week 7 - children's moral development (MPS)

Question 1

Explain Piaget’s Moral Realist and Moral Subjectivist.

Answer 1

Interested in moral development. Showed 2 children: child A wants to fill his fathers inkwell for him and accidentally makes a large stain. Child b is playing with ink after repeatedly being told not to and makes a small stain. Asked children which child was “naughtier”. Child below age 7 chose boy A, he made the bigger mess, his intentions did not matter, moral realist. Children above 7 chose boy B, his intentions were good, moral subjectivist.

Question 2

What is moral realist?

Answer 2

judgement is based on the extent of damage caused.

Question 3

What is moral subjectivist?

Answer 3

subjective factors, including intention are considered.

Question 4

What is the progression of Piaget’s theory of moral justice?

Answer 4

Morality of Constraint/Heteronomous
Transition Period
Autonomous Morality

Question 5

What happens in the Morality of constraint/heteronomous stage of Piaget’s theory of moral justice?

Answer 5

Applies to children aged 7 and below, when children start to become aware of rules.Rules are specified by authority figure and cannot be changed. Intentions do not matter, as rules are fixed. Children believe rules to be real, physical things rather than concepts. Young children reward outcome, older children reward effort/intent.

Question 6

What happens in the transitional period of Piaget’s theory of moral justice?

Answer 6

Aged 7/8-10/11 when children have more interaction with their peers. Learn that rules can be constructed by a group and increasing learn to take on another’s perspective. Still can believe rules in be fixed, especially in presence of perceived authority figure.

Question 7

What happens in the Autonomous morality stage of Piaget’s theory of moral justice?

Answer 7

Age 11 or 12, moral relativism emerges, with all normal children reaching this stage. rules are not fixed, they might be the product of social agreement. Hence rules can be negotiated by collective agreement.
Children start evaluating the fairness of the punishment delivered by adults. Now motives and intentions become crucial in judging people’s behaviour.

Question 8

What are some of the methodological criticisms for Piaget’s theory of moral justice?

Answer 8

Place large emphasis on children’s memory, info on intention appears first in the story while info on the scale of damage appears last in the story, due to limited memory children may focus on what is said first or last.

Question 9

Explain Wimmer, Wachter & Perner (1982)’s Experiment of reward allocation.

Answer 9

Participants aged 4, 6, and 8. Why deserves more cookies? Person A is putting in less effort, but is able to accomplish more because of size, Person B is putting in more effort, but is accomplishing less because of smaller size. All children agreed the person with more effort deserved more rewards, no variance in results by age.

Question 10

What was the conclusion of Wimmer, Wachter & Perner (1982)?

Answer 10

Even 4 year olds understand the casual relationship among effort, ability and achievement outcome.

Question 11

What is Kohlberg Heinz Moral Dilemma?

Answer 11

Man’s wife is dying and there is one drug which can save her, the drug manufacturer is severely overcharging for the drug. The man borrows money from friends and does everything he can but only ends up with half the cost. The manufacturer refuses to sell it to him for that or allow him to pay the rest later. Heinz gets desperate and considers stealing.
Story prompts many question: should he steal it? is that wrong? etc.

Question 12

What are Kohlberg’s six stages of moral reasoning?

Answer 12

Pre-conventional - obedience & punishment and self-interest
Conventional - (around 14 years) good boy/girl and law & order
Post-conventional - social contract and principled conscience (not achieved by every person).

Question 13

What are the four main criticisms to Kohlberg’s proposal?

Answer 13

Methodology, gender bias, no discrete stages, and unrealistic stories.

Question 14

What were the issues with methodology in Kohlberg’s proposal?

Answer 14

The Heinz story is too abstract for young children to understand and the method of scoring the answers was subjective and up to the interpretation of the researcher.

Question 15

What is prosocial behaviour?

Answer 15

Voluntary behaviour intended to benefit another, such as helping, sharing and comforting others.

Question 16

Explain the prosocial-moral judgement (Eisenberg-Berg, 1986).

Answer 16

A boy is on the way to a birthday party when he comes across a child who is hurt and needs help. The boy can turn around to get his parents for help, but then he will miss out on ice cream, cake, and games at the birthday party. 5-year olds voted to go to the party, while older children focused on more prosocial behaviour and on empathy.

Question 17

What are Eisenberg’s Stages of Pro-social behaviour.

Answer 17

Hedonistic orientation, needs-based orientation, approval and/or stereotyped orientation, self-reflective empathetic orientation, strongly internalised stage.

Question 18

What happens in the Hedonistic orientation stage?

Answer 18

First stage in Eisenberg’s stages of prosocial behaviour. pre-school and younger primary school children, social behaviour is undertaken for own benefit.

Question 19

What happens in the needs-based orientation stage?

Answer 19

many pre-schoolers and many primary school children, concerns for others even if it conflicts with own needs but without evidence of empathy.

Question 20

What happens in the approval and/or stereotyped orientation stage?

Answer 20

Some primary school children and high school students, stereotypes of good and bad behaviour, needs approval for behaviour.

Question 21

What happens in the self-reflective empathic orientations stage?

Answer 21

few older primary school children and many high school students, concept about others needs and able to interpret these from their perspective; empathy.

Question 22

What happens in the strongly internalised stage?

Answer 22

small minority of high school students, maintains self-respect by living up to own values and belief, belief in the dignity, rights and equality of all people.

Question 23

What was the result of Stams et al?

Answer 23

meta-analysis, found the moral judgement of juvenile delinquents is substantially lower compared to non-delinquents.

Question 24

How did Piaget study moral development in children?

Answer 24

By interviewing them, observing them playing games, and presenting them with vignettes.

Question 25

Which area of Piaget’s theory of moral development has received criticism?

Answer 25

children;’s ability to gauge intentionality.