Lecture 9: Social Action Flashcards
Social Action
Morality is a society’s code for sharing behaviour
Morality has three components
- A cognitive component – reasoning about right and wrong
- An emotional component – feeling right and wrong about ones’ own actions, or concern for others’ feelings
- A behavioural component – acting right or wrong
Moral reasoning allows the in-group’s rules to be learnt, justified, and applied flexibly in complex situations
Moral affect allows the in-group’s rules to be enforced without external pressure
Moral behaviour results in social acceptance and cooperation
Moral development traditionally measured via the cognitive component….
Moral dilemma
-situation
A fat man leading a group of people out of a cave on a coast is stuck in the mouth of that cave. In a short time high tide will be upon them, and unless he is unstuck, they will all be drowned except the fat man, whose head is out of the cave.
But, fortunately, or unfortunately, someone has with him a stick of dynamite. There seems no way to get the fat man loose without using the dynamite. This would inevitably kill him; but if they do not use it everyone will drown. What should they do?
What if its not a fat man but a pregnant lady?
Moral Development
-Piaget and Kohlberg
Piaget (1932/1965) and Kohlberg (1963) proposed stage theories of moral development based on children’s verbal response to moral dilemmas
Childhood to adulthood, move from
- moral “realism” (understanding that there are good and bad outcomes of behaviour and rules which must be followed e.g. do not hurt other people)
- moral “relativism” (understanding that intentions are key, and rules are relative to context)
Why are intentions important when reasoning about morality?
-Responsibility
Why is context important?
-Moral dilemmas may occur
The general age-related increase in the complexity of moral reasoning proposed by Piaget and Kohlberg has been supported by subsequent research
However, both Piaget and Kohlberg considered preschool children ‘pre-moral’ (unable to reason about moral rules)
This is not necessarily the case, provided the moral dilemma and mode of response is sufficiently simple preschool children show some moral reasoning…..
(look slide 6)
Moral Development
-Classic Piaget example
Classic Piaget example:
Bob is a little boy who is playing after school. His mother calls him for dinner and he comes in. His mother has left 15 cups on a tray behind the door. Bob doesn’t know the tray is there. When he opens the door he knocks the tray over and the 15 cups break.
John is a little boy. He gets home from school and his mother gives him a big slice of cake for afternoon tea. Then she says he can’t have any more cake before dinner and sends him out to play. When his mother is not around he goes back into the kitchen. He climbs onto a chair and gets more cake out of the cupboard. While he is getting down he knocks one cup and it falls and breaks.
Who would a moral realist say should be punished more? Why?
-Bob, broke more cups
Who would a moral relativist say should be punished more? Why?
-John, because Bob it was accident and John was stealing more cake, based on intentions, Bob good intentions, John bad intentions
Moral dilemma
-What would moral realist and moral relativist do
A fat man leading a group of people out of a cave on a coast is stuck in the mouth of that cave. In a short time high tide will be upon them, and unless he is unstuck, they will all be drowned except the fat man, whose head is out of the cave.
But, fortunately, or unfortunately, someone has with him a stick of dynamite. There seems no way to get the fat man loose without using the dynamite. This would inevitably kill him; but if they do not use it everyone will drown. What should they do?
What would a moral realist do?
-(missed this part of lecture, think it would be to not kill the fat man, because rules not to kill someone?)
What would a moral relativist do?
-?? think it would be kill the fat man to save the rest?
Would changing the ‘victim’ change their minds?
Moral Reasoning
-Nelson 1980
Nelson (1980) showed simple cartoon stories to prompt moral reasoning in preschool children
- Some stories have positive outcomes, some negative
- The protagonist in these stories sometimes has good intentions, and sometimes bad intentions
- Rate “goodness” of actor
- > getting punched in face (meant to or was trying to swat a bee)
- young children change their rating of goodness or badness depending on what actors motives were
- paid some attention if outcome good or bad but biggest factor was whether motive good or bad
This looks like moral relativism, but could the response be learnt?
Moral Reasoning
-Smetana 1981, 1985
Smetana (1981, 1985) 2.5 to 4-year-olds rated moral rules (basic rights of individuals) and social-conventional rules (etiquette)
- Moral transgressions were rated more serious and more deserving of punishment than social-conventional transgressions
- Moral transgressions were considered always wrong – social-conventional rules were considered wrong only if the perpetrator was aware of the rule
Again, this looks like moral relativism, but could the response be learnt?
Moral rules and intentional wrongdoings result in more severe punishment/more reaction from parents
More likely to witness socio-conventional rules being broken
Even if response learnt, these studies place preschoolers on the ‘moral scale’ (moral realists)
Moral Reasoning
- Younger
- > Hamlin
Younger? Hamlin et al, 2007 VOE study
- red circle trying to get up hill
- > blue square helps up
- > yellow triangle pushes down
- > then chooses one
- even 6 months choose to play with positive character
- 10 months looked longer at unhelpful then red circle rolled down hill to yellow triangle
-10 month olds showed VOE (looked longer) when climber showed preference for hinderer
6 and 10-month-old infants show choice to play preference for helpful character
Experiment 2:
- Climber has no eyes (no social context)
- when shapes have eyes there difference if no eyes, then just chance
- > did to show was moral development
- BUT Scarf et al (2012) suggest the results can be explained by attraction to ‘bounce’ and aversion to collision.
- say just visual preference (bounces_
- > reran without bounce, when no bounce then no sig difference
- > response: said Scarf taking away narrative of story
- scarf did video response
Hamlin et al 2012 say they remove intentionality/narrative by removing collision, introducing googly rather than fixed eyes, having both bounce.
Moral Reasoning
- younger
- Schmidt & Sommerville (2011)
Younger? Schmidt & Sommerville (2011) VOE study, 15-month-olds
- 2 people at table with plates, show cookies, either equal distribution or unequal
- > look more at unequal
- > if no people, no visual looking preference
- > suggests not about simple visual preferences, it is about context
- > young children able to do morality in terms of if something is clearly distributed
If social context, infants take moral stance?
Moral Development
-Is there another way to measure the development of
(edit)
