7. Moral Development Flashcards
What is moral development?
Involves changes in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors regarding standards of right and wrong. Has intrapersonal and interpersonal dimension.
How to study how adolescents behave in moral circumstances?
observational study using 1 way mirror
How to study how adolescents feel about moral matters?
whether they feel guilty enough to resist temptation
What are the 3 domains in domain theory?
Moral domain: cheating, lying, harming others
Social conventional domain: speaking out of turn
Personal domain: choosing friends
components in all 3 domains are often interrelated.
What does Lawrence Kohlberg propose about moral development?
That moral development is based primarily on moral reasoning and unfolds in a series of stages.
How did Kohlberg come up with the different stages of moral reasoning?
He conducted interviews with people of different ages and present them with moral dilemmas. Interested in their moral reasoning for their answer rather than their answer itself.
What is the key concept of understanding progression through Kohlberg’s levels and stages?
the person’s morality becomes more internalised. starts to encompass more complex coordinations of multiple perspectives.
What are the 3 levels in Kohlberg’s model of moral reasoning?
Level 1: Preconventional reasoning (no internalization)
Level 2: Conventional Reasoning (intermediate Internalization)
Level 3: Postconventional Reasoning (full internalization)
Kohlberg argues that they occur sequentially and are age-related. Any change in moral reasoning between late adolescence and early adulthood appears to be relatively gradual.
What are the 3 levels and 6 stages in Kohlberg’s model of moral reasoning?
L1: Preconventional
S1: Punishment & Obedience orientation
S2: Individualism, Instrumental Purpose and Exchange
L2: Conventional
S3: Mutual interpersonal expectations, relationships, interpersonal conformity
S4: Social systems morality (community and citizenship)
L3: postconventional
S5: social contract or individual rights
S6: universal ethical principles
Describe the 2 stages of preconventional reasoning.
S1: punishment and obedience (children obey adults because they get punished if they don’t obey)
S2: Individualism, Instrumental Purpose (what’s in it for me? what is right involves an equal exchange. I am nice to others so others will be nice to me.)
What is conventional reasoning characterised by?
individuals abide by certain internal standards, but these standards are the standards of others (external) such as parents or society
Describe the 2 stages of conventional reasoning.
S3: Mutual interpersonal expectations, relationships, interpersonal conformity (individuals value trust, caring for, and loyalty to others as a basis of moral judgments. eg. being a “good child”)
S4: social systems morality (importance of being a good citizen. being moral to achieve social order, law, justice, duty)
What is postconventional reasoning characterised by?
internal morality. Individual recognizes alternative moral courses, explores the options, and decides on a moral code. Engage in deliberate checks on their reasoning to ensure it meets their ethical standards.
Describe the 2 stages of postconventional reasoning.
S5: social contract and individual rights (individuals can reason that values and rights underpin and transcend the law. A person evaluates the validity of laws and social systems in terms of the degree to which they protect fundamental human rights and values.)
S6: universal ethical principles (moral standard is based on universal human rights. when faced with conflict between law and conscience, the person follows conscience, tho it might involve personal risk)
Why was stage 6 recently removed from the scoring manual?
Because it was extremely elusive and hard to attain. But it is still considered theoretically important.
What influences an individual’s moral development?
cognitive development and exposure to appropriate social experiences.
How do we advance individual’s levels of moral development?
Present them with arguments that reflect moral thinking slightly beyond their cognitive levels. Creates disequilibrium that motivates a restructuring of moral thought. Resolution of disequilibrium increases their level of moral development.
How can peer interactions help individuals progress in moral development?
Provides social stimulation that challenges them to change their moral orientation.
Role-taking opportunities: mutual give and take in peer interaction helps children take the role of another person and generate rules democratically
What kind of parent-child experiences can induce children to think at more advanced levels or moral reasoning?
- parents who encourage conversation about value-laden issues
- parents’ discussion style that involves questioning and supportive interaction
What are 4 critics of Kohlberg’s model of moral reasoning?
1) too much emphasis on moral thought, not enough emphasis on moral behavior
2) flawed assumption that moral thinking is deliberative and individuals go around constantly contemplating and reasoning about morality.
3) neglects the role of emotion in moral reasoning. Increasing evidence that emotions play an important role in moral thinking.
4) neglects role of culture and role of family.
Some critics argue that Kohlberg’s model focuses too much on moral reasoning and not enough emphasis on moral behavior. Explain why this can be problematic.
Moral reasons can be used as a shelter/rationalisation for immoral behavior. Moral reasoning ability does not equate to moral behaviors. (eg. terrorism - we see how such cruel acts can be cloaked in moral virtue.)
People don’t usually engage in harmful conduct until they have justified the morality of their actions to themselves.
Kohlberg’s model has been criticised for assuming moral reasoning is deliberative and conscious all the time, when it is in fact unconscious/automatic most of the time. Explain.
Haidt argues that most moral thinking is more of an intuitive gut reaction than deliberative moral reasoning, which is often an after-the-fact justification.
What evidence suggests that emotions play an important role in moral thinking?
making moral decisions is linked to intensity and activation of emotion in specific region in prefrontal cortex and amygdala.
Some critics claim that Kohlberg’s theory is culturally biased. How so?
Universality of first 4 stages supported but stages 5 and 6 not found in all cultures.
Underestimates the influence of culture. Collectivistic cultures tend to emphasize stage 3 and 4 which is interpersonal relationships and social systems community (being a good citizen)
What is a cohort effect found pertaining to moral reasoning?
In recent years, postconventional reasoning has been declining in college students, down to the lowest level (personal interests).
What is Carol Gilligan’s critic of Kohlberg’s theory?
That it reflects a gender bias
What perspectives did Carol Gilligan propose?
Care and Justice perspective.
Justice perspective – argues that Kohlberg’s theory is based on a male norm that puts abstract principles above relationships and concern for others. Puts justice at the heart of morality. Sees the individual as independently making moral decisions.
Care perspective – views people in terms of their connectedness with others and emphasizes relationships and concern for others.
Argued that Kohlberg greatly underplayed the care perspective as his research was mostly with males.
What does recent meta-analysis suggest about Gilligan’s claim of gender bias?
casts doubt on gilligan’s claim on gender differences. girls’ moral orientations somewhat more focused on care for others than abstract principles of justice, but they can use both moral orientations when needed.
Besides hypothetical moral dilemmas, what is a new measure for moral development?
Defining Issues Test (DIT)
determine which moral issues individuals feel are critical in a given situation by presenting a series of dilemmas and a list of potential considerations in making a decision.
List the most important values that govern human interaction. More valid and reliable way to assess moral thinking.
What is a critique of the hypothetical moral dilemma approach?
do not match the moral dilemmas people face in everyday lives. moral dilemmas not just focused on family and authority, it also focused on friends, acquaintances etc.
What does moral behavior entail?
Both antisocial behavior (eg. cheating, lying, stealing) and prosocial behavior (eg. helping others)
What are some behavioral processes that can explain how and why adolescents learn certain moral behaviors?
reinforcement, punishment, imitation/modelling
What does effectiveness of reinforcement and punishment of moral behavior depend on?
Depends on how consistently they are administered and the schedule adopted
What does the effectiveness of modelling if moral behavior depend on?
Depends on characteristics of the model (power, warmth, uniqueness etc) and the presence of cognitive processes (eg. symbolic codes) that enhance retention of the modeled behavior. Also models often don’t do what they say.
Moral behavior tends to be situationally dependent. How so?
adolescents not likely to display consistent moral behavior in diverse social settings. A completely honest or completely dishonest child was hard to find. situation-specific moral behavior was the rule. (eg. adolescents more likely to cheat when friends pressured them to do so and chances of getting caught is slim.)
What does the social cognitive theory of moral development emphasize?
emphasize a distinction between moral competence (ability to produce moral behaviors) and moral performance (The enactment of those behaviors in specific situations).
What does Albert Bandura argues about understanding moral development?
Argues that moral development is best understood by considering a combination of social and cognitive factors, especially those involving self-control.
What is the importance of self-control in moral behavior?
It is a self-regulatory process in which people monitor their conduct and the conditions under which it occurs, judge it in relation to moral standards, and regulate their actions by the consequences they apply to themselves.
What is altruism?
an unselfish interest in helping another person
What circumstances are more likely to elicit altruism? (2)
1) empathetic or sympathetic emotion
2) close relationship between giver and recipient
Why does prosocial behaviour occur more often in adolescence than in childhood?
cognitive changes – advances in abstract, idealistic, and logical reasoning. Can better sympathize with members of abstract groups they have little experience with. an unselfish interest in helping another person
What are the 6 types of prosocial behavior?
1) altruism
2) public (help when others are watching)
3) emotional (help when others are upset)
4) dire (help when others are in an emergency)
5) anonymous
6) compliant (help when others ask for it)
What gender differences are there in types of prosocial behavior?
Adolescent girls reported more emotional, dire, compliant, and altruistic behavior. Boys engaged in more public prosocial behavior
Parental monitoring was positively related to what kinds of prosocial behavior?
emotional, dire, and compliant behavior
