Moral Development - prosocial

Question 1

Define morality

Answer 1

Understanding of difference between right and wrong

Question 2

Piaget’s initial assumption of morality in children

Answer 2

Suggested that children under the age of 6 are egocentric, so unable to understand other peoples point of views - unable to empathise or sympathise.

Cognitive limitation imposes a constraint on their capacity for concern about others - lack of altruistic behaviours.

Question 3

Piaget’s study to assess morality in children

Answer 3

asked children to make judgements about relative naughtiness of 2 boys:

• boy had good intentions, went into dads office + cleaning. Spilt jar of ink with large damage
• boy bad intentions, forbidden to go in office but goes inside + spills ink, causing minimal damage.

Question 4

Findings and conclusions of Piaget

Answer 4

Separated children into:

• moral realists - children below 7, pre-operational stage, judgements based on scale of damage
• moral subjectivists - children above 7, concrete operational stage, judgements based on intention.

Question 5

Evaluation of Piaget - limitation memory

Answer 5

Children under 7 may not have the ability to remember the whole story and only the ending - whether the stain was big or small - overestimating the cognitive ability of young children. Results may not accurately represent morality in children

Question 6

Supporting evidence from Wimmer, Wachter, Perner (1982), not involving an extensive need for memory

Answer 6

Two people painting fences:
- person one put a lot of effort into painting but had a small brush therefore painted less
- person two didnt put a lot of effort into painting the fence but had a large brush therefore painted more
The stories were accompanied with pictures depicting the scenario (don’t have to remember, can refer to picture)
The children were then asked who to give a cookie reward to.

Children aged 4-6 rewarded protagonist according to outcome = moral realists and above 8, consider effort of protagonist = moral subjectivist

Question 7

Nicholls (1978) points out intent of children in Piaget’s scenarios

Answer 7

Both scenarios the protagonist didnt intend to spill the ink - no obvious cause and effect. Children may not understand this concept.
Cannot say that the naughty boys bad intent was responsible for the ink stain

Question 8

Kohlberg’s levels of moral development

Answer 8

Pre-conventional morality (pre-operational stage)
- punishment
- reward
Conventional morality (concrete operations)
- consider intentions
- obedience to authority
Post-conventional morality (formal operations)
- morally vs legal right
- consider multiple views (justice, human rights, dignity)

Question 9

How did Kohlberg develop levels

Answer 9

Gave people moral dilemma’s and asked series of questions to assess their moral reasoning.
Questions were designed to probe awareness of the conflict.

Conducted longitudinal study and assessed boys at various ages.

Question 10

Evaluation of Kohlberg’s levels - culturally biased - Gibbs et al. (2007)

Answer 10

In Western societies the rights, freedom and independence of individuals is highly valued. But this is not the case with other cultures where the culture is community focused and interdependent. Individual is not perceived to be as important as the group as a whole.
Resulting in the higher levels of moral reasoning clashing with the core values of some societies - not a universal account of moral development

Question 11

Supporting evidence to Kohlberg conducted by Nunner-Winkler & Sodian (1988)

Answer 11

Children aged 4-8 listened to a story about a protagonist stealing sweets that she wanted. They were then asked to judge whether the protagonist felt good or bad about what she had done
Aged around 6 = judged that the protagonist felt good as she had gotten what she wanted
Aged around 8 = protagonist felt bad and would feel guilty about stealing.
Older children understand that we should not steel whereas younger work on basis of ‘feel good’ principle - findings consistent with shift Kohlberg suggested occurs in moral development.

Question 12

What is prosocial behaviour?

Answer 12

Deciding between selfish and selfless actions
examples include:
- helping 
- sharing 
- altruism - costly helping

Question 13

Hoffman’s views on empathy and its link to morality

Answer 13

Hoffman points out that infants find laughing and crying contagious.
This forms the basis of empathy which is a driving force in prosocial behaviour and morality

Question 14

Eisenberg’s study demonstrating the link between moral behaviour and prosocial behaviour

Answer 14

Presented children with a story about a child going to a friends party where he comes across another child who has fallen and hurt himself. The dilemma is does the child help the other and be late for the party and jeopardising his opportunity for cake?
Findings were consistent with Kohlberg’s theory. Younger children judging protagonist should go get cake and older children operating on principle putting the needs of others over themselves.
Altruisim - costly helping
Development of prosocial and moral reasoning shift at age 5 - entertaining the ideas of other’s well-being

Question 15

Warkeken and Tomasello (2006) demonstrating helping behaviour early in life

Answer 15

infants - 12 months old
Warkeken required help to complete an action - e.g., hanging item on washing line and drops clothes peg - out of reach of him which prompted children to move to the peg and pick it up and hand to him.
Infant has to work out the intention of the actor and what is required to achieve the goal state of action.
Repeated the task with unfamiliar tasks as well - dropping spoon in box.
Control condition where actor threw peg across room - infants less likely to get peg (would suggest mechanical) which suggests infant attuned with the intentions of the actor

Question 16

Hamlin et al.’s scenario with good and bad shapes

Answer 16

Presented 6-month-old infants with scenario. Red ball trying to get up steep hill but had difficulty making to the top. The nice character, the blue square, helpfully pushed the red square up the hill. The nasty character, the yellow triangle, pushed the red ball down the hill. The children then observed which shape would the red ball travel to when have the option
Found that children looked longer at the unexpected outcome (red travelling to yellow triangle)
Suggests that the infants preferred the helper over the hinderer

Question 17

Moral emotions - Haidt (2001)?

Answer 17

Presented children and adults with stories e.g., eating a dog which was already dead outside house. Most adults and children thought that this was wrong.
Researchers asked why the felt this way - couldn’t give logical argument, eventually saying they don’t know why its wrong but it just is.
- many of moral judgements have a strong emotional reaction and then we begin to reason morally - defending stance instead of being neutral and looking at all evidence.

Question 18

Smith Blake and Harris (2013)

Answer 18

3-8 year olds were given 4 stickers. Asked questions, ‘how many should you share with another chid?’ ‘How many will you give to another child?’
At ages 3-4 children understand that they should share therefore know what is right, but only at ages 7-8 do children actually share - adhere to sharing and fairness principles

Sharing more costly than helping? More children help over share
Maybe sharing requires more reasoned thought whereas helping is intuition