Chapter 12 - Social Cognition and Moral Development Flashcards
SOCIAL COGNITION
Thinking about the thoughts, feelings, motives, and behavior of the self, other people, groups, and even whole social systems
false-belief task
A research paradigm used to assess an important aspect of a theory of mind, mainly the understanding that people can hold incorrect beliefs and be influenced by them.
The false-belief task was used in a pioneering study by Simon Baron-Cohen and colleagues (1985) to determine…
whether young children, children with Down syndrome, and children with autism have a theory of mind
How many 4-year-olds of average intelligence and older children with Down syndrome passed the false-belief task about Sally and her marble?
about 85%
How many children with autism failed the false-belief task about Sally and her marble?
80%
theory of mind
The understanding that people have mental states (feelings, desires, beliefs, intentions) and that these states underlie and help explain their behavior.
theory of mind is also called what?
mind-reading skills
We all rely on a theory of mind to…
predict and explain human behavior
At what age do children normally start to pass the false-belief task?
age 4
What evidence is there that theory of mind starts to develop in infancy? (6 things)
Joint attention
Understanding intentions
Pretend play
Imitation
Emotional understanding
Implicit theory of mind
When does joint attention begin?
Starting around 9 months
By what age do infants prefer a “helper” puppet to a “hinderer” puppet?
What is this evidence of?
by 6 months of age
evidence of understanding intentions
At what age to infants engage in simple pretend play?
between 1 and 2 years
When do infants begin teasing or comforting others?
What does this demonstrate?
in the second year of life
emotional understanding - understanding that other people have emotions and that these emotions can be influenced for bad or good
At what age do infants show surprise (as indicated by looking longer) when an actor does not look for a toy where she should believe it was hidden?
What does this demonstrate?
15 months
implicit theory of mind
Wellman’s two main phases of children’s development of theory of mind
desire psychology
belief–desire psychology
What is desire psychology?
When does it develop?
The earliest theory of mind; an understanding that desires guide behavior (e.g., that people seek things they like and avoid things they hate)
Toddlers talk about what they want and explain their own behavior and that of others in terms of wants or desires
Develops around age 1.5 - 2
What is belief-desire psychology?
By what age is it evident?
The theory of mind reflecting an understanding that people’s desires and beliefs guide their behavior and that their beliefs are not always an accurate reflection of reality - They now pass false-belief tasks
evident by age 4
which theory of mind skills continue to improve from age 5 on and develop in later childhood/adolescence?
understanding sarcasm and complex second-order belief statements (in which people have beliefs about other people’s beliefs)
What is some evidence that having a theory of mind and other social cognitive skills proved adaptive for our ancestors and became part of our biological endowment as a species through natural selection?
Figuring out other people’s intentions would be useful in deciding whether to trust them or be wary of them
Social behaviors such as bargaining, conflict resolution, cooperation, and competition all depend on understanding other people and predicting their behavior accurately
human children have more advanced social cognitive skills than chimps and distinguish themselves by being more able to cooperate with others to achieve a goal
What is some evidence that developing a theory of mind and other social cognition requires brain development?
developing a theory of mind requires neurological and cognitive maturation
children everywhere develop a theory of mind and progress from a desire psychology to a belief–desire psychology and mastering various theory-of-mind tasks in about the same sequence and at about the same ages
atypical brain development in children with autism seems to be behind their great difficulty passing theory-of-mind tasks
what is the “social brain”?
what brain areas does it include?
a network of areas in the brain that specializes in thinking about the social world of self and others
areas in the medial prefrontal cortex and the temporoparietal junction of the brain that are highly active when we are thinking about people’s beliefs
what are mirror neurons and how do they relate to social cognition?
Neural cells in several brain areas that are activated not only when we perform an action but also when we observe someone else performing it. Implicated in imitation, theory-of-mind skills, empathy, and language.
may also be critical in allowing us to quickly infer another person’s mental state based on our own experiences of the same actions and facial expressions and of corresponding internal states
what help explain the social cognitive difficulties of individuals with autism?
mirror neuron deficits
acquiring a theory of mind and other social cognitive skills, much like acquiring language, requires not only a normal human brain but also experience interacting with other humans—participating in a “community of minds”
What 4 things provide evidence for this?
Language experience
-deaf children of hearing parents, who usually do not have an opportunity to converse in sign language from an early age, achieve milestones in social cognitive development slowly, sometimes struggling with false-belief tasks even at ages 8–10
Parent mental state talk
-Parents who talk with their children in elaborated ways about mental states (“You were probably sad because you thought Grandma would stay longer”) tend to have children with advanced theory-of-mind skills and good emotion understanding
Interactions with siblings and peers
-Children with siblings seem to grasp the elements of a theory of mind earlier than children without siblings
Cultural differences
-children are slow to develop theory-of-mind skills in cultures where there is not much talk about mental states (e.g., In Samoa, for example, others’ minds are considered unknowable, so mental states are not discussed much)
Children who have acquired theory of mind are more likely to (positive effects):
behave more prosocially than children with weak skills—cooperating, helping, and comforting others more often
have more advanced social skills and better peer relations and social adjustment
Children who have acquired theory of mind are more likely to (negative effects):
bullies and liars often prove to be very adept at “mind reading” too
training 3-year-olds in theory-of-mind skills actually makes them more likely than untrained children to lie when they are given the opportunity to deceive someone
Trait perception: Young children perceive others primarily in terms of…
When they use psychological terms, they tend to be…
their physical appearance, possessions, and activities
global, evaluative ones such as “nice” or “mean,” “good” or “bad,” rather than specific personality-trait labels
Preschool children have difficulty inferring a trait from past behavior and then…
using it to predict future behavior
At what age do children’s descriptions of people show that they think about others in terms of enduring psychological traits?
Around age 7 or 8
At what age do children make more use of psychological traits to explain why people behave as they do, saying, for instance, that Mike pulled the dog’s tail because he is cruel?
age 11 or 12
At what stage are people able to create more integrated personality profiles, analyzing how an individual’s often inconsistent traits fit together and make sense as a whole personality?
adolescence - Some adolescents spend hours “psychoanalyzing” people, trying to figure out what makes them tick
perspective-taking skills
The ability to assume other people’s perspectives and understand their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors; role-taking skills.
what did Selman conclude about perspective-taking skills?
perspective-taking abilities develop in a stage-like manner as children progress through Piaget’s stages of cognitive development
What are Selman’s 3 stages of developing perspective-taking abilities?
3–6 years old tend to respond egocentrically, assuming that others share their point of view
age 8–10, children appreciate that two people can have different points of view even when they have access to the same information. Children are able to think about their own thoughts and about the thoughts of another person simultaneously.
around age 12, adolescents become capable of mentally juggling multiple perspectives—their own, that of another person, and even that of the “generalized other,” or a broader social group such as children or fathers.
What happens to social cognition in adulthood?
Social cognitive skills strengthen during adulthood and seem to hold up better in later life than nonsocial cognitive skills
improvement in social cognition with age occurred despite a decline in fluid intelligence with age
studies of social cognition in later life:
Poor performance is especially likely if…
tasks overload adults’ basic cognitive capacities by requiring fast information processing or high levels of executive control or by making major demands on memory
studies of social cognition in later life:
Sharpest performance is especially likely if…
those older adults tend to be socially active and involved in meaningful social roles such as grandparent, church member, or worker, whereas those whose skills have become dull tend to be socially isolated
Morality
The ability to distinguish right from wrong, to act on this distinction, and to experience pride when doing something right and to experience guilt or shame when doing something wrong
Morality involves which three components?
emotional, cognitive, and behavioral components (thinking, feeling, and acting)
moral reasoning - what is it and what developmental theory is it part of?
The cognitive component of morality; the thinking that occurs when people decide whether acts are right or wrong.
Cognitive Developmental Theory
theorists assume that moral development depends on…
cognitive development, particularly perspective-taking skills that allow us to picture how our victims might react to our misdeeds or how people in distress must feel
moral reasoning is said to progress through…
universal stages, each of which represents a consistent way of thinking about moral issues
what is of interest in studying moral reasoning?
how we decide what to do, not what we decide or what we actually do
Jean Piaget paved the way for the influential cognitive-developmental theory of moral development put forth by…
Lawrence Kohlberg
How did Piaget study moral development?
What did he conclude about preschool children?
asking Swiss children about their games of marbles and explored children’s concepts of right and wrong by presenting them with moral dilemmas to ponder
concluded that preschool children do not truly understand rules and are best thought of as “premoral.”
What did Piaget observe about children ages 6-10 in judging the wrongness of acts? About what they tend to believe about rules?
emphasize consequences more than intentions in judging the wrongness of acts (e.g., they judge a boy who accidentally broke 15 cups while obeying his mother naughtier than a boy who broke only one cup while trying to sneak jam from the kitchen)
tend to believe that rules are handed down by parents and other authorities and are unalterable
At what age did Piaget find that children weigh more heavily whether a person’s intentions were good or bad in judging his actions and begin to appreciate that rules are agreements among individuals—agreements that can be changed through a consensus of those individuals?
At age 10 or 11
How did Kohlberg formulate his own, highly influential cognitive-developmental theory of moral development?
by asking boys questions about various moral dilemmas to assess how they thought about these issues and repeatedly assessing their moral thinking into adulthood
What did Kohlberg conclude about the development of morals?
concluded that moral growth progresses through a universal and invariant sequence of three broad moral levels, each of which is composed of two distinct stages
What are Kohlberg’s Levels and Stages of moral development?
Level 1: Preconventional morality
-Stage 1: Punishment-and-Obedience Orientation
-Stage 2: Instrumental Hedonism
Level 2: Conventional morality
-Stage 3: “Good Boy” or “Good Girl” Morality
-Stage 4: Authority and Social Order–Maintaining Morality
Level 3: Postconventional morality
-Stage 5: Morality of Contract, Individual Rights, and Democratically Accepted Law
-Stage 6: Morality of Individual Principles of Conscience
Explain Kohlberg’s Level 1 and its stages
Level 1: Preconventional morality - society’s rules are not yet internalized and judgments are based on the punishing or rewarding consequences of an act
Stage 1: Punishment-and-Obedience Orientation. The goodness or badness of an act depends on its consequences. The child will obey authorities to avoid punishment but may not consider an act wrong if it will not be punished. The greater the harm done or the more severe the punishment, the more “bad” the act is.
Stage 2: Instrumental Hedonism. A person at the second stage of moral development conforms to rules to gain rewards or satisfy personal needs. There is some concern for the perspectives of others, but it is motivated by the hope of benefit in return. “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” and “an eye for an eye” are the guiding philosophies.
Explain Kohlberg’s Level 2 and its stages
Level 2: Conventional morality - societal values are internalized and judgments are based on a desire to gain approval or uphold law and social order
Stage 3: “Good Boy” or “Good Girl” Morality. What is right is now what pleases, helps, or is approved by others. People are often judged by their intentions; “meaning well” is valued, and being “nice” is important. Other people’s feelings, not just one’s own, should be considered. At its best, Stage 3 thinking involves reciprocity, or mutual give-and-take in relationships, leading to a simple Golden Rule morality of doing unto someone else what you would want done unto you
Stage 4: Authority and Social Order–Maintaining Morality. Now what is right is what conforms to the rules of legitimate authorities and is good for society as a whole. The reason for conforming is now a belief that rules and laws maintain a social order worth preserving. Doing one’s duty and respecting law and order are valued
Explain Kohlberg’s Level 3 and its stages
Level 3: Postconventional morality - moral judgments are based on a more abstract understanding of democratic social contracts or on universal principles of justice that have validity apart from the views of particular authority figures
Stage 5: Morality of Contract, Individual Rights, and Democratically Accepted Law. At this “social contract” stage, there is an understanding of the underlying purposes of laws and a concern that rules should be arrived at through a democratic consensus so that they express the will of the majority and maximize social welfare. Whereas the person at Stage 4 is unlikely to challenge an established law, the moral reasoner at Stage 5 might call for democratic change in a law that compromises basic human rights or is fundamentally unfair
Stage 6: Morality of Individual Principles of Conscience. Stage 6 is Kohlberg’s vision of ideal moral reasoning, but he so rarely observed it that he stopped attempting to measure its existence. At this “highest” stage of moral reasoning, the individual defines right and wrong on the basis of self-generated principles that are broad and universal in application. The Stage 6 thinker does not just make up whatever principles she chooses. She embraces abstract principles of respect for fundamental human rights—principles that all religious and moral authorities would view as moral. Kohlberg (1981) described Stage 6 thinking as a kind of “moral musical chairs” in which the person facing a moral dilemma is able to take the “chair,” or perspective, of each person and group and social system, present or future, that could potentially be affected by a decision and to arrive at a solution that would be regarded as just from every chair
What did Kohlberg believe are the two main influences on moral development?
cognitive growth and social interactions—but with peers more than with parents
moral growth is facilitated by what three things?
Discussions of moral issues with peers, especially when peers challenge our ideas
Advanced schooling; going to college contributes to cognitive growth and exposes students to diverse perspectives
Participating in a complex, diverse, democratic society where people weigh various opinions and appreciate that laws reflect a consensus of the citizens
Scholars used to view __________ as getting in the way of rational moral thinking but now they are viewed as central to moral development
emotions
who deserves credit for calling attention to the role of emotions in the development of morality?
Sigmund Freud
Freud believed that the _________, or conscience, arises during the preschool period to ensure that any plans formed by the rational __________ to gratify the _________’s selfish urges are morally acceptable.
superego
ego
id
Although the particulars of Freud’s theory of moral development lack support his main themes are still taken very seriously today. Research has shown what three things in this regard?
moral emotions are an important part of morality, motivating moral behavior
early relationships with parents contribute in important ways to moral development
children must internalize moral standards if they are to behave morally even when no authority figure is present to detect and punish their misbehavior
Empathy
The vicarious experiencing of another person’s feelings. Although it is not a specific emotion, it is an emotional process involved when we not only take others’ perspectives but feel their emotions.
What can empathy motivate and dissuade?
can motivate prosocial behavior—positive social acts, such as helping or sharing, that reflect concern for the welfare of others
can also keep us from engaging in antisocial behavior—behavior that violates social norms, rules, or laws and often involves harming other people or society (e.g., lying, stealing, behaving aggressively)
Like Freud, what modern theorist places a great deal of emphasis on the motivating role of emotional processes such as empathy and guilt in moral development?
Martin Hoffman
Which theory is closely related to studying moral behaviour?
social learning theory
theorists such as ____________ have been primarily interested in the behavioral component of morality—in what we actually do when faced with temptation or with an opportunity to behave prosocially
Albert Bandura
How do social learning theorists say that moral behavior is learned?
What do they also emphasize has an influence on moral behaviour?
in the same way that other social behaviors are learned: through observational learning and reinforcement and punishment principle
also emphasize situational influences on moral behavior—for example, how closely a professor watches exam takers or whether jewelry items are on the counter or behind glass in a department store - Due to situational influences, what we do is not always consistent with our moral values and standards
Bandura went on to emphasize that moral cognition is linked to moral action through _________________________ that involve monitoring and evaluating our own actions (or anticipated actions), disapproving of ourselves when we contemplate doing wrong, and approving of ourselves when we behave responsibly or humanely
self-regulatory mechanisms
according to Bandura, we have also devised mechanisms of _________________________ that allow us to avoid condemning ourselves when we engage in immoral behavior, even though we know the difference between right and wrong - by justifying, minimizing, or blaming others for one’s actions
moral disengagement
evolutionary theorists such as Dennis Krebs, Michael Tomasello, and others say that prosocial behaviors such as cooperation and altruism may have evolved because…
our ancestors were better able to obtain food and protect themselves from harm if they worked together than if they went it alone and pursued their selfish interests
How could humans have evolved to have altruistic tendencies when true altruists, who sacrifice their lives for others, die rather than pass on their genes?
it can be in our genetic self-interest to act altruistically toward kin because they will pass on the family’s genes if we help them survive
helping nonrelatives may be adaptive if we have reason to believe that the help we give will be reciprocated
cooperating with other people to obtain resources that the
individual could not obtain alone and abiding by society’s rules in order to avoid punishment all have adaptive value
whereas Freud emphasized the dark, selfish, and aggressive side of human nature, and social learning theorists have seen us as blank slates who can be molded in a variety of directions, evolutionary theorists argue…
that humans have an evolved genetic makeup that predisposes them not only to behave antisocially at times but also to behave prosocially and morally in many situations
what evidence is there that humans may be a uniquely prosocial species?
Tomasello (2019) has concluded based on his extensive studies of young children that what makes us different from chimpanzees and other great apes is our ability to collaborate and cooperate with others
Primates are quite good at figuring out others’ goals and intentions, but their social cognitive skills likely evolved in competitive situations where they could get food, mates, and other resources by outwitting their rivals
To not only understand others’ intentions but to be able to share intentions with others in order to pursue common goals—that’s what Tomasello believes distinguishes the human species and enables us to adapt more successfully than we could if we did not collaborate with our fellow humans from an early age
We tend to view infants as what kind of moral beings?
amoral—lacking any sense of morality
Some of infant behaviour supports what theory about moral development and negates some of which theorists’ beliefs about infant morality?
some of their behavior supports the view of evolutionary theorists such as Tomasello that empathy, cooperation, and prosocial behavior are part of our evolutionary heritage
Infants are not as selfish, egocentric, and unconcerned about other people as Freud, Piaget, Kohlberg, and many other theorists have assumed.
What does Hoffman believe about development of empathy?
children have the ingredients for empathy from birth and become capable of a truer form of empathy that motivates helping and other forms of moral behavior as they develop
What are the stages of infant/toddler development of empathy?
Newborns - display a primitive form of empathy, becoming distressed by the cries of other newborns - unclear whether newborns are experiencing empathy for another or are simply distressed by crying sounds
From age 1 to 2, toddlers begin to understand that someone else’s distress is different from their own, and they try to comfort the individual in distress, but they egocentrically do what would comfort them (e.g., a 10-month-old watching a peer cry looked sad and buried her head in her mother’s lap, as she often did when she herself was distressed)
From age 2 or 3 on, children are better at perspective taking and respond more appropriately to another person’s need (e.g., 2-year-old first brought his own teddy bear to comfort a distressed friend but, when that failed, offered the friend’s teddy instead)
How prosocial are infants and toddlers?
more than half of the 13- to 15-month-old infants they observed engaged in at least one act of prosocial behavior—helping, sharing, expressing concern, comforting, and so on
These behaviors became increasingly common from age 1 to 2, when all but one child in the study acted prosocially.
At what age do infants begin exhibiting helping?
As early as 14 months, infants will spontaneously—without being asked—help an adult who drops a clothes pin on the floor
They will help a peer, too, even when helping brings them no personal benefit
At what age do infants start to participate in cooperation?
As early as 14 months, infants can also participate in simple cooperative games and will even try to get their adult partner reengaged if she stops playing, suggesting that they understand that they and their partner had a shared goal while they were cooperating
When do children begin to demonstrate altruistic rather than selfish motivations?
Before they are 2 years old, children show greater happiness when they give treats like Goldfish crackers to an appreciative puppet than when they receive them, especially when they altruistically give their own treats to the puppet
When do infants exhibit a sense of fairness?
At 15 months of age, infants are more surprised (look longer) when they see one actor given three crackers and another given one than when the actors get two apiece, suggesting that they recognize fairness and unfairness when they see it
despite their preference for dividing rewards equally if two actors both clean up their toys, infants are more surprised and look longer when a hard worker and a loafer are rewarded equally than when the hard worker gets more—the fairer outcome
Do babies make moral judgments?
Infants much prefer to interact with a “helper” puppet who aids another puppet in achieving a goal than with a “hinderer” puppet who blocks another puppet from achieving a goal
although it is not clear whether they are truly making moral judgments or just expressing a preference for nice puppets, babies clearly distinguish between and have quite different feelings toward good guys and bad guys
How antisocial are infants and toddlers?
infants are quite capable of antisocial behavior
they are likely to be quite selfish if their choice is between rewarding themselves or rewarding someone else
Physical aggression, behavior that harms another person physically, comes naturally to humans, starting as soon as babies are able to hit, bite, push, or otherwise harm others
verbal aggression begins almost as soon as infants utter their first words
As early as 1½ years of age, some toddlers engage in more physical aggression than others, though - can be traced to both…
their genetic makeup and environmental factors such as harsh, coercive parenting or a depressed, emotionally unavailable parent - and it predicts aggressive behavior later in childhood
The frequency of aggression normally rises from infancy to a peak around age ___ and then decreases with age in most children as they become better socialized
3 or 4
Part of the reason for increased prosocial and decreased antisocial tendencies as infants become children is ___________________
moral socialization
Grazyna Kochanska has studied the development of a conscience in toddlerhood and believes it involves mastering these two things:
moral emotions—learning to associate negative emotions like guilt with violating rules and learning to empathize with people in distress
self-control—becoming able to inhibit one’s impulses when tempted to violate internalized rules
Moral emotions begin to be seen in infants by what age?
Self-control becomes more evident by what age?
18-24 months - toddlers show visible signs of emotional distress when they break toys, spill their drinks, or otherwise violate standards of behavior - some toddlers even show signs of guilt, as opposed to mere distress
24 months - as when toddlers comply with a parent’s request not to play with certain toys even after the parent leaves the room
How can parents help children develop moral emotions, self-control, and thus a strong conscience?
forming a secure parent–infant attachment is the best way to get moral socialization off to a good start
it is important for caregiver and child to establish a mutually responsive orientation
by discussing the emotional consequences of the child’s behavior
mutually responsive orientation - what is it and what are the benefits?
a close, emotionally positive, and cooperative relationship in which child and caregiver care about each other and are sensitive to each other’s needs
makes children trust their caregivers and want to comply with their rules and adopt their values and standards
children then learn moral emotions such as guilt and empathy and develop the self-control needed to resist temptation even when no one is around to catch them
can help prevent later parent–child struggles that can result in the development of antisocial behavior problems
What were Piaget and Kohlberg mistaken about in their beliefs on children’s moral thinking?
children’s moral thinking is far more sophisticated than Piaget and Kohlberg believed and parents can have a bigger impact on their children’s moral development than these two theorists believed
Piaget and Kohlberg believed that children were primarily focused on the __________________rather than the ___________________
consequences of acts
intentions behind them
it turns out that even ___-year-olds can take both intentions and consequences into account if presented with simple stories portrayed in drawings - they judge a ball thrower less favorably when he hits his playmate in the head than when the playmate catches the ball, but they also judge a well-intentioned boy who had wanted to play ball more favorably than a boy who intended to hurt his friend—even when the friend caught the ball and was not harmed
3
children’s moral thinking becomes more sophisticated once they have the basics of a theory of mind down at about age
4
Children who have mastered ___________________:
not only try to evade punishment by crying, “I didn’t mean it!” but they are also more forgiving of others’ wrongdoings when they are accidental rather than intentional
also better able to distinguish between lying (deliberately promoting a false belief) and simply having one’s facts wrong or exaggerating for the sake of a good story
theory of mind skills
Piaget claimed that 6- to 10-year-old children view all rules as sacred prescriptions laid down by authority figures that cannot be questioned or changed
However, others have discovered that children distinguish between different kinds of rules as early as…
age 3 or 4
Children as young as age 3 or 4 can distinguish between what two types of rules?
moral rules
social–conventional rules
moral rules
Standards of conduct that focus on the basic rights and privileges of individuals.
include rules against hitting, stealing, lying, and otherwise harming others or violating their rights
social–conventional rules
Standards of conduct determined by social consensus that indicate what is appropriate within a particular social setting
more like rules of social etiquette; they include the rules of games, school rules that forbid eating snacks in class or going to the restroom without permission, and parent rules that require saying “Please” and “Thank you.”
What is some evidence that children as young as 3 can distinguish between moral and social-conventional rules?
From their preschool years, children understand that moral rules are more compelling and unalterable than social-conventional rules.
children as young as age 3 regard moral transgressions such as hitting, stealing, or refusing to share as more serious and deserving of punishment than social-conventional violations
Young children also appreciate that hitting is wrong even if the teacher did not see it; even if the rules say hitting is okay; and whether it is done at home, at school, or in a faraway land with different laws
They feel very differently about social-conventional rules; it might be okay for another country to declare that girls should wear pants and boys should wear skirts.
children’s first concept of fairness is…
an equality rule: Everyone should get the same—or else “It’s not fair!”
we now know that even 3- and 4-year-olds are able to take what into account regarding a sense of fairness if you can get them past their strong preference to give equal rewards to all?
merit - (e.g., who did the most work)
5-year-olds often use what rule in regards to fairness?
equality
9- and 13-year-olds are able to use what types of rules in regards to fairness?
equality, equity/merit and need-based
What can influence a child’s idea of fairness?
culture
Tomasello argues that a big breakthrough occurs at age _____ when children move beyond prosocial behavior based on empathy or concern for another person to a more truly moral sense of obligation to do the right thing by others:
What is evidence of this?
3 or 4
By saying things like, “No, you have to do this,” they show that they understand that when we agree to cooperate, we have obligations to one another and must follow through
mere 3-year-olds stand ready to enforce norms of moral behavior when they are violated. They express outrage when a puppet destroys the artwork of another puppet and are then especially nice to the harmed puppet, as if to right the wrong
developing a conscience requires both…
experiencing moral emotions such as guilt and empathy and exerting self-control
Walter Mischel’s marshmallow study:
what did it study?
What percentage of children passed the test?
delay of gratification task (self control)
Only about 30% of the children passed this delay of gratification task and were able to wait
What were the subsequent results of Walter Mischel’s marshmallow study?
As adolescents, the children who delayed gratification were judged by their parents to be more academically and socially competent, more responsible, and more able to cope with stress; they even scored significantly higher on the SAT than their peers who gave in to temptation
As adults, these more self-controlled individuals also had fewer drug problems and lower body mass indexes
the self-control skills required to delay gratification and wait for a second marshmallow are rooted in both…
temperament and culture
proactive parenting strategies
Parenting tactics that prevent misbehavior and therefore reduce the need for discipline (e.g., teaching values, removing temptations).
Martin Hoffman (2000) has addressed how to discipline children effectively when they misbehave. Hoffman (1970) compared the pros and cons of which three major approaches to discipline?
Love withdrawal - involves withholding attention, affection, or approval after a child misbehaves
Power assertion - involves the use of superior power to administer spankings, withhold privileges, and so on.
Induction - involves explaining why a child’s behavior is wrong and should be changed by emphasizing its effects on other people.
Which disciplinary approach best fosters moral development?
Induction wins hands down over love withdrawal, which has mixed results, and power assertion, the least effective approach
why does induction work well?
it breeds empathy. Anticipating empathic distress if we contemplate harming someone keeps us from doing harm; empathizing with individuals in distress motivates us to help them.
When does Hoffman allow that mild power assertion tactics such as a forceful “no,” a reprimand, or the taking-away of privileges can be useful occasionally?
if they arouse some but not too much fear and motivate a child to pay close attention to the inductions that follow
What is Hoffman’s winning formula of discipline?
“a blend of frequent inductions, occasional power assertions, and a lot of affection”
fearless children are most likely to learn to comply with rules and requests when what has been formed?
a mutually responsive orientation between parent and child has been built, and the child is therefore motivated to please the parent and maintain a good relationship
Moral Identity
Viewing being caring, fair, honest, and otherwise moral as a central aspect of who you are.
When does moral identity start to take shape?
as children develop a sense of being a good boy or good girl who tries to follow rules, avoids misbehaving, and cares about and helps other people
When does a sense of moral identity continue to become a more integral part of the self for many people
From adolescence to late middle adulthood
a strong moral identity is more predictive than a person’s stage of moral reasoning of what?
of ethical and prosocial behavior in the workplace - If you have a strong moral identity, you cannot live with yourself if you do wrong.
How can we help more youth develop a moral identity?
can start in childhood by labeling children as “good helpers” or “good friends” when they behave in caring ways
Adolescents are more likely to develop a moral identity if their parents explain rules using induction and on occasion express disappointment in their teen’s behavior rather than relying on power assertion and love withdrawal
can also be fostered through involvement in community service and other prosocial activities
Lawrence Kohlberg’s 20-year longitudinal study that involved repeatedly asking the 10-, 13-, and 16-year-old boys he originally studied to respond to moral dilemmas:
you can see the decline of ________________ thinking and the rise of ____________________ thinking with age—and very little ______________________ thinking
preconventional
conventional
postconventional
Lawrence Kohlberg’s 20-year longitudinal study:
the preconventional reasoning (Stage 1 and 2 thinking) that dominates among __-year-olds decreases considerably at what stage?
10
during the teen years
Lawrence Kohlberg’s 20-year longitudinal study:
During adolescence, ___________________ becomes the dominant mode of moral thinking
among 13- to 14-year-olds, most moral judgments reflect which two stages?
conventional reasoning (Stages 3 and 4)
either a Stage 2 (instrumental hedonism) approach—“You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”—or a Stage 3 (good boy or good girl) concern with being nice and earning approval
Lawrence Kohlberg’s 20-year longitudinal study:
More than half the judgments offered by 16- to 18-year-olds embody Stage __ reasoning, and about a fifth were scored as Stage __
stage 3
stage 4
How does the quality of antisocial behavior changes from childhood to adolescence?
more subtle and indirect forms of aggression that involve excluding peers and undermining their status in the group through rumors and lies increase as physical aggression decreases - Nonaggressive rule-breaking behavior such as vandalism and theft also increase
juvenile delinquency
Lawbreaking by a minor.
Some teens, through either aggression or rule breaking, end up engaging in this
may then find themselves leaving school early, participating in troubled and sometimes abusive relationships, having difficulty keeping jobs, and engaging in lawbreaking as adults
Do most adolescents who engage in aggressive behavior and other antisocial acts grow up to be antisocial adults?
No
two very different subgroups of antisocial youths:
early-onset group
late-onset group
early-onset group
small and seriously disturbed, recognizable in childhood, and persistently antisocial across the life span. Some of these individuals follow a developmental path from callous-unemotional traits to conduct disorder to antisocial personality disorder
As early as age 3, up to __% of children can be described as having callous-unemotional traits - what are they?
1%
In children, a lack of empathy for others, absence of remorse or guilt, and shallow or blunted emotions that are sometimes a forerunner of conduct disorder and antisocial personality disorder.
What is different about children’s brains who demonstrate callous-unemotional traits?
The brain’s amygdala in children with callous-unemotional traits, the center of emotional experience, does not respond as much as those of other youths to photographs of painful injuries suffered by other people—photographs that should arouse empathy
Children who demonstrate callous-unemotional traits may qualify as youth for psychiatric diagnoses such as…
conduct disorder - A persistent pattern of behavior in which a child or adolescent violates the rights of others or age-appropriate societal norms, as through fighting, bullying, and cruelty.
Some children who demonstrate callous-unemotional traits may grow up to be regarded as “psychopaths” and qualify for a diagnosis of…
antisocial personality disorder
antisocial personality disorder
A psychological disorder with origins in childhood in which the individual disregards and violates the rights of others with no remorse.
a neurodevelopmental disorder with origins in childhood
What is different about the brain in those with antisocial personality disorder?
The brain’s striatum is extremely responsive to rewards, the amygdala is not easily conditioned to fear punishment, and the prefrontal cortex does little to control impulsive behavior
What environmental factors are implicated in antisocial personality disorder?
from maternal smoking and alcohol use prenatally to chaotic neighborhoods and deviant peer groups
What is a common link between callous-unemotional traits, conduct disorder and antisocial personality disorder?
all highly heritable
Can this developmental pathway from callous-unemotional traits to conduct disorder to antisocial personality disorder be short-circuited?
Treating adults with antisocial personality disorder is extremely challenging
there may be more hope for improving the callous-unemotional traits and antisocial behavior of children and adolescents
Both teaching the parents of these children positive parenting techniques and teaching the children essential skills such as reading others’ emotions accurately have shown promise
late-onset group
larger, less seriously antisocial group that begins to behave antisocially during adolescence, partly in response to peer influences, and outgrows this behavior in early adulthood
Which age range has the highest rates of crime?
peak during adolescence (age 15-19 has the highest rates) and emerging adulthood and then fall in most societies - males are far more involved in violent crime than females
Juvenile delinquents are more likely than nondelinquents to rely on ______________________ moral reasoning and do worse on tests of __________________.
preconventional
theory of mind
Dodge’s Social Information-Processing Model of Aggression
the steps in information processing involved when an individual is provoked and decides whether or not to react aggressively
our reactions to frustration, anger, or provocation depend on the ways in which we process and interpret cues in situations
What are the six steps in information processing in Dodge’s Social Information-Processing Model of Aggression?
Encoding of cues
Interpretation of cues
Clarification of goals
Response search
Response decision
Behavioral enactment
Highly aggressive youths, including adolescents incarcerated for violent crimes, show what in relation to the six steps in information processing in Dodge’s Social Information-Processing Model of Aggression?
either deficient or biased information processing at every step
hostile attribution bias - what is it and why might it develop in some youth?
The tendency of aggressive individuals to attribute hostile intentions to others, assuming that any harm to them was deliberate rather than accidental.
Severely violent youths have often experienced abandonment, neglect, abuse, bullying, and other insults that may have given them some cause to view the world as a hostile place and to feel justified in retaliating against individuals they believe are “out to get them”
Patterson’s Coercive Family Processes:
highly antisocial children and adolescents often grow up in coercive family environments in which family members are locked in power struggles, each trying to control the others through negative, coercive tactics
Parents learn (through B. F. Skinner’s principle of negative reinforcement) that they can stop their children’s misbehavior, temporarily at least, by threatening, yelling, and hitting
children learn (also through negative reinforcement) that they can get their parents to lay off them by ignoring requests, whining, throwing full-blown temper tantrums, and otherwise being difficult.
coercive cycle
When parents increasingly lose control over their children’s behavior as both parent and child rely more and more on coercive tactics to avoid or escape unpleasant encounters.
What is Patterson’s view regarding the causes of behaviour problems and antisocial behaviour in adolescence? Is there support for this theory?
ineffective parenting in childhood contributes to behavior problems, poor academic performance, peer rejection, involvement with antisocial peers, and, in turn, antisocial behavior in adolescence
There is much support for Patterson’s view
Kenneth Dodge’s social information-processing model and Gerald Patterson’s coercive family processes model fail to consider what?
the role of genetic endowment in aggression
Genetic differences among us account for about __% of individual differences in antisocial behavior
40
Researchers are also discovering __________________________ of harsh parenting and other stressful early experiences on the expression of certain genes that play a role in aggressive behavior
epigenetic effects
Through the mechanism of __________________________, children with certain genetic predispositions are especially likely to become antisocial if they are mistreated.
gene–environment interaction
Which gene on the X chromosome that affects our ability to control our temper, has been linked to aggression? How does gene–environment interaction affect this gene?
the monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A) gene
If children have a variant of this gene that results in low MAO-A activity and if they are abused or mistreated, they readily attribute hostile intentions to others if provoked, cannot control their anger, lash out impulsively, and show higher levels of antisocial behavior as adults
evocative gene–environment correlation effect
evident when aggression-prone children who grow up with adoptive parents rather than with their biological parents bring out negativity in their adoptive parents
children who have a genetically based predisposition to become aggressive may actually evoke the coercive parenting that Patterson and his colleagues find breeds aggression
Rates of aggression and violent crime are how many times higher in lower socioeconomic neighborhoods and communities, especially transient and unstable ones, than in middle-class ones?
two to three times higher
A survey in 40 Western countries revealed that, overall, about ___% of 11- to 15-year-olds report repeatedly bullying and/or being bullied by peers at least two to three times a month
Rates vary considerably, though, from under ___% in Scandinavian countries like Sweden to around ___% in Baltic countries like Lithuania, with the United States in the middle
26
10
40
Effects of bullying:
can lead to becoming a bully and to aggression and delinquency, as well as to depression, health problems such as stress-related headaches and pain, and self-harmful behavior, including suicide
a marker in the blood indicating inflammation—a sign of an overactive immune system that is associated with a number of chronic illnesses
poorer health, lower incomes, more risky and illegal behavior, and poorer social relationships as young adults
research on moral development in adulthood has been guided by which theory?
Kohlberg’s theory - Kohlberg’s postconventional moral reasoning appears to emerge only during the adult years—if it emerges
Kohlberg’s 20-year longitudinal study:
most adults in their 30s reasoned at the _____________________ level, although many of them had shifted from Stage __ to Stage __
A minority of individuals—one out of six at most—had begun to use Stage __ _____________________reasoning, showing a deeper understanding of the basis for laws and distinguishing between just and unjust laws
conventional
3 to 4
5 postconventional
longitudinal studies of moral growth in several countries show that at least the first three or four of Kohlberg’s six stages form…
an invariant and universal developmental sequence
Limitations of Kohlberg’s theory:
young children are more sophisticated moral thinkers than either Piaget or Kohlberg appreciated
concerns about:
whether Kohlberg’s focus on reasoning about rights and justice adequately captures the nature of moral thinking in non-Western cultures,
whether it neglects a much more intuitive or emotional way of responding to moral issues, and
whether Kohlberg said enough about influences on how people actually behave when they face moral decisions
critics charge that Kohlberg’s highest stages reflect…
a Western ideal of justice centered on individual rights and the rule of law—and that there are other ways to look at morality
People in collectivist cultures, which emphasize social harmony and place the good of the group ahead of the good of the individual, often look like _____________ in Kohlberg’s system
Stage 3 conventional moral thinkers
Richard Shweder proposed that three different ethics inform moral thinking around the world and that the balance of them differs from culture to culture:
An ethic of autonomy: As in Kohlberg’s theory, there is concern with individual rights and not harming or violating the rights of others; fairness and justice are emphasized
An ethic of community: As in many collectivist cultures, there is an emphasis on duty, loyalty, and concern for the welfare of family members and one’s larger social group
An ethic of divinity: As in Shweder’s research in India, there is an emphasis on divine law or authority; the individual is to follow God’s laws and strive for spiritual purity
“cultural-developmental perspective on morality”
Lene Arnett Jensen (2015) has used Shweder’s three ethics as the basis
maintains that individuals in different cultural and subcultural contexts follow different developmental trajectories that involve different mixes of the ethics of autonomy, community, and divinity at different ages
Cross-cultural findings challenge what theory of moral development and support what theory?
challenge Kohlberg’s cognitive-developmental position that moral development proceeds through universal stages
support a social learning perspective on moral development, suggesting that our moral judgments are shaped by the social contexts in which we develop—by the relative importance of the ethics of autonomy, community, and divinity or the weight to be placed on an act’s intentions and consequences
Hoffman, Kochanska, and others have long highlighted the importance of emotions like __________________ in motivating moral action
a number of scholars are converging on the idea that __________________________ play a critical role in moral decision making
empathy and guilt
gut emotional reactions and intuitions
Jonathan Haidt believes that these gut intuitions are more important than deliberative reasoning in shaping our moral decisions and suggests that deliberate thought of the sort emphasized by Kohlberg is mainly used for what?
to rationalize after the fact what we have already decided intuitively - often, we cannot even come up with logical reasons for our gut reactions
dual-process model of morality:
Proposed by Joshua Greene
The view that both deliberate thought and more automatic emotion-based intuitions can inform decisions about moral issues and motivate behavior
Joshua Greene has used the famous trolley car problem to demonstrate that which areas of the brain are activated by emotion-based processes and rational cognition?
areas of the brain associated with emotion (the amygdala, for example) are active when people think about killing a person by pushing him off a bridge in order to prevent a trolley from killing five people on the track below
areas of the brain associated with rational cognition in the prefrontal cortex are more active when people calculate that it is better to sacrifice one life rather than five lives by switching the track the trolley is on before it hits the five
how well does how one reasons predict how one behaves?
Research tells us that individuals determined to think at higher stages of moral reasoning are indeed more likely than individuals at lower stages to behave prosocially and ethically and less likely to behave immorally - However, relationships between stage of moral reasoning and moral behavior are usually fairly weak
likely because a variety of other factors influence behavior—the situational factors social learning theorists like Bandura emphasize, the gut emotional reactions Haidt and Greene call attention to, the moral ethics and norms that dominate in a given culture, and so on
Religiosity
Sharing the beliefs and participating in the practices of an organized religion.
Spirituality
A search for ultimate meaning in life that may or may not be carried out in the context of religion
involves a quest for ultimate meaning and for a connection with something greater than oneself, whether God, love, nature, or some other cosmic force
has been argued that religious and spiritual beliefs can be viewed through the lens of which theory?
attachment theory:
Children typically do adopt the beliefs of their parents, especially if their parents are religious and are warm and supportive
Many view old age as a time for religious and spiritual growth. Is it?
The average level of religiosity was high in adolescence; decreased somewhat in middle age, possibly because people had many responsibilities and little time; and rose again in people’s late 60s and 70s.
Spirituality also increased from middle age to later adulthood, especially among women, who are generally more religious and spiritual than men
- findings fit well with Erik Erikson’s view of old age as centered on the issue of integrity versus despair—as a time for reflecting and finding meaning in life
What term best reflects practicing induction to socialize morality in children?
communication
Does nature or nurture play a larger role in a child’s antisocial behaviour? by what amount?
Nurture, by a moderate amount
Abigail just turned 3 years old. What would generally be expected regarding her displays of antisocial behavior?
She will become less physical and more controlled.
What concept is applicable to Kohlberg’s preconventional, conventional, and postconventional stages?
rationale
What emerges as a child develops trait perception?
Psychological awareness
Compared to younger children, teens tend to have moral reasoning that becomes a little more…
personal
Carmela recently had a party to celebrate her 35th birthday, where she got into a heated discussion with a friend over a particular moral dilemma. Which stage of reasoning did Carmela most likely use to argue her point?
stage 4
