PSY2004 W9 Peers and Friends: Moral development (L)

Question 1

What are some sociometric techniques for measuring peer status?

Answer 1

Method used to categorise children according to their popularity in the classroom.
Each child present with pictures of all class members and asked to nominate 3 people they like a lot and 3 people they don’t like very much. Each child is scored according to how many people did or didn’t like them but in following categories:
Popular, Controversial, Average, Neglected

Question 2

What are some factors that affect peer status? [specifically social information processing]

Answer 2

temperament/personality, past experiences, physcial appearance (attractievnnes, age,race, gender), social skills

Question 3

What are some ways in which peer acceptance may be promoted by adult careers?

Answer 3

Parents may help their children develop social skills by:
being the first patners with whom thier children learn to interact, create opportunities for their children to interact with others, being a role model in social interaction themselve, talking about social interactions to develop chil’s understanding of social skills, explicitly providng suggestions as to how to behave or advice on a way forward in a specific situation.

Question 4

What is moral reasoning?

Social psychologcial Turiel

Answer 4

“prescriptive judgments of justice, rights, and welfare pertaining to how people ought to relate to each other”

Question 5

What is the philosophical background on moral development?

Answer 5

Plato: becuse the moral life is the harmonious and happy life
Is mankind naturally benevolent? Hobbes: no Rousseau: yes
Is morality a product of reason or emotion? Hume emotion followed by reason.

Question 6

What is sympathy ?

moral emotions

Answer 6

Feeling for the other, e.g., seeing a sad person and feeling concern

Question 7

What is empathy ?

moral emotions

Answer 7

Feeling as the other does, e.g., seeing a sad person and feeling sad

Question 8

What are the fondational theories of Kohleberg on moral reasoning development?

Answer 8

Stages of moral development
1- Preconventional (0-9yrs): What’s right is what authority figures say is right
2- Conventional (9-adulthood): What’s right is about what is generally accepted by people as right
3- Postconventional (some adults): There are universal moral principles that can transcend the law/majority view

Question 9

What are the fondational theories of Piaget on moral reasoning development?

Answer 9

Stages of Piaget moral development
1- Premoral (0-~5yrs): No understanding of moral rules
2- Moral Realism (~5 to ~10 yrs): Rules come from higher authorities, actions are evaluated by their outcomes
3- Moral Subjectivism (after ~10yrs): Rules can be changed by mutual consent, intentions are important

Question 10

How is moral reasoning facilitated?

Answer 10

Interactions with peers is often critical for development of moral reasoning (piage)
Kruger 1992: 7-10YO Girls moral reasoning with dilemma they could enage in discussion with either a peer or mother.
Peer condition showed greater gains in moral reasoning at post-test.
The degree to which the child engaged in reflective discourse (with peer or mother) correlated positively with moral reasoning at posttest

Question 11

What is the normal development time course of peer interaction? INFANCY

Answer 11

interested in looking at and touching other infants, vocalize during interaction, cry in response to other infants’ cries.

Question 12

What is the normal development time course of peer interaction? 1-2 YEARS

Answer 12

Interact with other babies in friendly and inquisitive way, watch each other play, engage in pretend play, play develops from being done in parallel to being more co-ordinated

Question 13

Give an example of co-operating and pretend play?

Answer 13

Jane (21 months) puts doll to bed. Elly (21 months) brings teddy to put him in the bed too. Both pull the cover up, watch each other smiling  more integrated social pretend play

Question 14

What is the normal development time course of peer interaction? 3 YEARS

Answer 14

More co-ordinated play, role taking, prefer peer to adult company

Question 15

What is the normal development time course of peer interaction? 6 YEARS

Answer 15

peak in imaginative play, long play sequences

Question 16

What is the normal development time course of peer interaction? 7 YEARS

Answer 16

Stable same gender preference, expectations of friends develop

Question 17

What is the normal development time course of peer interaction? 11 YEARS

Answer 17

expect deeper foundations to friendship – a source of emotional support, someone to confide in, not just a play mate

Question 18

What is the normal development time course of peer interaction? 13 YEARS +

Answer 18

emergence of cross gender relationships, further development of conception of friendship

Question 19

What is parellel social pretend play?

Answer 19

Jane (18 months) pushes doll in toy pushchair, looks at Elly (18 months) who watches her. Elly puts her doll in a second pushchair. Both walk around room pushing their dolls

Question 20

What is cooperation?

Warneken et al. 2006

Answer 20

Having a joint goal
Different but flexible roles
Commitments to the joint goal

Question 21

When do children become more attuned to cooperation?

Answer 21

Between 1- and 2-years children become increasingly attuned to co-operative activities and social games. Thought to be species-specific.
When partner ceases to play child attempts to reengage him communicatively.

Question 22

What are some cooperation tasks?

Answer 22

Trampoline (ball), Tube with handles, doubel tube, chimpanzees.
All activites need two people to complete the goal of the task.

Question 23

When does cooperation emerge?

Answer 23

Emerges early and sets the stage for later interactions, as infants start to prefer peer interaction.

Question 24

What is the role of peers?

Answer 24

Socialising
Peers will have more in common with a child than family memebers.

Question 25

How do peers infleunce a chidls’ behaviour?

Answer 25

Modelling behavoiurs that a child can imitate, reinforcing (+/-) a child’s behaviour, setting benchmarks for a child to compare themselves to (affects self-esteem)

Question 26

How does Bronfenbrenner understand peers?

Answer 26

Interacting with peers affords very different types of learning opportunities compared to caregiver interactions

Question 27

How does peer status affect a child?

Answer 27

Popularity is important to children (peer acceptance)
* Peer status can affect children’s happiness, social development, school attendance and their future behaviour and life outcomes
* The effect of peer acceptance on a child can be mitigated by close friendships (discussed shortly)
* Peer status tends to be stable over time, even in new groups

Question 28

What are social skills?

Answer 28

ability to process and act on social information

Question 29

What is social information processing ?

Crick and Dodge 1994

Answer 29

1- Encode cues [one’s own thoughts as well as others’ behaviour]
2- Interpret cues [attribute causes, intent. Evaluate goal, past performance, self adn other]
3- Clarify goals
4- Review possible action
5- Decide on an action [review possible outcomes, evaluate likely response, self-efficacy, select action]
6- Act on decision

Question 30

How does children’s social information processing relate to peer acceptance?

Dodge, Pettit, McClaskey & Brown, 1986

Answer 30

Task 1: video of social interactions involve a) peer group entry, b) peer provocation. Questions relating to each step in social inforamtion processing model.
Task 2a): child assessed on a peer group entry task [asked to jion 2 children who are already playing together]
Task 2b): child actually provoked by a peer

Children’s ability ont aks 1a) but not taks 1b) predicted their ability on task 2a)

Question 31

What does a child need to do to avoid or overcome rejection?

Answer 31

Some posibilities:
To want to interact with others, to feel confident in having something to contribute to the group, to be interested in learning what others in the gruop are like (their interests and opinion)

Question 32

Who can possible facilitate peer acceptance?

Answer 32

parents, teachers, friends

Question 33

What can help children to be more accepted ?

Ladd 1981

Answer 33

Adult coach could help children by teaching them 3 methods of communication:
1- asking peers positively toned questions
2- offering useful suggestions and directions to peers
3- Making supportive statements to peers

Question 34

How does friendships differ from peer acceptance?

Answer 34

Important to distinguish between popularity in peer group and dyadic (or triadic) friendships.
Many children who are unpopular do have a friend and are contented within that friendship and indeed this relationship appears to have some protective effect against low peer group acceptance (Dunn, 2004) Others, however, find themselves bullied by supposed friend

Question 35

What are moral systems?

Social psychological Haidt

Answer 35

interlocking sets of values, norms, practices, identities, institutions, technologies, and evolved psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate selfishness and make social life possible”

He defines morality in terms of its function: pluralism and relativism. Morality is product of physical, psychological, cultural and institutional mechanism

Question 36

What is relativism?

Haidt

Answer 36

no one right moral code but many viable alternatives

Question 37

What is pluralism?

Haidt

Answer 37

no unifying principle but many values: care, loyalty, purity etc

Question 38

What is the trolley dilemma?

Answer 38

Trolley is headed for 5 people who will be killed if it proceeds on present course. Only way to save them is to hit a switch that will turn the trolley onto an alternate set of tracks, where it will kill 1 person instead of 5.
Ought you to turn the trolley to save 5 people at the expense of 1?

Question 39

What is the Footbridge dilemma?

Answer 39

a trolley threatens to kill 5 people
You are standing next to a large stranger on a footbridge that spans the tracks in between the trolley and the 5 people. Only way to save 5 people is to push the stranger off the bridge onto the tracks below. He will die if you do this but his body will stop the trolley from reaching the others

Ought you to save the 5 people by pushing the stranger to his death?

Question 40

What would be included in moral developement?

Answer 40

• moral emotions, specifically, empathy and sympathy
• moral reasoning: Piaget, Kohlberg, Tomasello & Vaish
• prosocial behaviours, including helping and sharing

Question 41

What are empathy’s littles sisters?

Answer 41

Emotional contagion, Mimicry,

Question 42

What is emotional contagion?

Answer 42

the tendency to “catch” other people’s emotions
Babies cry when they hear other babies crying. Pupillary contagion in adults (Harrison et al., 2006)

Question 43

What is mimicry?

Answer 43

Mimicry is the tendency to automatically synchronise affective expressions, vocalizations, postures and movements with those of another person.

Mimicry is argued to lead to a causal chain whereby one adopts another’s affective facial expressions and thereby feels the corresponding affective expression oneself (but see Singer and Lamm, 2009)

Neonates mimic facial expressions

Question 44

What is the like me hypothesis?

Meltzoff 2004

Answer 44

“Human acts are represented within a common code that applies to the self as well as others. Newborns bring this representation of human acts to their very first interactions with people, and it provides an interpretive framework for understanding the behaviour they see. Put succinctly, seeing others as “like me” is our birthright.”

Question 45

How does our concern for other develop?

Zahn-Waxler, Radke-Yarrow et al. (1992) Longitudinal study (1-2YO)

Answer 45

Mother trained to record children’s responses to the emotions of others over the year long period.
Once a week mothers also simulated different emotions and then recorded how their children reacted.
At 2Y attended research lab and their reactions to simulted emotions were video recorded.
Over the Year, children made transition from generally being upset themselves when they saw someone in distress to increasingly attempting to comfort the persno by engagin in prosocial behaviour
15months Over 1/2 the children had spontaneously responded to anothers distress by engaging in prosocial behaviour. 25 months all but one child had done so

Question 46

via affective perspective taking

What did they find about childre’s sympathy ?

Vaish, Carpenter, Tomasello 2009

Answer 46

18 and 25 month olds played with E1 and E2
E1: engage in an activity
E2 came along and either harm condition or contorl condition
DV 1: nb and latency of concerned looks child made to E1
Later E1 and child played with balloons E1 had one and child had 2. E1 dropped her ballon and said oh no my ballon.
DV 3 nb of children who comforted or helped E1
Results:
Children in harm condition: more likely to look at E1 with concern, quicker to look, looked longer and more and were more likely to help E1 after losing her ballon.
Conclusion
18 months children show concern for a stranger who is in a hurtful situation but shows no emotion

Question 47

What are Tomasello and Vaish 2013 stages of moral devleopent?

Answer 47

1- Second-personal morality: Moral decisions revolve around specific others
2- Agent-neutral morality: Moral decisions involve following and enforcing group-wide social norms. There are numerous cultural influences on the expression of agent-neutral morality. e.g., Collectivist cultures typically defer to the majority more than individualist cultures (Corriveau et al., 2013)

Question 48

What drives mooral reasoning development?

Tomasello & Vaish 2013

Answer 48

Social interaction drives the development of moral reasoning. Joint then collective intentionality

Question 49

What is joint intentionality?

Answer 49

involves two agents having a joint goal, understanding this goal as shared and being able to engage in joint attention to coordinate with each other while each knowing their own role

Question 50

What is Collective intentionality?

Answer 50

involves moving things to the group level and taking a more objective, normative, perspective on how things are done – and should be done - in general in one’s culture

Question 51

What is the role of peers in moral reasoning?

Answer 51

Developemntal and evolutionary origins of reasoning are argued to be social. Our reasoning skills primarly developed to persuade others with arguments. Chidlren often first get to do this with peers and this is a key context for early moral reasoning.

Question 52

What are some criticism for Kohlberg’s theory?

GOING TO BE IN MCQ (mentioned in lecture)

Answer 52

Gender bias (only tested males)
Culture bias (Western values)
Validity of the clinical method of interview
Idea that we only move upwards from one stage to another and cannot be a two stages simultaneously
Failure to sufficiently acknowledge that children appreciate distinction between social conventions from moral ones early on (Turiel)