Ch. 13 Flashcards
moral development
changes in thoughts, feelings and behaviors regarding standards of right and wrong
intrapersonal dimension
pertains to person’s activities when they’re not engaged in interaction
interpersonal dimension
social interactions (cooperation and conflict)
5 questions to understand moral development
1) how do children and adolescents reason or think about rules for ethical conduct?
2) how to children and adolescents actually behave in moral circumstances?
3) how do children and adolescents feel about moral issues?
4) what comprises children’s and adolescent’s personality with respect to morality?
5) how is the moral domain different from social conventional and personal domains?
social-cognitive domain theory
there are different domains of social knowledge and reasoning
–moral, social, conventional, and personal domains
-domains arise from children’s and adolescents’ attempts to understand and deal w/ various forms of social exp.
3 areas of Piaget and moral thought
children’s understanding of:
1) rules
2) moral responsibility
3) justice
Piaget’s 2 stages of moral development
1) heteronomous morality
2) autonomous morality
heteronomous morality
4-7 yrs.
-children think of justice and rules as unchangeable properties of the world, removed from the control of people
-7-10 yrs. -> transition
autonomous morality
10+ yrs.
-children become aware rules and laws are made by people
-in judging an action, they consider the actor’s intent and consequences
immanent justice
concept that if a rule is broken, punishment will be delivered immediately
Kohlberg’s 3 lvls. of moral thinking
1) pre-conventional reasoning
2) conventional reasoning
3) post-conventional reasoning
LVL 1: pre-conventional reasoning
STAGE 1: punishment and obedience orientation
-moral thinking tied to punishment, consequences > intentions
-intrisnic deference to authority, < 9 yrs.
STAGE 2: ndividualism, instrumental purpose, and exchange
-individuals pursue their own interests but let others do the same
-what’s right involves an equal exchange (tit for tat)
LVL 2: conventional reasoning
-individuals have certain standards (internal) but are the same standards held by others (external), such as parents or laws of society
STAGE 3: mutual interpersonal expectations, relationships, and interpersonal conformity
-individuals value trust, caring, and loyalty to others as basis of moral judgements
-adopt parents’ moral standards, seeking to be thought of by parents as being “good”
-see others as filling social rules, most adolescents are here or shift between 2-4
STAGE 4: social systems morality
-moral judgements are based on understanding the social order, law, justice, and duty
-law and order as highest ideals, social obedience as must to a functional society
LVL 3: post-conventional reasoning
morality is more internal
STAGE 5: social contract or utility and individual rights
-individuals reason that values, rights, and principles undergird or transcend the law
-person evaluates validity of laws and examines systems in terms of degree to which they preserve and protect fundamental human rights and values
-others have different values, law is contingent on culture
STAGE 6: universal ethical principles
-develop moral standard based on universal human rights
-follow own conscience > law
how to improve moral reasoning
present arguments slightly beyond a child’s lvl. of moral reasoning
-creates dissonance, forces child to reconsider or restructure their thought process
-peer interaction, perspective taking
Kohlberg’s critics
too much emphasis on moral thought and not enough on moral behavior
-moral reasons can be a shelter for immoral behavior
-culture influences moral development more than Kohlberg thought
–shifts to stage 5-6 haven’t been found in all cultures and scoring system doesn’t recognize higher-level moral reasoning of certain cultures
–some cultures value principles of communal equity, collective happiness and moral responsibility
-Kohlberg argued emotion has negative effects on moral reasoning and family is unimportant and offer little opportunity for give-and-take or perspective taking, but its important
-moral thinking is deliberative > intuitive, reflects gender bias
–based on a male norm that puts abstract principles above relationships and concern for others
moral disengagement
psychological process that allows individual to distinguish self from harmful effects of behaviors
-blaming victims and diffusing responsibility -< feel good while doing immoral things
justice perspective
moral perspective that focuses on the rights of individual; individuals independently make moral decisions
Carol Gilligan’s care perspective
-interested in moral development girls
-views people in terms of connectedness w/ others and emphasizes interpersonal communication, relationships and concern for others
Gilligan’s stages of moral development
preconventional
-person only cares about themselves to ensure survival
conventional
-person shows responsibility, care for others, sometimes ignoring needs of self
postconventional
-person accepts that they need to care for both themselves and others
social cognitive theory of morality
distinction between individual’s ability to perform moral behaviors and actual performance of those behaviors in specific situations
moral competencies
what individuals are capable of doing, what they know
-skills, awareness of rules and regulations, and cognitive ability to construct behaviors
moral performance
behavior determined by motivation and rewards and incentives to act in a specific moral way
empathy
reacting to another’s feelings with an emotional response that’s similar to others feelings
global empathy
infant’s empathetic response in which clear boundaries between feelings and needs of self and those of another haven’t been established
infancy empathy
doesn’t distinguish between feelings and needs of self and others
-seem attuned to helplessness
1-2 yrs. empathy
undifferentiated feelings of discomfort of another’s distress grow into more genuine feelings of concern
-infants cannot translate realizations of another person’s unhappy feelings into effective action
