Week 12 – Morality & Evolutionary Psychology: Flashcards
Evolution
change in inherited characteristics within a population over successive generations
Darwinian evolution (via natural selection)
- Individuals of a species show variation in traits (behavioral, morphological, psychological, physiological characteristics)
- Some of these traits are heritable: some traits will be passed on from one generation to the next
- Some traits provide benefits in terms of survival and reproductive success (fitness advantages). Such traits are called adaptations
The consequences of evolution
-those individuals with greater chances of survival and reproductive success (fitness)(due to the possession of adaptations) will leave more offspring, and those offspring will tend to resemble their parents (i.e. inherit their traits)
* Thus certain adaptive traits are selected for over the course of generations
* These adaptive traits increase in frequency in future generations, thus coming to be widespread within a species
Evolutionary Psychology (EP)
application of evolutionary theorizing to understanding human psychology and behavior
Assumption of Ep
Assumes that the mind is composed of a collection of evolved psychological mechanisms (many of which are adaptations) that are domain-specific
They are designed to solve various specific recurrent problems faced by our evolutionary ancestors (e.g. disease avoidance, mate selection, kin care etc.)
The problem of altruism
-if evolution tailors organisms to behave in ways that facilitate their own reproductive success, doesn’t this mean that organisms will be selfish?
Need to take a ‘gene’s-eye view’ * Selfish genes vs. selfish individuals
* If a prosocial behavior happens to increase thelikelihood that a gene is passed on to future generations, then such a behavior may be selected for
Inclusive fitness
refers to the capacity for genetic information to spread in the population. Inclusive fitness is comprised of:
o Direct (classical) fitness: the number of offspring produced.
o Indirect fitness: occurs via increasing the classical fitness of others who also share one’s genes (i.e. kin, relatives). If we can help kin to survive and reproduce, then, because we share genes with kin, we are indirectly increasing the chances that shared genes spread in the population. This account predicts that evolution will have shaped patterns of helping such that we are more likely to help those more closely related to us.
Case study: belding ground squirrels
- investigated alarm calls in response to predators. Found that squirrels were more likely to call in the presence of sisters, aunts and nieces (more likely to perform altruistic acts in the presence of kin).
In humans, Essock-Vitale & McGuire (1985) alturistic study
women from LA were far more likely to give and receive help from those whom the participants is related to more strongly
Daly & Wilson (1988) on altruristic behavior of step parent
-single largest predictor of child abuse and homicide is the presence of a step-parent in the home – these are 40-100x more likely if there is a step-parent at home (vs. both genetic parents). This shows that relatedness constraints behaviour of this kind.
mums vs. dads
Due to paternity uncertainty (mothers are more certain of the genetic relatedness of their children), mothers have been shown to be nicer and more likely to invest in their offspring
Grandparental certainty
found that this parental uncertainty extends to grandparents –maternal grandparents are more likely to be warmer and invest in their grandchildren versus parental grandparents. Similarly, grandchildren feel the
warmest towards their mother’s mother, followed by their mother’s father then their father’s mother and finally their father’s father. This might be explained by the fact that the father’s mother may have more certain grandkids that she is investing in (grandkids through daughters)
Challenges & criticisms to evolutionary psychology
® Pan-adpatationism: evolutionary psychologists claim that all psychological characteristics are an adaptation (which is not true).
® Genetic determinism: evolutionary psychologists believe that everything is determined by genes, and that nurture (the environment) does not play any role.
® Implications for morality: evolutionary psychology implies that our adaptations are morally good – a criticism based on naturalistic fallacy
Value of evolutionary psychology
® Evolutionary psychology acts as metatheory – providing an organizing framework for understanding the complex aspects of human social behaviour.
® Addresses questions of function and distal causes – explaining why psychological processes occur.
® Is generative or fruitful – can lead to the development of novel hypotheses or explanations or predictions that cannot be easily got to by other theories.
Definition of Morality
: a code of conduct or set of rules pertaining to ‘right’, ’good’, ’wrong’, ’bad’ held by an individual or group
The moral/conventional distinction
-Turiel (1987) investigated violations of rule (e.g. a child hitting another, a child wearing a dress to school, a child talking out of turn in class).
-He asked whether the act was wrong/serious, punishable, authority dependent, general in scope, and how the wrongness was explained.
-Turiel described that the signature moral response (SMR) consists of a violation being a constellation of serious/wrong/bad, punishable, authority dependent, and general in scope (universal), and that this response tended to be given to stimuli/rule violations that involved harm or welfare (also rights and justice). If there is harm (or injustice or violation of rights), then it is a SMR (the scope of morality).
Pattern of respond to Turiel
The signature moral response (SMR):
* Serious, wrong, bad
* Punishable
* Authority independent
* General in scope (universal)
Convention respond
* The key distinguishing feature of stimulus: harm or welfare (also rights and justice)
Haidt, Koller & Dias (1993)
found that non-harm violations also can evoke the signature moral response (e.g. cleaning a toilet with an American flag, eating a family dog after it has been killed by a car).
This is because some people judge these transgressions as authority independent and general in scope
Systematizing variability in moral responses
Schweder et al. (1997) provided a three-domain descriptive account of morality – suggesting that violations primarily pertain to:
1. Autonomy (a violation of one’s individual freedom/rights). To decide whether an action is wrong, you think about things like harm, rights, justice, freedom, fairness, individualism and the importance of individual choice and liberty.
2. Community (hierarchy): an action is wrong because a person fails to carry out his/her duties within a community or social hierarchy. To decide if an action is wrong, you think about things like duty, role-obligation, respect for authority, loyalty, group honour, interdependence, and the preservation of the community.
3. Divinity (purity): violations of divinity/purity. In these cases, the person disrespects the sacredness of God, or causes impurity or degradation to himself/herself or others. To decide if an action is wrong, you think about things like sin, the natural order of things, sanctity, and the protection of the soul or the world from degradation and spiritual defilement.
® Cultural and demographic factors influence SMR to these domains
Moral Foundations Theory (Haidt & Graham, 2004, 2007
Expanded Schweder’s account of morality to 5 domains. Also a descriptive account of morality.
1. Harm/care: representing concerns about violence and the suffering of others, including compassion and care.
2. Fairness/reciprocity: representing the norms of reciprocal relations, equality, rights and justice.
3. Authority/respect (vertical dimension): representing moral obligations related to hierarchical relations such as obedience, duty, respect for superiors, and the protection of subordinates.
4. Ingroup/loyalty (horizontal dimension): covering moral obligations related to group membership, such as loyalty, betrayal, and expectations of preferential treatment for ingroup members relative to outgroup members.
5. Purity/sanctity – representing the moral ideal of living in an elevated, noble and less carnal way, based on intuitions about divinity, feelings of moral disgust, and purity of body, mind and soul.
What accounts for judgments of right and wrong?
- Psychological answers (versus historical, cultural, sociological)
- What is in the moral black box?
- For most of the history of thought about morality, there has been a debate about whether it is reasoning or emotion/intuition.
- Caveat: Coarse distinction, but useful to structure the extant research and thinking on moral judgment
Reasoning vs intuition
- moral reasoning: (from Haidt, 2001) conscious mental activity that consists of transforming given information about people in order to reach a moral judgment. To say that moral reasoning is a conscious process means that the process is intentional, effortful, and controllable and that the reasoner is aware that it is going on
- moral intuition: (from Haidt, 2001) sudden appearance in consciousness of a moral judgment, including an affective valence (good-bad, like-dislike), without any conscious awareness of having gone through steps of searching, weighing evidence, or inferring a conclusion.
- Moral intuitions are largely dependent on emotions
Moral dumbfounding
(Haidt, Koller & Dias, 1993) is where people defend the wrongness of an action, even though all of their reasons have been defused. They cannot justify why they believe the action is wrong, but they simply insist that it is(based on a gut feeling/reaction). (In this study, this was a brother and sister kissing). This may occur because reasoning processes are not accessible here, so they may not even be employed
Social Intuitionist Model (Haidt, 2001):
® Suggests that moral judgement is a function of affect-laden intuitions. Reasoning is post-hoc rationalization.
