Moral Development

Question 1

What are the different perspectives of moral values and behaviours?

Answer 1

Sociobiological perspective - innate basis for morality

Psychoanalytic - freud - unconscious processes influence morality, emergence of superego

Social learning perspectives- bandura - children are surrounded by potential role models, observing those around us

Question 2

What are the different perspectives of moral reasoning?

Answer 2

Piaget

Kohlberg

Question 3

Piaget’s theory of moral development

Answer 3

There are developmental changes in morality, which are driven by cognitive changes, associated with peer interaction
Can be seen in children’s reasoning about rules

Question 4

What are the developmental changes in morality Piaget suggested?

Answer 4

Heteronomous morality (5-10) - morality is a contraint, rules are just there, external to a child, if you don’t follow them bad things will happen. Before 7, rules are just there

7-10 - transition of becoming more mature

Autonomous morality (10+ years) - morality of cooperation, can take others perspectives, morality comes from the way we cooperate with others

Question 5

What has egocentrism got to do with moral development?

Answer 5

As you get older, egocentrism declines and you move to a more mature ability to see other people’s perspectives, leading to different behaviours

Question 6

Evaluation of children’s judgements about moral dilemmas - intention vs outcome

Answer 6

Intention - didn’t know he was going to break it
Outcome - outcome wasn’t bad but intention was bad

When asked which one was bad:
younger say first one deserves more punishment, but as get older, realise it is the second one because intentions were worse

Question 7

Why are there changes in children’s evaluations about moral dilemmas?

Answer 7

Children’s cognitive ability is maturing, take on board the mental perspective that draws in intentions

Question 8

What are the difficulties with Piaget’s approach?

Answer 8

Underestimated certain abilities in children:
intention - if you remove experiment, they understand intention
reasoning about authority figures - maybe this is changing when they are getting older, experience of interacting with them

Maybe it is to do with task demands - this is what is changing their reasoning, not the best way of getting their reasoning through manipuation

Lack of clarity about exactly what is developing - we don’t really know what is it

Question 9

What does Kohlberg focus on?

Answer 9

Same idea - cognitive growth stimulated by peer interaction

but wanted to understand how children get to their judgement - their reasoning behind it is important

Question 10

What are kohlbergs stages?

Answer 10

Pre convention
Conventional
Post conventional

Question 11

Pre conventional stage

Answer 11

Focus on outcomes
Punishment
Instrumental

Question 12

Conventional stage

Answer 12

Focussing on social context
Good girl-good boy
Social order

Question 13

Post-conventional

Answer 13

Looking at abstract - goes beyond here and now
Social contract
Ethical principle

Question 14

What did Colby et al find?

Answer 14

As people get older into adulthood, the conventional level is the dominant one
Increase of stage 3 and stage 5
Decrease of stage 1 and 2

Question 15

Is there a gender bias?

Answer 15

The way in which moral is defined is biased, doesn’t fit in with the way that we socialise
Girls are socialised to adhere to stage 3 - morality concerned with care
Failure to see differences in women lives and belief there is a single mode of social experience
Judgements about morality may be due to biases about what we think

BUT, no gender differences found

Question 16

Is morality different in different cultures?

Answer 16

Miller and Bersoff - 8, 12 and 21 year old American and Indians, dimemmas involving conflicting interpersonal and justice obligations

Results: indians resolved the conflict situations in favour of interpersonal 84% of cases
Americans solved interpersonal 39%, favoured justice

Question 17

Miller and Bersoff - what were the 2 choices of resolving conflict?

Answer 17

Justice - ben should not take the ticket from the coat, even though it means not getting to san Francisco to deliver wedding rings

Interpersonal - ben should take the train ticket as it means going to san Francisco to deliver wedding rings

Question 18

What are the two domains of social judgement?

Answer 18

Moral - violations of others right leading to damage of others welfare (hurting someone else)

Social-conventional - violations of social norms or conventions, leading to disrupted social order and social attention (doing something which makes you stand out)

Question 19

What does the definition of what is moral vary by?

Answer 19

Social class and culture

Question 20

What do children differ in terms of for the 2 domains?

Answer 20

They differentiate at a young age of 3 - Piaget underestimated this

differentiated in terms of:
how serious - age 6, do this clearly, moral = more serious
what if no one sees it, what if there is no rule against it, what if an adult says you can do it? as you get older, realise it is still wrong

Question 21

What are the roles of social experience?

Answer 21

Role of early family experience
Pre school experience
Social responses to transgressions/offenses

Question 22

Role of family experience

Answer 22

Social understanding grows in interactions with families
Interactions are intense, involve closeness that mean something to children, know what is feels like to be on the receiving end of a moral convention (being hit) vs social (not putting crayons back)

Learn through parent responses - they respond different to each type ‘how would you feel’ vs ‘say the magic word’

Question 23

Pre school experiences

Answer 23

If children are in pre school more, they understand the difference between the 2 types of rules

Question 24

Social responses to transgressions/something that goes against the rules

Answer 24

Social conventional violations elicit ridicule (feeling on standing out) and require restoration - changing behaviour

Moral responses require reparation to the victim - apologising, helping

Question 25

Where is the audience attention focussed on when you have committed a transgression?

Answer 25

Social conventional violations - elicit self focussed attention, feeling of being the object of someone else’s attention,

Moral violations - focus on the consequences for the victim

Question 26

Do children recognise the different social responses?

Answer 26

Banerjee, Bennet and Luke
40 8 year olds and 40 20 year olds
Presented with 4 illustrated social outcomes:
other focussed - having to applies, upsetting others
self focussed - being stared at, being made fun of

Asked to generate rule violations that led to each given outcome, from own experience

2 major categories of responses detected:
personal deviation from norms e.g. someone who played with ‘girls toys’ or giving a silly answer
violation of others rights e.g. when a child pushed someone

Question 27

What event types did children identify?

Answer 27

That standing out is self directed
Violating rights is other directed
8-10 year olds clearly differentiated between these

Question 28

Reference to audience ridicule?

Answer 28

As you get older, children are learning about the feeling of standing out

Question 29

The account you give after rule violation

Answer 29

Banerjee, Bennet and Luke
120 children between 4 and 9 years
They give different explanations for moral and social very differently
2 apology, 2 excuse, 2 no account

Question 30

What do children recognise for giving an apology or excuse?

Answer 30

Avoid punishment
Promote positive relationships
Look after others feelings
Defend/improve social evaluation of self - increases with age, more common with social conventional violations - they understand they have to restore an image, may have to give an excuse to preserve positive impression

From age 4-9, self conscious emotions become very common after social-conventional violations - don’t want to stand out