Week 5-8 Flashcards
What is Moral Development theory?
A cognitive theory which states that moral reasoning develops throughout childhood and into adolescence. This moral reasoning affects our problem solving abilities, values system, and overall morality.
If moral development does not take place in the formative years, it is difficult to develop later.
What are Piaget’s 4 stages of intellectual development?
- Sensory Motor - ego centrism and learning through physical touch
- Pre-operational - magical thinking, weakened ego centrism, unable to think rationally
- concrete operational - developing reasoning and logical thinking. No longer egocentric.
- Formal operational stage - capable of abstract reasoning
What is Bandura’s social learning theory?
Bandura’s social learning theory suggests that our behaviour is shaped by role models who allow us to observe, imitate, and model our behaviour after. We learn from others what behaviour is rewarded and has desirable outcomes and what behaviour is punished and has undesirable outcomes.
How did Bandura explain aggression?
According to Bandura, our life experiences teach us about aggression. Watching other people be aggressive normalizes aggression.
Likewise, aggression can also be used as tool (e.g. it can be a protective response that produces a reward - i.e. if you behave aggressively to keep people away, it is rewarded in that people will often avoid you if you are aggressive.)
What is the law of diminishing returns in relation to aggression?
The law of diminishing returns is a response to the idea that vicarious aggression can be a cathartic alternative to aggressive criminal behaviour. the Law of diminishing returns suggests this won’t work because vicarious aggression will need to escalate over time in order to produce the same effect.
What are criminogenic needs?
Criminogenic needs comes from the work of Bonta and Andrew. It is the idea that we have risk factors that increase a persons likelihood of engaging in criminal behaviour and protective factors that decrease a person’s risk.
What are the 8 major risk factors linked with criminality. Which are the top 4?
The top 4 risk factors are:
1. Having a previous criminal history
2. Anti-social attitudes
3. Criminal associates
4. Anti-social personality.
Other risk factors include:
1. Low social achievement relating to education and vocation
2. Family factors (criminal families, marital conflict, poor parenting skills)
3. Substance abuse
4. Lack of prosocial pursuits and productive activity.
What are the 4 components of moral reasoning?
- Moral sensitivity - the ability to see an ethical dilemma
- Moral judgment - the ability to reason correctly about what “ought” to be done
- Moral Motivation - a commitment to do the right thing
- Moral character - persistence in the face of fatigue or temptations
What is Emotional Intelligence?
Emotional intelligence can be a protective factor against immoral behaviour. It is the ability to monitor and manage a person’s emotions, combine empathy and intelligence to interpret the emotions of other individuals and groups, the the ability to use emotional information to guide thinking and behaviour.
What are the key differences Piaget noticed in moral reasoning between early and middle childhood?
Early Childhood:
- Retributive Justice - doing something bad leads to punishment. Children require someone else to make the rules and they understand that if you don’t obey the rules, you will get in trouble. They only think something is bad if they get caught.
- Until age 6/7, children can’t understand intent (someone’s motives do not affect the severity of their actions, it doesn’t matter if it was on purpose or by accident)
- Judge how bad something is based on how extreme other people’s reaction is to it.
- They see punishment as a way of restoring harmony after a wrong doing.
Middle Childhood:
- Able to tell the difference between accidents and malicious intent.
- tend to have an “eye for eye” understanding of morality and justice
- Tend to favour reciprocal cause and effect punishment (fair punishment)
- Understood that rules are not black-and-white and that morality is not based on reward and punishment (bad things sometimes go unpunished, good things sometimes go unrewarded)
- Wanted to understand punishment and rules, didn’t accept things at face value.
- Focused on distributive justice (fairness in the allocation of rewards) instead of retributive justice (getting what you deserve).
How did Piaget view the role of warmth and abuse in moral reasoning development?
Warmth and care create a positive self image and sets a foundation for the development of empathy and healthy attachments. It also sets the child up to be able to more effectively learn, especially in terms of moral reasoning.
Abuse creates a sense of fear and anger towards the world and causes children to withdraw. It hinders the development of moral reasoning skills, of empathy, and of their ability to form healthy attachments.
What are Kohlberg’s 6 stages of moral development?
Pre-conventional Morality: Early Childhood
- Stage 1: Person has a fear of punishment and see’s authority figures as the source of morality. Tend to be quite egocentric and operate from a “might is right” perspective.
- Stage 2: Person tends to operate out of self-interest, still guided by rewards and punishment, and has a relatively individualistic outlook. They see right and wrong as relative.
Conventional Morality: Middle Childhood
- Stage 3: person begins to develop a concern for others, they value what the group thinks and seek social approval. They start to look at thinks from other people’s perspectives.
- Stage 4: Person recognizes the need for a societal system in order to prevent anarchy, they believe they have a duty to uphold the law and contribute to their social group.
Principled Morality: Late childhood
- Stage 5: The person recognizes the social contract and individual rights. They think in terms of the greatest good for he greatest number.
- Stage 6: The person develops universal principles of justice and rights and believes in the dignity and rights of all.
Kohlberg suggested that most people do not get past the conventional stage.
Which three theorists built on Kohlberg’s ideas?
Carol Gilligan: suggested that moral reasoning is based on Justice (problems of inequality and oppression, values reciprocity and human dignity) but also on responsibility and care (problems of attachment and abandonment, values human needs).
Martin Hoffman: Empathy connects ethics of justice and ethics of care. We need empathy to understand the harmful consequences of behaivour on others. With an integration of empathy and cognition, we have true moral reasoning.
Moche Blatt: We can raise each other up in terms of moral reasoning, moral people make other people more moral. Blatt emphasized the role of teachers in developing moral reasoning in their students.
What are risk factors and protective factors for empathy and why is it related to moral development?
Empathy is important for moral development because it acts as a bridge between the ethics of care and the ethics of justice. It helps people develop a sense of morality that is a balance between justice, fairness, individual rights, and our responsibility to others.
Protective factors that encourage empathy development include: stable resilient parents, strong attachment, nurturing environment with structure, opportunities to help others, moral character modelling.
Risk factors that impede the development of empathy include: a lack of positive role models, weak school/community attachment, anti-social peers or adult influences, unresolved bullying or victimization, anti-social attitudes and ACEs such as:
- Physical and sexual abuse
- neglect
- exposure to mental illness in the family
- exposure to substance abuse
- exposure to the justice system
Define Anti-social personality disorder.
ASPD is a pervasive pattern of disregard for, an the violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood.
Childhood signs include: lying, stealing, truancy, resisting authority.
Adolescent signs include: early and/or aggressive sexual behaviour, excessive drinking and substance use, delinquency
Adulthood includes an accumulation of the above as well as: inability to maintain work, inability to function as a responsible parent, failure to accept social norms or laws, and a lack of empathy or concern for others.
