W9 Moral Flashcards

1
Q

What are social norms?

A
  • Norms are a form of “social reality” prescribing people act in certain ways in certain
    contexts.
  • Opposed to idiosyncratic behaviours or preferences.
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2
Q

What are the two kinds of social norms?

A
  1. Moral norms: concerning the welfare of others evolved from two natural tendencies
    * Natural tendency to help other
    * Avoid to harm other
    -> prosocial behaviours
  2. Conventional norms: do not directly concern the welfare of others, 3 properties:
    * Idiosyncratic: sometimes unusual
    * Agent-neutral: applies to everyone in a group
    * Context-specific
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3
Q

What is the classic view in children’s social norm development?

A
  • Classic view: children are egocentric, selfish at birth, but gradually develop to follow social norms
  • Age 4, children can distinguish different “domains” of social
    norms.
  • Evidence: children gets interview on hypothetical scenarios when people violate a norm: moral vs. conventional
    -> they understand the absolute importance of moral norms, but conventional norms are context-dependent and less serious
  • Evidence against: infants/young children show sophisticated understanding of social norm + early prosociality
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4
Q

What is meant by the two-sttep model?

A

Step 1: Second-person morality before age 3 (Preference)
* Sympathy + social preference (0-12 months)
* Collaboration and sharing - active prosociality (age 1- 3)
-> “It feels nice to be nice”

Step 2: Preschoolers’ norm-based morality (Agent-neutral)
* Enforcement of social norms
* Guilt and shame
-> “It is RIGHT to be nice”

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5
Q

Evidence that prosociality of infants is intrinstic vs. extrinsic?

A
  • Pupil dilation = distress
  • When adult needs help, in “Help” and “Other-help” conditions
    -> children’s distress is reduced either way
  • When children caused the harm, they want to help themselves (guilt)
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6
Q

Evidence for prosociality in the two-step model?

A

Step 1:
* newborn was more distress when hear other babies’ cries than their own
* 6-10 months old infants prefer good guy over bad guy.

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7
Q

Does helping comes naturally?

A
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8
Q

Summary of step 1 (two-step model)?

A
  • Early prosocial morality based on second-personal
    interactions & relationships [0-3 years of age].
  • Helping and concern about other individuals emerges early
    and comes naturally.
  • Children are motivated to collaborate and consider their partners as equal.
  • “Natural” morality becomes increasingly flexible.
  • Morality begins in dyadic interactions without group norms.
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9
Q

What is the stage of normative conflict development?

A

Experiment:
Observing 3- and 5- years old when each learn conflicting rules on how to play -> incompatible condition

Result:
* Both 3- and 5-year-olds protested and corrected their peers’ actions
* It took 3-year-olds much longer to resolve the conflict and agree on a rule than 5-year-olds.
* 3-year-olds did not realize that the experimenter was the reason for disagreement.

-> The normative understanding gets more flexible in later preschool years.

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10
Q

How is step 2 (two-step model) investigated + drawbacks?

A
  • Interview method relies on verbal ability, hypothetical
    thinking, counterfactual reasoning -> can’t observe so less objective
  • Is moral judgment enough - will children act on this knowledge
  • Can’t observe moral judgment in action:
    -> Do children enforce norms on others?
    -> Do young children appreciate generality of norms?
    -> Do they enforce norms as an unaffected observer?
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11
Q

Do other species (e.g. chimpanzees) have norms?

A
  • Understanding of norms
  • Social groups of chimpanzees: when there is food in the middle, the dominant chimp eats everything
  • Subordinate chimps the let alpha male to eat
    everything out of fear.
    -> Chimps do not have this “collective”
    understanding.
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