Lecture 10: Moral Development Flashcards
Moral Judgment
- Judgments about how people should interact with each other
- Made based on principles concerning the distinction between right/wrong
- Justice
- Welfare
- Fairness
Piaget’s Theory of Moral Reasoning
- Development of moral judgment relies on cognitive development
- Over development, kids change their understanding of rules and the importance of intention
Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Reasoning
- Kohlberg’s was heavily influenced by Piaget
- 3 main stages
Heinz Dilemma (developed by given the kids a dillema like this one)
- A woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctorsthought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman’s husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: “No, I discovered the drug and I’m going to make money from it.” SoHeinz got desperate and broke into the man’s store to steal the drug for his wife.
- Should Heinz have broken into the store to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not? –> the answer was not as relevant to him, he looked at how they justified their answer
Preconventional Moral Reasoning
- 3-7 years old
- Moral reasoning based on external consequences
- Avoiding punishment from authority figures
- Gaining rewards (rewarded behaviour = good behaviour, punished behaviour = bad behaviour)
- Similar to Piaget’s heteronomous morality
- Heinz dilemma:
- “Heinz should not steal the drug because stealing is illegal and he could get caught and get in trouble.” (about avoiding punishment)
- “Heinz should steal the drug, because he needs it for his wife to get better , and then he can be happy.” (focused on the reward)
Conventional Moral Reasoning
- 8-13 years old
- Moral reasoning based on adhering to social rules and expectations (duties and norms)
- Maintaining social order and norms
- Gaining approval from others by fulfilling duties - Heinz dilemma:
- “Heinz should steal the drug because a good husband would do anything to save his wife’s life and people would understand why he did it.” (what does it mean to be a good husband)
- “Heinz shouldn’t steal the drug because stealing is against the law. If everyone was stealing, society would fall apart.
Postconventional Moral Reasoning
- 13 years old +
- But not everyone reaches this stage
- Moral reasoning based on personal principles and values
- Focus on universal principles, like fairness, equality, justice
- Willingness to critically evaluate rules that conflict with universal principles - Similar to Piaget’s autonomous morality
- Heinz dilemma:
- “Heinz should steal the drug because human life must be preservedand life is worth more than money or personal property.” (universal principle about importance of life)
- “While stealing is generally wrong, the intention to save someone makes it justifiable in this case. Laws should be flexible enough to account for such situations.” (intentions)
Piaget and Kohlberg’s Contributions
- First to acknowledge that moral reasoning changes systematically as children grow older due to cognitive development
- Recognized that children are increasingly able to take intentions into account as they age (struggle with when young)
Theory of Mind and Morality
- Children are increasingly able to appreciate others’ intentions as they get older because of developments in theory of mind
- Children who fail false belief tasks are more likely to ignore intentions when making moral judgments (kids pass the false belief test at 5 years old) - so 3 year old struggle to understand intentions but a 7 year old will understand that something was an accident.
- Consistent with Piaget and Kohlberg’s ideas that cognitive development influences moral judgment
Weaknesses of Piaget and Kohlberg’s Theories
- Underestimated children’s ability to distinguish between social conventions and morality
Distinguishing Between Social Conventions and Morality
Study: 2.5-years-olds asked about the morality of different actions
* Social convention violation: stories about a child breaking a rule (e.g. talking during naptime)
* Moral transgression: Stories about a child causing harm (e.g. hitting, stealing)
Results: Children differentiated between rule violations and harms
* Viewed both breaking rules and causing harm as bad but causing harm as worse
* Said that rules could be changed or not apply at a different school (understanding there is flexibility about this)
* Causing harm is always wrong no matter what the rules said (even if at another school they didnt have these rules)
* Children across the globe behaved the same way
Suggests that very young children can distinguish between social conventions and morality, much earlier than Piaget and Kohlberg thoug
Weaknesses of Piaget and Kohlberg’s Theories
- Underestimated children’s ability to distinguish between social conventions and morality
- Underestimated children’s ability to infer intention (much younger than they thought)
Can Infants Appreciate Intentions?
Study: Can children appreciate intentions around 2 years of age?
* 21-month-olds participated in a lab task with 2 adults
* Infants stood at a table with both adults
* Both adults offered to give the infant a toy by placing it at the edge of the table but ultimately the child didn’t get the toy
- Negative intention: adult pulled the toy away
- Positive intention: adult watched in surprise as the toy rolled away from the infant
* Then, experimenter presents both adults with a single new toy
* Toy falls to the floor and both adults reach for
* Test: Does the infant help? If so, which adult do they help
Two-Year-Olds Can Appreciate Intentions!
- Evidence of selective helping (2/3 of the kids helped and among the ones that helped they decided to help the adult that had a positive intention towards them)
- Contrary to Piaget’s theory, suggests that 2 year olds are able to appreciate intentions when judging others’ actions
Two-Year-Olds Can Appreciate Intentions!
- But what if different outcomes of actions? Will infants still base decision to help on intentions?
- Follow-up study to test this:
- Same procedure except:
- Positive intention but negative outcome: adult clearly offered the toy to the infant and watched in surprise as the toy rolled away
- Positive intention and positive outcome: adult clearly offered the toy to the infant and child was able to examine it - Then, experimenter presents both adults with a single new toy
- Toy falls to the floor and both adults reach for
Piaget or Kolhberg would guess that if the kid helps they will help the person that gave them the positive outcome
Two-Year-Olds Can Appreciate Intentions!
- 2 year old shelped the adults equally (difference is not statistically sig.) suggesting that infants care more about intentions than outcomes of action.
- No preference for which adult they helped.
Evidence for Innate Morality
Study: Is moral judgment innate?
* 6 month-olds watched a “morality play” in which a red puppet is trying to climb up a hill but fails
- Helper: Yellow puppet comes and helps red puppet
- Hinderer: Blue puppet pushes red puppet down
Evidence for Innate Morality (results)
Results:
* Depending on the study, 75-100% of babies prefer the helper vs. hinderer
* Follow-up with 3-month-olds using preferential looking paradigm shows that they also prefer helper over hinderer
* Suggests that rudimentary moral judgment is innate!
Summaryof Moral Judgment
- Piaget: Children go from not appreciating the intentions behind actions to appreciating that these matter (heteronomous –> autonomous stage)
- Moral development is tied to cognitive development - Kohlberg:
- 3 broad sequential stages of moral development: preconventional, conventional, postconventional
- Focus on self –> focus on societal standards –> universal ethics
- Children can make moral judgments and appreciate others’ intentions much earlier than Piaget and Kohlberg thought
Prosocial Behaviours
Empathy and Morality
- Morality is rooted in empathy and sympathy
- Empathy: Understanding and sharing the emotional state of another person
- Sympathy: Feeling of concern for another person in response to their emotional state
Limits to Toddler’s Prosocial Behaviour
- Toddlers help selectively depending on:
- how trustworthy, friendly, and helpful the other person is.
- the type of help required
- struggle to engage in helping that requires self-sacrifice
- whether the person is similar to them
- E.g. More likely to help and share with a peer that is of the same gender
- Do this even if parents insist that it’s wrong to treat people differently
- Young children tend to reason in more moral ways when asked about fictitious scenarios compared to having to behave morally themselve
Consistency of Aggressive Behaviour
- Consistency in individual differences in aggression over the lifespan
- Boys are displaying more aggression than girls in each group
- Those who were more physically aggressive as kids had more criminal convictions at age 30
Social Cognition Contributions to Aggression
Social Cognition Contributions to Aggression
Hostile attribution bias: cycle that perpetuates itself.
Family Origins of Aggression
2) Authoritarian and uninvolved parenting is associated with increased risk for aggression in children
- Very harsh physical discipline appears to lead to hostile attribution bias in children
- hostile attribution bias is the mediatr between harsh discipline and aggression on children
Comparing Parenting to Genetic Contribution
- The influence between parents and children tends to be bidirectional
- Parents and child’s behaviour can also be caused by shared genes - BUT harsh parenting seems to play a larger role than genes
- For monozygotic twins, the twin who receives harsher parenting tends to develop higher levels of aggression than the other twin (even without the genetic disposition for aggression, the parenting is more important and can cause increased aggression).
Family Origins of Aggression
3) Parental monitoring reduce likelihood that teenagers will be associating with deviant, antisocial peers (reduce deviancy and aggressiveness)
Factors Contributing to Childhood Aggression
