Moral development

Question 1

At what age do infants start to develop self-awareness/consciousness? What is this period characterised by?

Answer 1

About 18 months, as proven by mark tests. This period is characterised by a decrease in egocentricity and increase in self-other differentiation. Developing self-awareness is important because to become a moral agent and judge others, an infant must first realise that they are an individual.

Question 2

How do 2 and 8 year-olds differ in their experience of emotions such as pride? What does this suggest about the importance of an audience for the development of self-conscious emotions?

Answer 2

A 2 year is able to feel pride in front an audience, whereas an 8 year old is able to judge whether their actions are pride-worthy or not, without the need for an audience.
This suggests that initially an audience is required to promote self-thought and self-conscious emotion, but over time the audience becomes less important and self-conscious emotions internalise

Question 3

What were the two fundamental characteristics of Piaget’s and Kohlberg’s studies of moral development?

Answer 3

They both used structured tasks (clinical interviews) to investigate the process of moral REASONING. They weren’t interested in whether infants gave the right or wrong answer, they just wanted to know how they reasoned.

Question 4

What are Kohlberg’s 3 levels of moral reasoning?

Answer 4

1) Pre-conventional morality
2) Conventional morality
3) Post-conventional morality

Question 5

Briefly describe/provide examples of the 2 stages of pre-conventional morality.

Answer 5

Stage 1 - Obedience and punishment orientation. Early childhood. The infant simply behaves in a way to avoid punishment. If they see someone else getting punished, then they conclude they must’ve done something wrong.
Stage 2 - Self-interest orientation. Early-middle childhood. Doing what is best for them, not considering how others might view their behaviour. eg: “If you do your homework I will take you to the cinema.” They do their homework not because they think it might help them hut simply because they want to go to the cinema.

Question 6

Briefly describe/provide examples of the 2 stages of conventional morality.

Answer 6

Stage 3 - Interpersonal accord and conformity. Much of adolescence and adulthood. Good boy/good girl. Moral actions are based on what would be considered best by others. eg: helping an old lady cross the road.
Stage 4 - Maintaining authority and social order. Focus of obeying laws and social conventions and maintaining social order. Beyond the individual, no benefit to them eg: reporting witnessing a stealing.

Question 7

Briefly describe/provide examples of the 2 stages of post-conventional morality.

Answer 7

Stage 5 - Social contract orientation. 10-15% of adult population. Social rules and laws are not set in stone. Different beliefs and opinions are respected. Rules can be changed by the majority for the majority. Eg: steal food to feed family.
Stage 6 - Universal ethical principles. Beyond the law, personal ethical principles dominate. What if social rules are immoral? eg: Bonhoeffer.

Question 8

Provide an example to distinguish between moral reasoning and moral behaviour.

Answer 8

Moral reasoning is not the same as moral behaviour. For example, if a woman is getting harassed by a man on a bus and another man comes up and punches him in the face, it is clear (or at least he believes) he was behaving morally. But it is not clear why (his reasoning) he acted that way. Was he acting out of self-interest? Was he just doing what he thought others would say is right?

Question 9

Outline some of the problems with Kohlberg’s levels and stages of moral reasoning.

Answer 9

Firstly, Kohlberg’s theory is not gender-fair. He only tested boys. Males favour ethics of justice (level 2, stage 4), females favour ethics of care (level 2, stage 3).
Also, people may exhibit different levels in different situations, or different levels simultaneously.
Not ecologically valid - people will act differently in real life vs hypothetical situations, how can an 8 year old imagine what it feels to be a wife stealing meds while her husband is dying?
Stage 6 is too rare.
Cultural variability.
Children find it very difficult to articulate reasoning.

Question 10

What have Turiel and others found 36 month old children can do?

Answer 10

Turiel and others have found that 36 month olds and younger can make distinctions between moral (feelings) and conventional (rules) social rules.

Question 11

How do infants judge moral transgressions versus conventional transgressions? What age do they begin to do this? Do they get better at it after this age?

Answer 11

Evidence has shown that children as young as 30 months judge moral transgressions (eg: hitting, not sharing) in the absence of rules to be more wrong than conventional transgressions (eg: not sitting on the rug at story time, not saying grace). There were no differences between 30 month olds and 57 month olds, suggesting that once you’ve got it, you’ve got it.

Question 12

What could serve as the inherent social basis of moral systems?

Answer 12

Basically, things that stem back to our ancestry of tribes. Kinship, filial connection, family and care for in-group members could be the social basis that has contributed to moral systems today. However, it begs the question of how we have come to generalise these systems to out-group members (ie: all people)

Question 13

What is the VIM? How has it been used to explain psychopathy?

Answer 13

VIM refers to a violence inhibition mechanism. It is believed to be activated in normal persons upon seeing another person upset. However, it is believed young children with psychopathic traits don’t exhibit it.
Evidence has shown boys with psychopathic tendencies make more error than normal boys in recognising fear. Also, high PSD (psychopathy screening device) judge moral transgressions as less serious than low PSD scorers, they judge them as less different to conventional transgressions (remember normal kids judge moral transgressions as more serious than conventional ones)>

Question 14

What was Darwin’s view?

Answer 14

Darwin thought we are driven by instincts and appetites. However, things like sympathy and goodwill outweigh these appetites.

Question 15

What are the two grand theories in the realm of moral development?

Answer 15

1) Rationalist, rules, reason, Kohlberg, cognitive

2) Sentimentalist, emotional consequences and feelings

Question 16

Do children under the age of 7 completely disregard intention? What’s the evidence say?

Answer 16

Breaking cups example: Children under the age of 7 do judge someone who breaks 15 cups accidentally as more naughty than someone who breaks 1 cup doing something naughty. However, this is not the full picture…
Include 2 more conditions - breaking 1 cup accidentally and breaking 15 cups doing something naughty. Children 1 cup naughty as worse than 1 cup accidental and the same for 15 cups. This proves that they DO balance motive, but favour outcome.

Question 17

Explain the method and results of the hose/water study. Does this reflect reality?

Answer 17

This study involved 3 different motives (positive, negative, incidental) and 2 different outcomes (positive and negative).
It was found young kindergarteners judged people negatively when there was negative outcome, even though they had a positive intention. Adults judged people with positive intention equally regardless of the outcome.
It could be argued that this doesn’t actually reflect reality. In reality, if we were to accidentally run over someone’s cat (positive/incidental motive, negative outcome) we still say sorry/are remorseful, and would expect others to be that way to us if they did it.

Question 18

What did Nunner-Winkler and Sodian show regarding the difference between 4 and 8 year olds moral emotions?

Answer 18

Firstly, they found 4 and 8 year olds both agree that stealing is wrong.
However, they differed in how they reported FEELing after stealing. 8 year olds said they feel bad, while 4 year olds feel good.
This shows that while 4 year olds understand moral rules, they don’t understand the emotionally-binding nature of moral rules, while 8 year olds do.

Question 19

How can behaviour-behaviour interactions be decomposed? What’s the difference in a ability of different aged kids? What could be some real-life consequences? Use an example

Answer 19

Behaviour-behaviour interactions (eg: Bobby doesn’t share cookies-Bobby doesn’t share toys) can be broken down into behaviour-trait trait-behaviour (Bobby doesn’t share cookies-Bobby is selfish Bobby is selfish-Bobby doesn’t share toys).
4-5 year olds make behaviour-trait and trait-behaviour interactions separately, while 7-8 year olds can go straight from behaviour-behaviour.
So, in real life, 4-5 year olds will see Bobby not share cookies and not be able to infer he probably won’t share toys either, while 7-8 will make the inference that he won’t share toys. 4-5 year olds don’t make enduring assumptions about personality based on actions.

Question 20

What is the happy victimiser effect?

Answer 20

When young children (roughly 4 years) know it is morally wrong to steal, but predict the thief to feel happy afterwards. Essentially, they’re bing truthful, the stealer will be happy, but it doesn’t align with their moral views and normal consequential feelings of guilt and shame.

Question 21

Does this moral emotion attribution contribute to prosocial/antisocial behaviour? Explain.

Answer 21

Yes. Children who are more moral (ie: less HV responses) demonstrate less antisocial behaviour and more prosocial behaviour (to a weaker extent). Children who are less moral (higher HV responses, growing up in a home where stealing is okay) have a moral self-concept in which they do not find the consequences of moral transgressions to be personally emotionally binding.