Ch. 12: Morality in thoughts and action

Question 1

Piaget’s theory of moral development

Answer 1

1. Premoral development
2. Heteronomous stage: In Piaget’s theory of moral development, a stage in which children think that rules are fixed and immutable realities that are part of the natural world.
3. Autonomous stage: In Piaget’s theory of moral development, a stage in which children think of rules as social conventions that are created by humans and can be changed by
   humans.

Question 2

Cognitive empathy

Answer 2

A form of empathy that requires social cognitive skills and the ability to take another’s perspective and that involves understanding and representing the emotional and mental points of view of others.

Question 3

Conduct disorder

Answer 3

A pattern of frequent and recurring antisocial behaviors in children and adolescents, whereby the children regularly violate the rights of others as well as violating social norms or rules.

Question 4

Constructivist approach

Answer 4

An approach to moral development that sees the child as constructing moral interpretations of a situation by evaluating the situation, the actors, and the cultural context.

Question 5

Cultural psychology

Answer 5

A view of psychology in which cultural differences are believed to greatly influence psychological processes and representations. This view argues against the
existence of intrinsic universals of moral thought.

Question 6

Emotional empathy

Answer 6

A form of empathy that involves directly witnessing another person’s emotional state and feeling the same emotion in a relatively immediate and direct way.

Question 7

Evolutionary psychology

Answer 7

A view of psychology that emphasizes evolution of a variety of psychological adaptations that increased the fitness of individuals. In regard to moral development, the emphasis is on the universals of moral thought and behavior that have been selected as adaptive in all humans.

Question 8

Immanent justice

Answer 8

In Piaget’s theory of moral development, a form of reasoning about
justice in which the child believes that most events that adversely affect an individual who
has previously done something wrong are forms of punishment for the earlier transgression.

Question 9

Information integration theory

Answer 9

A theory of cognitive development that says that older
children integrate different dimensions or com-ponents of a task into a coherent system for
successful reasoning, whereas younger children focus excessively on one dimension or
component of the task at the expense of others.

Question 10

Instrumental helping

Answer 10

Prosocial behavior to help someone else achieve a goal, even though there is no obvious benefit to the helper.

Question 11

Modeling theory

Answer 11

An approach to learning and socialization based on the idea that children and adults reproduce behaviors that they observe others performing; also called social learning theory.

Question 12

Moral dumbfounding

Answer 12

The finding that in some moral situations, people have strong
convictions about what is right and wrong but are unable to explain why.

Question 13

Resilience

Answer 13

The ability of some children to have very positive behavioral and psychological
outcomes, despite growing up in an environment that normally is associated with a high
incidence of behavioral and psychological problems.

Question 14

Social intuitionist model

Answer 14

A model of moral judgment in which perceived violations of
norms and rights automatically trigger emotions like anger or contempt without consideration
of abstract moral principles.

Question 15

Social learning theory

Answer 15

The idea that people tend to copy behavior modeled by others, especially those they like and respect; also called modeling theory.