4 - peers and friends and moral development Flashcards
what is the approximate timeline of peer interactions?
infancy - interested in looking and touching other infants, vocalise during interaction
1-2yrs - interact with other babies in friendly way, watch each other play, engage in pretend play
3yrs - more co-ordinated play, role taking, prefer peer to adult company
6yrs - peak in imaginative play, long sequences
7yrs - stable same gender preference, expectations of friends develop
11yrs - expect deeper foundations to friendship, a source of emotional support
13yrs+ - emergence of cross gender relationships
what is the definition of co-operation?
Warnken et al.:
- having a joint goal
- different but flexible roles
- commitments to the joint goal (can’t stop in middle of joint activity without explanation)
when do children begin to engage in co-operative activities?
between 1 and 2 years
when partner ceases to play child attempts to reengage them communicatively (evidence of shared goal)
is cooperation a distinctly human ability?
Warneken et al. examined whether chimpanzees also re-engaged with each other, they don’t therefore no evidence of shared goals
when do infants start to prefer peer interaction?
2-3 years old
how do peers influence a child’s behaviour?
modelling behaviours that a child can imitate
reinforcing a child’s behaviour
setting benchmarks for a child to compare themselves to
what is Brofenbrenner’s ecological systems theory?
children’s development is closely affected by things like family and peer group
outside of that is the ecosystem including community and school system
outside of that is macrosystem including social conditions and economic patterns
how does peer acceptance effect children?
being popular is important to children
peer status can affect children’s happiness, social development, school attendance
peer status tends to be stable over time
how can children’s popularity be measured?
sociometric techniques
each child asked to choose 3 people they like a lot and 3 people they don’t like very much
they are then categorised into popular, controversial, average, neglected, rejected
what are the categories that rejected children may fall into?
aggressive rejected: poor self control, behavioural problems, disruptive
nonaggressive rejected: anxious, withdrawn, socially unskilled
what factors affect peer status?
- temperament/personality
- past experiences
- physical appearance
- social skills - ability to process and act on social information
what is the social information processing model?
Crick & Dodge 1994
when you’re interacting with other people you are drawing on a data base
- encode cues
- interpret cues
- clarify goals
- review possible actions
- decide on an action
- act on decision
what does a child need to do to avoid or overcome rejection?
- to want to interact with others
- to feel confident in having something to contribute to the group
- to be interested in what others in the group are like: their interests and opinions
how can parents help their children develop social skills?
- creating opportunities for children to interact with others
- being a role model in social interactions themselves
- talking about social interactions thereby developing child’s understanding
- building child’s confidence about own likeability
how can teachers’ promote peer acceptance?
Ladd (1981) showed children to be more accepted by teaching them 3 methods of communication
1. asking peers positively toned questions
2. offering useful suggestions and directions to peers
3. making supportive statements to peers
how can friends’ protect from peer acceptance?
many children who are unpopular do have a friend and are contended within that friendship
this relationship has protective effects again low peer group acceptance
others, however, find themselves bullied by supposed friend
why be moral?
plato: because the moral life is the harmonious and happy life
is mankind naturally benevolent?
Hobbes: no
rousseau: yes
is morality a product of reason or emotion?
hume: emotion followed by reason
how do social psychologists’ define morality?
turiel: judgements of justice, rights and welfare in interpersonal interactions
haidt: interlocking values, norms and psychological mechanisms that collectively suppress selfishness and enables social life.
embraces pluralism (many values) and relativism (no one right moral code).
claims morality is product of physical, psychological, cultural and institutional mechanisms’
what does Wilson say about morality and emotions?
ethical philosophers and developmentalists understand moral principles by consulting their own emotional centres in the hypothalamic-limbic system.
what is emotional contagion?
the tendency to ‘catch’ other people’s emotions
- babies cry when they hear other babies cry
- pupillary contagion in adults
what is mimicry?
the tendency to automatically synchronise affective expressions, vocalisations and movements with another person
leads to a causal chain where one adopts another’s facial expressions and thereby feels the expression oneself
neonates mimic facial expressions
what is the ‘like me’ hypothesis?
meltzoff
human acts are represented with a common code that applies the the self and others. this shapes newborns’ initial interactions and provide an innate interpretive framework based on the perspective of seeing others as ‘like me’
how do children develop concern for others?
longitudinal study of infants between 1 and 2 years
children transitioned from being upset themselves when they saw someone in distress to attempting to comfort the person by engaging in prosocial behaviours
what is sympathy via affective perspective taking?
understand how people are feeling even when their emotions are not visible.
infer what another person must feel like given the circumstances and act appropriately.
when do children develop sympathy via affective perspective taking?
18 month children show concern for a stranger who is in a hurtful situation but shows no emotion
what are Piaget’s stages of moral development?
- premoral (0-5yrs): no understanding of moral rules
- moral realism (5-10yrs): rules come from higher authorities, actions are evaluated by their outcomes
- moral subjectivism (10yrs+): rules can be changed by mutual consent, intentions are important
what are Kohlberg’s stages of moral development?
- pre conventional (0-9yrs): what’s right is what authority figures say is right
- conventional (9-adulthood): what’s right is about what is generally accepted by people as right
- post conventional (some adults): there are universal moral principles that transcend the law/majority view
criticisms of Kohlberg’s theory
- gender bias (only tested males)
- culture bias (emphasis on western cultures)
- validity of interview method
- idea that we only move upwards from one stage to another
- failure to acknowledge children appreciated distinction between social and moral conventions early on
what are Tomasello & Vaish stages of moral development?
- second-personal morality: moral decisions revolve around specific others
- agent-neutral morality: moral decisions involve following and enforcing group-wide social norms
what is joint intentionality?
two agents sharing a goal and engaging in joint attention to coordinate with each other while having their own role
Tomasello & Vaish, moral development
what is collective intentionally?
involves moving things to the group level and taking a more objective perspective on how things are done in one’s culture
how do peers affect moral reasoning?
piaget said interactions with peers is important for development of moral reasoning
Kruger found the degree to which children engaged in reflective discourse with peers positively correlated with moral reasoning
