I saw a documentary where they used this same question. The filmmakers were interviewing children, and universally the children said it was bad to steal. The interviewers asked the same children the same question each year as they grew older and went through puberty. As they went through puberty the children began to see the morality at work in the question, should you steal or let someone die? With all the children, they began to question their beliefs on the right choice in the scenario. They all thought the stealing was a necessary evil and was justifiable compared to letting the wife die. It was fascinating to watch the kids go from a rote "stealing is bad" evolve to understand the nuance.
tl;dr kids see things in black/white, while teens start seeing things with shades of gray too.
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I saw a documentary where they used this same question. The filmmakers were interviewing children, and universally the children said it was bad to steal. The interviewers asked the same children the same question each year as they grew older and went through puberty. As they went through puberty the children began to see the morality at work in the question, should you steal or let someone die? With all the children, they began to question their beliefs on the right choice in the scenario. They all thought the stealing was a necessary evil and was justifiable compared to letting the wife die. It was fascinating to watch the kids go from a rote "stealing is bad" evolve to understand the nuance.
tl;dr kids see things in black/white, while teens start seeing things with shades of gray too.