-fi chamber. Changes encompassed 6 categories: physical, cognitive, moral, in character, in memory and in perception.
Both negative and positive versions of the changes were included. Respondents were asked to judge how much each of the changes would affect the person's identity core on a 7-point scale.
Data analyses showed that respondents consider moral traits to be significantly more important for personal identity preservation than any other category of traits. The next most important category is memory, followed by cognition, character, perception and physical.
The expected difference between the impact of negative and positive versions of the changes was also supported by the data. The most salient difference came up in rating of the change in moral category.
Further exploratory analyses revealed effects of age and scenario. Relative importance of moral traits grows with age, especially the distance between moral and physical category.
Children responding to the personal scenario ("your friend/someone you know changes") ascribe higher importance to moral traits in comparison to other categories, than children responding to the neutral scenario ("some person in general").