Moral Development Flashcards
1
Q
What is moral judgment?
A
- judgments about how people should interact with each other
- made based on principles concerning the distinction between right/wrong
- justice
- welfare
- fairness
2
Q
What is Piaget’s theory of moral reasoning?
A
- development of moral judgment relies on cognitive development
- increasingly able to take intentions into account
- children pass through 3 qualitatively different stages of moral development
- order is fixed and universal
- assessed moral judgment with stories
- interested in explanation for why an action is viewed as right or wrong
3
Q
What are the 3 stages in Piaget’s theory of moral reasoning?
A
- premoral stage
- heteronomous stage
- autonomous stage
4
Q
What is the premoral stage?
A
- 0-5 years
- little understanding of rules so can’t make judgments about right and wrong
- behaviour is regulated by caregivers
5
Q
What is the heteronomous stage?
A
- 5-10 years
- rules are fixed and can never be broken
- morality = obeying the rules of authority figures, like parents
- outcome of an action is more important than the intention
6
Q
What is the autonomous stage?
A
- 10 + years
- rules are not absolute and can be changed
- consider moral principles, like fairness, when deciding what is right and wrong
- intentions matter
7
Q
What is Kohlberg’s theory of moral reasoning?
A
- three stages of moral reasoning
- used the Heinz dilemma and assessed the reasoning of the answer to determine which stage a child is in
8
Q
What are the 3 stages in Kohlberg’s theory of moral reasoning?
A
- pre conventional
- conventional
- post conventional
9
Q
What is the pre conventional stage?
A
- 3-7 years
- focus on avoiding punishment and getting rewards from authority figures
- self-interest
- intentions don’t matter
- no personal sense of right and wrong
- rules are fixed and absolute
- only the outcome matters
10
Q
What is the conventional stage?
A
- 8-13 years
- moral reasoning based on external ethics
- good boy attitude
- low and order morality
- focus on compliance with social expectations, conventions, and duties
- good behaviour is what is approved of by the social group and maintaining good social relationships
- capable of considering intentions
- good behaviour os upholding one’s duty to follow the rules and laws of society
11
Q
What is the post conventional stage?
A
- 13 + years, but not everyone reaches this stage
- moral reasoning based on personal ethics
- social contract
- principle
- morality of an action is judged based on what’s in the best interest of society or based on maintaining universal ethical principles; life, liberty, basic human rights
- rules are viewed as social contract that can be changed to meet the needs of society
- people may disobey rules that are inconsistent with their moral principles
- rules are viewed as useful but not absolute
12
Q
What were Piaget and Kohlberg’s contributions?
A
- 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
13
Q
What are weaknesses of Piaget and Kohlberg’s theories?
A
- assumed that infants and very young children are incapable of judgments about right and wrong (underestimated kids)
- underestimated children’s ability to appreciate the importance of intentions
- children and adults show inconsistencies in their moral reasoning; people often reason at different levels on different occasions and more likely to reason at lower levels if can personally benefit
14
Q
Is moral judgment innate or learned?
A
- a study with babies (helper vs hinderer) suggests that rudimentary moral judgment is innate
15
Q
Can infants appreciate intentions?
A
- 2 year olds can
- most of them chose to help the adult with positive intentions in a study; evidence of selective helping and contrary to Piaget’s theory
- in another study they helped both adults equally when they both had positive intentions
- children who fail false belief tasks are more likely to ignore intentions when making moral judgments
16
Q
What is the social domain theory of moral development?
A
- current dominant theory
- as they age, children are simultaneously developing knowledge about moral, societal, and personal domains
17
Q
What are the social domains?
A
- moral domain
- societal domain
- personal domain
18
Q
What is the moral domain?
A
- reasoning about issues related to others’ welfare and rights, fairness, and justice
- learned through socialization from parents
19
Q
What is the societal domain?
A
- understanding of social conventions, that these conventions can be changed, and are sometimes arbitrary
20
Q
What is the personal domain?
A
- actions in which individual preferences are the main consideration
- no right or wrong choices since choices don’t affect other people
21
Q
What is the evidence for distinction between domains?
A
- 3-4 year olds can distinguish between issues in the 3 domains
- generally believe that violations of moral rules are more wrong than violations of societal conventions
- believe that they should have control in personal domain but understand that they don’t decide in moral and societal domains
- but struggle to make moral judgments in complex situations, especially those involving in-group identity
22
Q
What are the implications of the social domain theory evidence?
A
- children can distinguish between moral, societal and personal domains from a young age
- view of right and wrong depends on the domain
- can make moral based judgments much younger than Piaget and Kohlberg thought
23
Q
What is prosocial behaviour?
A
- voluntary behaviour intended to benefit others
- helping
- sharing
- comforting others
24
Q
How does prosocial behaviour happen?
A
- empathy and sympathy are important motivators of prosocial behaviour
perspective taking –> empathy –> sympathy –> prosocial behaviour
25
What is empathy?
- understanding and sharing the emotional state of another person
26
What is sympathy?
- feeling of concern for another person in response to their emotional state
27
What is prosocial behaviour before 18 months?
- children tend to react to others’ distress with self-focused distress rather than prosocial behaviour
28
What is prosocial behaviour between 18-24 months?
- prosocial behaviour appears and increases throughout the second year of life
- readily help others without need for encouragement
- comfort others in distress, share belongings, help others achieve goals
- due to capacity to feel empathy and sympathy (facilitated by emergence of sense of self around 18 months)
29
What is selective helping in toddlers?
- toddlers selectively help depending on how trustworthy, friendly, and helpful the other person is and the type of help they require
- they struggle to engage in helping that requires self sacrifice
30
What does prosocial behaviour look like beyond toddlerhood?
- prosocial behaviour continues to increase throughout childhood, particularly emotional helping and helping requiring self sacrifice
- due to more sophisticated moral reasoning and improved perspective taking ability
31
Why are there individual differences in prosocial behaviour?
- genetics
- socialization by parents
32
How does genetics play a role in prosocial behaviour?
- identical twins are more similar in their level of prosocial behaviour than fraternal
- possible involvement of individual differences in oxytocin gene
- genetic differences manifest as differences in temperament: emotion regulation and shyness
33
How does emotion regulation play a role in prosocial behaviour?
- ability to experience emotion without getting overwhelmed by it is associated with empathy
- better emotion regulation is positively associated with helping
34
How does shyness play a role in prosocial behaviour?
- high level of shyness negatively associated with helping
35
How does socialization of parents play a role in prosocial behaviour?
- modelling of prosocial behaviour and teaching prosocial values
- providing opportunities for child to engage in prosocial behaviour
36
How do parents model prosocial behaviour and teach prosocial values?
- children tend to be similar to parents in terms of prosocial behaviour because they copy their behaviour
- sympathy inducing rationales (how will the other person feel) most likely to lead to internalization of prosocial values
- authoritative parenting is positively associated with kids' prosocial behaviour
37
How do parents provide opportunities for child to engage in prosocial behaviour?
- performing household chores
- community service hours in high schools
- increases children's willingness to take on prosocial tasks in the future because feel competent to do it
