Moral development Flashcards
Self-awareness, as measured by the Rouge Test, is thought to emerge around __ months.
Self-awareness, as measured by the Rouge Test, is thought to emerge around 18 months.
Which animals can pass the Rouge Test?
Apes - and maybe elephants and dolphins.
Why is a sense of self necessary for moral behaviour?
Because if you don’t exist as a separate intentional agent, you cannot be responsible for your actions.
What is Piaget’s distinction between heteronomous and autonomous morality?
Heteronomous morality – rules come from authority figures in one’s life such as parents, teachers, and God. Rules are permanent no matter what. “Naughty” behaviour must always be punished and that the punishment will be proportional.
Autonomous morality – people begin to view the intentions behind actions as more important than their consequences.
Turiel and Smetana have argued that children as young as 36 months (or younger) make a distinction between _______ and ________ rules.
Turiel and Smetana have argued that children as young as 36 months (or younger) make a distinction between moral and conventional rules.
What’s the difference between social conventions and moral prescriptions?
Conventions (e.g. greetings) provide people with means of knowing what to expect of each other. They coordinate social interaction.
Moral prescriptions are not alterable by consensus. They are based on concepts such as justice and welfare.
What evidence did Smetana provide for the moral/convention distinction?
In children of 30-57 months, moral transgressions – e.g. hitting, stealing –are judged more wrong than social transgressions –e.g. not putting toys away. They were also thought more deserving of punishment and less contextually bound (i.e. wrong everywhere).
What is Blair’s Violence Inhibition Mechanism (VIM)?
Cognitive mechanism which initiates a withdraw response when faced with non-verbal signs of distress.
Why are psychopaths mean, according to Blair?
They have impairments to the Violence Inhibition Mechanism. The natural empathy that causes resonance between people and causes sympathy for conspecific doesn’t develop.
The origin of the moral/conventional distinction, according to Turiel, is the child’s….
… construed connection between his personal experience of pain and the observed experience of the victim.
Adolescents with psychopathic tendencies make more errors in their recognition of audio recordings of ____ vocalisations.
Adolescents with psychopathic tendencies make more errors in their recognition of audio recordings of fear vocalisations. But still got most of them right.
How do psychopaths and normals differ in their reports on the seriousness of moral vs conventional transgression?
Psychos made less of a moral/conventional distinction for seriousness, rule-contingency and welfare (i.e. whether they justified answer with reference to others’ welfare).
Darwin thought we are driven by which two instincts?
Social (affiliative) – which are constant and moderate
Appetites –which are sudden and strong
How are we taught to control our instincts, according to Darwin?
When we yield to an appetite, it vanishes, meaning we are left with only or social instincts, according to which the appetitively driven action is abhorrent. The remorse teaches us to control our instincts.
In sentimentalist theories, children are moral because they are __________
In sentimentalist theories, children are moral because they are empathic.
