4 - peers and friends and moral development

Question 1

what is the approximate timeline of peer interactions?

Answer 1

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

Question 2

what is the definition of co-operation?

Answer 2

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)

Question 3

when do children begin to engage in co-operative activities?

Answer 3

between 1 and 2 years
when partner ceases to play child attempts to reengage them communicatively (evidence of shared goal)

Question 4

is cooperation a distinctly human ability?

Answer 4

Warneken et al. examined whether chimpanzees also re-engaged with each other, they don’t therefore no evidence of shared goals

Question 5

when do infants start to prefer peer interaction?

Answer 5

2-3 years old

Question 6

how do peers influence a child’s behaviour?

Answer 6

modelling behaviours that a child can imitate
reinforcing a child’s behaviour
setting benchmarks for a child to compare themselves to

Question 7

what is Brofenbrenner’s ecological systems theory?

Answer 7

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

Question 8

how does peer acceptance effect children?

Answer 8

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

Question 9

how can children’s popularity be measured?

Answer 9

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

Question 10

what are the categories that rejected children may fall into?

Answer 10

aggressive rejected: poor self control, behavioural problems, disruptive

nonaggressive rejected: anxious, withdrawn, socially unskilled

Question 11

what factors affect peer status?

Answer 11

• temperament/personality
• past experiences
• physical appearance
• social skills - ability to process and act on social information

Question 12

what is the social information processing model?

Answer 12

Crick & Dodge 1994
when you’re interacting with other people you are drawing on a data base

1. encode cues
2. interpret cues
3. clarify goals
4. review possible actions
5. decide on an action
6. act on decision

Question 13

what does a child need to do to avoid or overcome rejection?

Answer 13

• 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

Question 14

how can parents help their children develop social skills?

Answer 14

• 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

Question 15

how can teachers’ promote peer acceptance?

Answer 15

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

Question 16

how can friends’ protect from peer acceptance?

Answer 16

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

Question 17

why be moral?

Answer 17

plato: because the moral life is the harmonious and happy life

Question 18

is mankind naturally benevolent?

Answer 18

Hobbes: no
rousseau: yes

Question 19

is morality a product of reason or emotion?

Answer 19

hume: emotion followed by reason

Question 20

how do social psychologists’ define morality?

Answer 20

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’

Question 21

what does Wilson say about morality and emotions?

Answer 21

ethical philosophers and developmentalists understand moral principles by consulting their own emotional centres in the hypothalamic-limbic system.

Question 22

what is emotional contagion?

Answer 22

the tendency to ‘catch’ other people’s emotions
- babies cry when they hear other babies cry
- pupillary contagion in adults

Question 23

what is mimicry?

Answer 23

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

Question 24

what is the ‘like me’ hypothesis?

Answer 24

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’

Question 25

how do children develop concern for others?

Answer 25

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

Question 26

what is sympathy via affective perspective taking?

Answer 26

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.

Question 27

when do children develop sympathy via affective perspective taking?

Answer 27

18 month children show concern for a stranger who is in a hurtful situation but shows no emotion

Question 28

what are Piaget’s stages of moral development?

Answer 28

1. premoral (0-5yrs): no understanding of moral rules
2. moral realism (5-10yrs): rules come from higher authorities, actions are evaluated by their outcomes
3. moral subjectivism (10yrs+): rules can be changed by mutual consent, intentions are important

Question 29

what are Kohlberg’s stages of moral development?

Answer 29

1. pre conventional (0-9yrs): what’s right is what authority figures say is right
2. conventional (9-adulthood): what’s right is about what is generally accepted by people as right
3. post conventional (some adults): there are universal moral principles that transcend the law/majority view

Question 30

criticisms of Kohlberg’s theory

Answer 30

• 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

Question 31

what are Tomasello & Vaish stages of moral development?

Answer 31

1. second-personal morality: moral decisions revolve around specific others
2. agent-neutral morality: moral decisions involve following and enforcing group-wide social norms

Question 32

what is joint intentionality?

Answer 32

two agents sharing a goal and engaging in joint attention to coordinate with each other while having their own role

Tomasello & Vaish, moral development

Question 33

what is collective intentionally?

Answer 33

involves moving things to the group level and taking a more objective perspective on how things are done in one’s culture

Question 34

how do peers affect moral reasoning?

Answer 34

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