Morality & The Natural World Flashcards
Theories of Moral Development
- Piaget & Kohlberg
- Thought that we can study morality by looking at children’s explicit reasoning and justifications about moral situations
- Both created stage theories of moral development
Piaget’s Theory of Moral Judgment
- Stage 1: Moral Realism (under 7 years)
- Rules = rigidly accepted
- Punishment = chosen by authority figure
- Moral decisions based on outcomes, not intentions - Stage 2: Transitional Period (8 to 10 years)
- Interactions with peers teach children that rules can be constructed and changed by the group - Stage 3: Moral Relativism (11 years +)
- Rules = product of social agreement that can be changed
- Punishment = “fair” and “fits the crime”
Intentions matter in moral decisions
Kohlberg’s Theory Of Moral Judgment
- Strongly influenced by Piaget
- But, cared more about justifications than the moral judgments themselves
- stages
Preconvential Level (Stages 1 & 2)
Rules should be followed because they are rules, avoid punishment
Conventional Level (Stages 3 & 4)
You should do things so that people see you as “good”
Postconventional/Principled Level (Stages 5 & 6)
Universal principles (e.g., equal human rights) should be followed
Challenges to Piaget & Kohlberg: Children Don’t Treat All Rules Equally
- Piaget & Kohlberg claim that children see rules as proscriptions from authority figures that must be followed, so all rules should have equal status
- But, even 3-to-4-year-olds reason differently about moral rule violations and conventional rule violations
Moral = involve harm
Conventional = social norms
Challenges to Piaget & Kohlberg: Intentions
- Piaget argued that young children considered outcomes, not intentions until around 11 years of age, BUT, much younger children, and even infants, seem to be able to reason about the importance of intentions
3 and 7 year-olds rate characters as good if they have good intentions, and bad if they have bad intentions
Infants Consider Intentions
Who do toddlers (21-month-olds) choose to give a toy to after it drops?
Previously failed to give toddler a toy because she was clumsy (unable) 75%
Previously failed to give toddler a toy because she was teasing (unwilling) 25%
Infants Spontaneously Help
Dropped Object - Clothespin:
- Gives it back to researcher
Hands Full - Books:
- Opens the cabinet for the researcher
- 14 month old understands what the researcher is trying to do and finds a way to help them out without being encouraged, spontaneous help.
- By 14 months, infants actively help adults reach their goals
- Even when infant is doing something else that is fun, they will still help an adult
- Toddlers’ helping is not dependent on being rewarded
Toddlers will even take a cost in order to help
Physical cost: will cross a difficult path to help (step over a pole)
Social cost: will leave a fun game (ball pit to help)
Morality Summary
- Influential early theories from Piaget and Kohlberg
- Children show sensitivity to different kinds of rules (moral vs. conventional) and intentions earlier than those theories claim
- Evidence of morality in infants and toddlers:
Evaluations of others (helpers & hinderers)
Their own actions (helping others)
Folk Biology
everyday understanding of living things (plants, animals, etc…)
- 4-and 5 -year-olds know that animals and plants grow, and that they need food and water to grow
- 4-year-olds understand that plants and animals - but not artifacts- can health themselves after being damaged
- 3-to- 4-year-olds understand that plants and animals can reproduce and that they have offspring of the same kind
Children Learn about Animals in Similar Ways Across Cultures
Study:
- 4-to-12-year-old children:
US children from Los Angeles, CA
Indigenous Shuar children from the Ecuadorian Amazon
- Taught children about animals:
Name
Danger (dangerous or safe)
Diet (eats plants or animals)
- Tested what children remember:
Immediately after learning
And one week later
Results:
- Children in both cultures learn (and remember) danger information better than diet or names
- Learn and retain danger information across cultures
Infants Preferentially Attend to Spiders
5-month-old infants:
- Schematic Spider
- Reconfigured Features
- Completely Scrambled
5-month-old infants look longer at the schematic spider (full image of spider)
Infants Show Specialized Fear Learning for Snakes
Study:
- 8-month-old infants shown pictures of snakes next to other animals while fearful voices were played
- Measured looking time (matching)
Results:
- Infants preferentially associate fearful voices with snakes compared to other animals that are less dangerous
Is it “alive”?
Children do not reliably say that plants are “alive” until around 10-12 years of age
Case Study: Plants
- Social learning mechanisms that balance the benefits and dangers of plants:
Plant Learning and Avoiding Natural Toxins: PLANT
Two Components of PLANT Systems
- Avoiding harm from plants
- Learning about plants
Avoiding Harm from Plants Study
Study:
- Experimental Setup: 8-to-18-month-olds
- Parents eyes would be closed, baby across the table from an experimenter
- Measure how long it takes for a baby to touch the thing that the experimenter puts in front of them
- Tested a number of different stimuli: real plants, artificial plants, novel artifacts, familiar artifacts, natural objects
Results:
- Infants took longer to reach out and touch plants compared to other artifacts
- Same for real and artificial plants
- Look at experimenter before they touch to see what they should do, when experimenter doesn’t react the infant will go ahead and touch the plant
Infants take longer to touch plants than other objects
- Avoids potential harm from dangerous plants (toxins, thorns)
Learning About Plants
- Social information reduces 8-to-18-month-old infants’ plant avoidance
- 6-to-18-month-olds selectively use social information to learn about edible plants
Actor eats from plant and eats from artifact study
Which one of these things would the infant choose to eat from? A plant or an artifact?
- Infants learn the plant is edible through actor
- Specialized ways of learning what to eat
- Some foods are more likely foods to eat than others
Natural World Summary
- Young children have sophisticated knowledge about plants and animals:
Growth, healing, reproduction - Infants have specialized attentional, behavioral, and learning systems for the natural world
Attention to spiders, specialized fear learning for snakes
Avoid touching plants, specialized learning about plant edibility
