Week 11 - Morality& Social Domain Flashcards
What is Morality?
- Judgments of right and wrong pertaining to others’ welfare, rights, and fairness
- How should people behave towards one another?
Morality before 2 yo
Before the age of 2-years, children are concerned with the well-being of others
Children are more likely to help someone who:
• Is in need
• Has been harmed
Piaget’s Theory of Morality
Stage theory of moral development • Developed by: • Watching children play games • Interviewing children about different types of transgressions 3 stages: 1. premoral development 2. heteronomous stage 3. autonomous stage
Premoral development
up to 4 yrs
- no explicit awareness of rules, no use of moral principles or notions of justice
Heternomous stage
4-10 yrs
- rules are seen as unchanging and external, like physical laws
- judgements of culpability are based on the act’s consequences rather than intention
- little sense of what punishment is appropriate for what transgression
Autonomous stage
10-11 yrs
- rules are seen as human agreement that can be changed if both parties agree
- judgement of culpability based partly on intention
- punishment should be appropriate to the level of transgression
In Piaget’s experiments on morality why did children younger than 6 answer differently than adults?
Value outcomes over intentions
• Task demands
Study: Selective Helping in Young Children
(1) Neutral condition
• Actor comments on belt and necklace in tray
• Actor comments on remaining sheets of paper or the other ball of clay
(2) Harm condition
• At end of each presentation, actor said “I’m going to
take/tear/break this now”
(3) Help condition
• Recipient accidentally damages her own property and the actor helps her
Test trial
• Actor and neutral person each played an individual color
matching game
• Put their three balls in the slots, and then simultaneously reach for a ball in the middle and hold that pose
• Child then gives the ball to one of the two people
• After they gave the ball, they were given a second ball so that they could help the other person, too
Study: Selective Helping in Young Children 2nd study
Same design, but replace harm and help conditions with:
(1) Intended-but-failed to harm
• The actor says “I’m going to break/tear this but then can’t do it
(2) Accidental harm
• Actor admired the clay bird but then accidentally ruined it giving it back
–> children more likely to help person with good intentions
Three distinct domains of social knowledge
1) Moral
2) Social Convention
3) Personal
Social Knowledge: Moral
- Concerned with welfare and fairness
- Universal
- Impersonal
- Determined by criteria other than agreement or consensus
- Moral wrongness is an intrinsic feature of the act
- Causes harm
Social Knowledge: Social Convention
- Shared norms that smooth social interactions
- Change as a function of context
- Agreed upon
- Alterable
Social Knowledge: Personal
- Control over body, privacy, choice of friends or activities
- Autonomy
When are children aware of rules?
- Piaget argued that children younger than 4-years-of-age did not understand rules or recognize when people had broken rules
- Research suggest that children start to be aware of adult standards/rules during their second year
- For example, Judy Dunn conducted an observational study of family interactions
- 14-month-olds reactions to transgressions by a sibling indicate that they understand that rule is being broken
How do parents act when conventions are violated?
- Tell the child to stop with no explanation
- Make statements about disorder
- Make rule statements
- Respond with disgust and annoyance
