Task 9 - Help! Flashcards
Piaget’s stages (morality)
- Premoral Period (0 to 4-5 years)
- -> No moral understanding - Heteronomous morality (4-5 to 9-10 years)
- -> Second part of morality of constraint (rules are a given) and transitional phase (understand that rules can be changed) - Autonomous morality (9-10 + years)
- -> Advanced understanding of morality
Kohlberg’s stages
- Preconventional moral reasoning: (0 to 10 years)
Moral reasoning is self centered → it focuses on the getting rewards and avoiding punishment - Conventional moral reasoning: (10 to 14 years)
Moral reasoning is centered on social relationships → it focuses on compliance with social duties and laws - Post conventional moral reasoning: (from 14 years on) above 14 they potentially can develop ; we expect it by 20
Preconventional Level
Stage 1: Punishment and Obedience Orientation – what is seen as right is obedience to authorities
Pro: If you let your wife die, you will get in trouble. You’ll be blamed for not spending the money to save her and there’ll be an investigation of you and the druggist for your wife’s death
Con: You shouldn’t steal the drug because you’ll be caught and sent to jail if you do. If you do get away, your conscience would bother you thinking how the police would catch up with you at any minute
Stage 2: Instrumental and Exchange Orientation – what is right is what is in one’s own best interest or involves equal exchange between people (tit-for-tat exchange of benefits)
Pro: If you do happen to get caught, you could give the drug back and you wouldn’t get much of a sentence. It wouldn’t bother you much to serve a little jail term, if you have your wife when you get out
Con: He may not get much of a jail term if he steals the drug, but his wife will probably die before he gets out so it won’t do him much good. If his wife dies, he shouldn’t blame himself, it wasn’t his fault she has cancer
Conventional Level
Stage 3: Mutual Interpersonal Expectations, Relationships, and Interpersonal Conformity (“Good Girl, Nice Boy”) Orientation – good behavior is doing what is expected by people who are close to the person or what people generally expect of someone in a given role (e.g., “a son”) – how others think about “me”
Pro: No one will think you’re bad if you steal the drug, but your family will think you’re an inhuman husband if you don’t. If you let your wife die, you’ll never be able to look anybody in the face again
Con: It isn’t just the druggist who will think you’re a criminal, everyone else will, too. After you steal it, you’ll feel bad thinking how you’ve brought dishonor on your family and yourself; you won’t be able to face anyone again
Stage 4: Social System and Conscience (“Law and Order”) Orientation – fulfilling one’s duties, upholding laws, and contributing to society or one’s group (more societal laws and not)
Pro: In most marriages, you accept the responsibility to look after one another’s health and after their life and you have the responsibility when you live with someone to try and make it a happy life
Postconventional or Principle Level
Stage 5: Social Contract or Individual Rights Orientation – right behavior involves upholding rules that are in the best interest of the group (“the greatest good for the greatest number”), are impartial, or were agreed upon by the group
Pro: Heinz should steal the drug because the right to life supersedes or transcends the right to property (Colby & Kohlberg, 1987b, p. 11).
Pro: Heinz is working from a hierarchy of values, in which life (at least the life of his wife) is higher than honesty. . . . Human life and its preservation—at least as presented here—must take precedence over other values, like Heinz’s desire to be honest and law abiding, or the druggist’s love of money and his rights. All values stem from the ultimate value of life
Stage 6: Universal Ethical Principles – commitment to self-chosen ethical principles that reflect universal principles of justice (e.g., equality of human rights, respect for the dignity of each human being)
Critique of Kohlberg’s Theory
- his work demonstrates that children’s moral judgement changes in relatively systematic ways with age
- One criticism is that Kohlberg did not sufficiently differentiate between truly moral issues and issues of social convention
- Another criticism pertains to cultural differences. Although children in many non-Western, non industrialized cultures start out reasoning much the way Western children do in Kohlberg’s scoring system, their moral judgment within this system generally does not advance as far as that of their Western peers
- Kohlberg asserted that because each stage is more advanced than the previous one, once an individual attains a new stage, he or she seldom reasons at a lower stage. However, research has shown that children and adults alike often reason at different levels on different occasions—or even on the same occasion
- Another debate is whether there are gender differences, since Kohlberg’s experiment was only with boys
- Gilligan suggested that because of the way they are socialized, males tend to value principles of justice and rights, whereas females value caring, responsibility for others, and avoidance of exploiting or hurting others. This difference in moral orientation, according to Gilligan, causes males to score higher on Kohlberg’s dilemmas than females do
Prosocial behaviour
voluntary behavior intended to benefit another, such as helping, sharing, and comforting of others
Levels of Prosocial Behaviour (by Eisenberg)
- Level 1: Hedonistic, self-focused orientation
- Level 2: Needs-based orientation
- Level 3: Approval and/or stereotyped orientation
- Level 4a: Self-reflective empathetic orientation
- Level 4b: Transitional level
- Level 5: Strongly internalized stage
Level 1: Hedonistic, self-focused orientation
mainly focused on one’s own interest (which override moral …) but one can also base it on reciprocity
Preschool children express primarily hedonistic reasoning in which their own needs are central
The individual is concerned with his or her own interests rather than with moral considerations. Reasons for assisting or not assisting another include the prospects of direct personal gain or future reciprocation and whether one needs or likes the other person. (Predominant mode primarily for preschoolers and younger elementary school children.)
Level 2: Needs-based orientation
seen in many preschoolers and elementary schoolers
preschoolers also often mention other people’s physical needs, which suggests that some preschoolers are concerned about other people’s welfare
The individual expresses concern for the physical, material, and psychological needs of others even when those needs conflict with his or her own. This concern is expressed in the simplest terms, without clear evidence of self-reflective role taking, verbal expressions of sympathy, or reference to such emotions as pride or guilt. (Predominant mode for many preschoolers and many elementary school children.)
Level 3: Approval and/or stereotyped orientation
one has their moral behaviour in the social - how one does something
in elementary school, children increasingly express concern about social approval and acting in a manner that is considered “good” by other people and society
The individual justifies engaging or not engaging in prosocial behavior on the basis of others’ approval or acceptance and/or on stereotyped images of good and bad persons and behavior. (Predominant mode for some elementary school and high school students.)
Level 4a: Self-reflective empathetic orientation
In late childhood and adolescence, children’s judgments begin to be based, in varying degrees, on explicit perspective taking
The individual’s judgments include evidence of self- reflective sympathetic responding or role taking, concern with the other’s humanness, and/or guilt or positive emotion related to the consequences of one’s actions. (Predominant mode for a few older elementary school children and many high school students.)
Level 4b: Transitional level
morally relevant affect such as sympathy, guilt, and positive feelings due to the real or imagined consequences of performing beneficial actions (e.g., “Eric would feel bad if he didn’t help and the boy was in pain”). The judgments of a minority of older adolescents reflect internalized values and affect (Levels 4b and 5) related to not living up to those values
The individual’s justifications for helping or not helping involve internalized values, norms, duties, or responsibilities. They may also reflect concerns for the condition of the larger society or refer to the necessity of protecting the rights and dignities of other persons. These ideals, however, are not clearly or strongly stated. (Predominant mode for a minority of people of high school age or older.)
Level 5: Strongly internalized stage
The individual’s justifications for helping or not helping are based on internalized values, norms, or responsibilities; the desire to maintain individual and societal contractual obligations or improve the condition of society; and the belief in the rights, dignity, and equality of all individuals. This level is also characterized by positive or negative emotions related to whether or not one succeeds in living up to one’s own values and accepted norms. (Predominant mode for only a small minority of high school students.)
Empathy
cognitive empathy – understanding a person’s situation
effective empathy – understand and feel those feelings – this leads to sympathy
is an emotional reaction to another’s emotional state or condition (e.g., sadness, poverty) that is highly similar to (or consistent with) the other person’s state or condition (receiving information about a certain situation)
