Lecture 8 Flashcards
Morality
what are social norms
norms are a form of ‘social reality’
- the rule that people act in certain ways in certain contexts
e.g. One must or must not do X in Y context
Domain Theory
2 general categories for social norms
- moral norms
- conventional norms
Moral norms
concerning the welfare of others evolved from two natural tendencies:
- people have a natural tendency to help one another
- people avoid harm to one another
Conventional norms
do not directly concern the welfare of others and have the following 3 properties:
- idiosyncratic
- agent-neutral
- context-specific
examples of moral norms
- one must help others
- one should not steal
- one should not hurt others
examples of conventional norms
- idiosyncratic: you can’t wear pjs to work (nothing wrong with it but you follow it)
- agent-neutral: they are rules for all people and they should be respected (e.g. children should put yellow block in yellow bin not blue)
- context-specific: rule may only be valid in a specific context (e.g. in a specific nursery you would follow these rules, maybe not at home)
classical view of moral development
young children are
- egocentric
- selfish
- amoral
children are only following rules to avoid punishment or get rewards
Domain theory: In Piagetian tradition
- Piaget interviewed children with hypothetical scenarios in which people commit norm violations: moral (hitting someone) vs conventional (eating while standing)
- by age 4 children are able to distinguish different ‘domains’ of social norms
- moral norms: unchangeable, serious, punishable, context-independent, authority-independent
- conventional norms:
changeable, less serious, less punishable context-dependent, authority-dependent
the standard view (Piaget/Kohlberg)
- children begin was amoral agents, eventually bound by rules
- only gradually begin to reason morally
evidence against Piaget
- young children show important precursors to morality: early prosociality
- young children show sophisticated understanding of social norms
two-step model (Tomasello & Vanish 2012)
- twos teps in the ontogeny (development) of human morality
- step 1: second-person morality
- step 2: preschoolers’ norm-based morality
step 1 in the two-step model
SECOND-PERSON morality
before age 3
(PREFERENCE to individuals e.g. friends)
- helping, sympathy
- collaboration, sharing
step 2 in the two-step model
preschoolers’ NORM-BASED morality
age 3+
AGENT NEUTRAL (anyone they know)
- enforcement of social norms (should/must help each other)
- (guilt and shame)
Step one: second-person morality
infancy: 0-12 mo
- empathy
- social preferences
ages 1-3: more ‘active’ prosociality
- helping, sympathy
- sharing
empathy: step one: evidence
infancy 0-12 mo
- Dondi et al 1999
- new born distress was significantly greater for hearing other babies cries than for their own recorded crying
social preferences: step one: evidence
- ‘good’ over ‘bad’
- Hamlin et al. 2007
- 6-10 mo old infants prefer ‘good guys’ (helpers) over ‘bad guys’ (hinderers)
- neutral objects over hinderers
(shown video of object trying to push something up a hill, children touched object they preferred first)
shows innate morality to help distinguish helpful and unhelpful people
limitations for social preferences study
- indirect measures are used with younger children: touching one object over another:preferential looking
- not strong evidence that children actually understand moral differences, but best for the age group
methodological differences
younger children we can only use indirect measures
but children older than 1 we can look at active behaviour paradigms
active prosociality study - step one -evidence for age 1-2
- Tomasello et al. 2006
- children actively participate in helping adults at 1 & 2: want to help others achieve goals
- they read intentions/goals of individuals and determine whether they need help or not
- (control: when adults are in the same situation but make it clear they don’t want to open the cabinet, children do not help)
intrinsic motivation
one does things because it feels nice and right
extrinsic motivation
one does things because of external reward (or to avoid punishment)
childrens’ motivation for helping; intrinsic or extrinsic
- Tomasello 2012 evidence
- pupil dilation: indicating stress
- 3 conditions: child helps adult, no one helps adult, someone else helps adult
- when children could help the adult, distress reduced (reduced dilation)
- same response for someone else helping the adult
- in no help distress remained (pupils dilated)
- regardless of by whom, children’s distress reduced when adult received help: intrinsic ?
selective helping
- Tomasello 2010
- young children (3 yr olds) selectively avoid helping people with harmful intentions
-pay attention to intentions but not necessarily the harm
selective helping and what it shows
- helping comes naturally to children; its an early emergence
- intrinsically motivated to help others (rewards don’t change this)
- cross-culturally observed
- could be rooted in sympathetic emotions (babies in distress)
- this is cognitively flexible; selectively help individuals e.g. if adult doesn’t need help they won’t help
‘natural’ help
- as opposed to culturally
- doesn’t mean that social interaction has no impact, but not taught intentionally
- once kids are helping, socialization can then ‘shape’ it
collaboration
towards step 2
- children might work with a peer and earn something together: will children notice if one child gets more reward and notice the unfairness ?
collaborating and sharing: towards step 2
Hamann et al. 2011
- 2-3 yr olds
- unequal distribution of resources (1 vs. 3 marbles)
- children when working collaboratively -> children shared marbles equally
- children with parallel work (independent work)-> children did not share marbles
- see partner as equal
- sense for fairness emerging
summary of of step-1
- early prosocial morality is based on second-personal interactions and relationships 0-3 yrs
- helping and concern about others individuals emerges early and comes naturally
- children are motivated to collaborate and consider partners as equal (if equal effort)
- natural morality becomes increasingly flexible
- morality begins in dyadic interactions without group norms: second-personal (dealing with other people)
step two: norm-based morality fundamentals
agent neutral
enforcement of social norms
guilt and shame
limitations of moral judgment studies
- interview method relies on verbal ability, reasoning and thinking: cannot observe young children as reliably as they may not understand
- is making moral judgment enough: they might know but may not act on it
moral judgment in action evidence - Rakoczy et al. 2008 - step 2
- experimental study
- 2-3 yr olds taught a novel game called ‘daxing’: children witness puppets playing the game wrong
- 3 yr olds intervened using ‘normative’ language: ‘shouldn’t do that’ or ‘not how it goes’
norm enforcement in peer interactions - Koymen et al 2014 - step 2
- 3-5 yr olds
2 conditions:
incompatible: given different rules
compatible: same rules - normative conflict: 3 & 5 yr olds protested and corrected peers’ actions
- took longer for 3 year olds to resolve conflict and agree on rules
- 3 year olds did not realize experimenter was the reason for disagreement
- normative understanding gets more flexible in later years (5 year olds could agree on the alternative rules)
is normative enforcement universal - Kanngiesser at al 2021 - step 2
- 5-8 year olds from 8 diverse societies enforced conventional norms (game rules) when observing a peer broke them
- norm enforcement of conventional norms is universal but style of enforcement varied across societies (imperative vs normative protest)
intervention against moral norm violations - step 2
- focused on property rights/norms
- 2 & 3 year olds protested when it was their picture involved
- only 3yr olds stood up for property rights for absent third party picture being broken
- 2 year olds might not know its wrong/ fail to consider it would hurt someone else (failure of empathy/knowledge) or eve knew it was wrong but did it anyway (failure of inhibition/ didn’t act on it)
do other species have normative understandings
- social group of chimpanzees when there is food in the middle, dominant chimp eats everything
- its about dominance, out of fear they don’t eat anything else
- chimps don’t have collective understanding
summary
- contrary to traditional views, young children are nor amoral agents
- by age 3 children display sophisticated understanding of morality:
1) intervene to third-party norm violations
2) in interventions they use ‘normative’ protests highlighting obligation and gent-neutrality - agent-neutral understanding paves the way for larger social constructs and social institutions e.g. marriage, laws etc.
