Wk7 Pre-recorded

Question 1

What are 2 cognitive approaches to development of moral reasoning?

Answer 1

Piaget’s proposal of moral development

Kohlberg’s stages of moral reasoning

Question 2

What was Piaget interested in studying?

Answer 2

Children’s understanding of rules and how they dealt with issues related to fairness

Question 3

How did Piaget study children’s moral rules?

Answer 3

Piaget’s Inkblot Moral Puzzle - Children were presented with vignettes or stories and asked them about naughtiness. The protagonists caused damage with good or bad intent and the children were asked which protagonist was naughtier.

Question 4

Explain Piaget’s Inkblot Moral Puzzle

Answer 4

One boy accidentally spills the ink when trying to help his father.

Another boy spills some ink even though he was told not to play with it.

Children were asked which boy was naughtier

Question 5

What 2 major stages in moral development came out of Piaget’s Inkblot Moral puzzle

Answer 5

Moral realist

Moral subjectivist

Question 6

How does a moral realist make decisions?

Answer 6

The judgement of which boy was naughtier was made based on the extent of the damage caused because they do not understand intentions.

Question 7

What were the findings of the Inkblot Moral Puzzle?

Answer 7

Children below 7 could not understand the intention of the protagonist. (moral realist)

Children above 7 took into account the intention of the character. (moral subjectivist)

Question 8

How does a moral subjectivist make decisions?

Answer 8

Base decisions on the subjective intentions of the character..

Question 9

What are the 3 stages of Piaget’s Theory of Moral Judgement?

Answer 9

Morality of constraint/heteronomous

The transitional period

Autonomous morality

Question 10

What happens at the morality of constraint/heteronomous stage of moral judgement?

Answer 10

Children less than 7 years old begin to become aware of fixed rules. They do not take into account people’s intentions.

Young children reward outcome, older children reward effort/intention.

Question 11

What happens at the transitional period stage of moral judgement?

Answer 11

Children 7-11 learn that rules can be constructed by people and learn to take one another’s perspective through having more interaction with peers.

Still are conscious that rules are fixed.

Question 12

What happens at the stage of autonomous morality of moral judgement?

Answer 12

By age 11/12, children understand that rules are not fixed. Rules can be negotiated by collective agreement.

Motives and intentions become crucial in judging people’s behaviour.

Question 13

What is a methodological criticism of Piaget’s proposal?

Answer 13

Young children have memory limitations so may only focus on the latest information they were given (i.e., the scale of damage made by the character)

Question 14

What did Wimmer et al. (1982) find out about whether children can distinguish intentionality/effort versus ability and outcome?

Answer 14

The character with more effort received more reward.

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

Question 15

How does a merit and fairness experiment work?

Answer 15

Children get coins from a big bucket and the team is reward with stickers for each coin they collect.

The child has to decide how to share their stickers with their partner.

Question 16

What have merit and fairness experiments found?

Answer 16

3 year olds choose to reward their peers based on merit. The children gave their puppet partner more stickers if they had worked harder to gather coins.

Question 17

What is a limitation that has been found regarding the age Piaget suggested children understand intentions?

Answer 17

Research has found that children younger than 7 can take into account other people’s intentions when assessing the naughtiness of someone.

Question 18

What did Kohlberg study?

Answer 18

Studied stages of moral judgement through the lifespan

Question 19

What did Kohlberg propose?

Answer 19

Stages of moral development are discontinuous and hierarchical.

Question 20

What did Kohlberg use to tell the story of moral dilemmas?

Answer 20

Vignettes

Question 21

What are Kohlberg’s 6 stages of moral reasoning?

Answer 21

Obedience and punishment
Self-interest
Good boy/girl
Law and order
Social contract
Principled conscience

Question 22

What 2 stages were pre-conventional?

Answer 22

Obedience and punishment

Self-interest

Question 23

What 2 stages were conventional?

Answer 23

Good boy/girl

Law and order

Question 24

What 2 stages were post-conventional?

Answer 24

Social contract

Principled conscience

Question 25

Is the stage of principled conscience achieved by everyone?

Answer 25

No

Question 26

What happens in the stage of obedience and punishment?

Answer 26

Children up to 7 years old believe that rules are fixed. (similar to Piaget’s stage of moral constraint). If you do not comply with the rules, you get punished.

Question 27

What happens in the stage of self-interest?

Answer 27

It is okay to disobey the rules but only if someone else disobeys the rules for them in return. They realise that different individuals have different viewpoints.

Question 28

What happens in the stage of good boy/girl?

Answer 28

People may be good in order to be seen as being a good person by others. Their behaviour relates to the approval of others.

Question 29

What happens in the stage of law and order?

Answer 29

The child thinks about what is best for society and the law when making decisions.

Question 30

What happens in the stage of social contract?

Answer 30

The child becomes aware that there are times when rules work against the interest of some individuals, even if they might exist for the good of the greatest number.

Question 31

What happens in the stage of principled conscience?

Answer 31

People develop their own set of moral guidelines which may or may not fit the law. People will be prepared to act to defend their principles even if it means suffering the consequences.

Question 32

What age are children likely to be at stage 2 (self-interest)?

Answer 32

10 years

Question 33

What age are children likely to be at stage 3 (good boy/girl)?

Answer 33

14 years

Question 34

What age are people likely to be at stage 4 (law and order)?

Answer 34

25 years

Question 35

What are strengths of Kohlberg’s proposal regarding the first 5 stages of moral reasoning?

Answer 35

There is evidence for the first 5 stages of moral reasoning which comes from studies in many different countries. This demonstrates that there are relative systematic changes with age in children’s moral judgement.

Question 36

What is a limitation of the number of stages Kohlberg proposed?

Answer 36

There is controversy on whether there are 5 or 6 stages.

Question 37

Do people with higher levels of cognitive skills/perspective taking have higher or lower levels of moral judgement?

Answer 37

Higher levels of moral judgement

Question 38

What does Kohlberg’s theory help us understand?

Answer 38

Helps us understand how cognitive processes contribute to moral behaviour.

Question 39

What is an issue with the methodology of Kohlberg’s stages of moral reasoning?

Answer 39

The stories/vignettes used were too abstract for young children to understand.

The way the researcher scored the children’s answers was subjective and open to researcher interpretation/bias.

Question 40

What was an issue with the sample Kohlberg used to develop his stages of moral reasoning?

Answer 40

Kohlberg only interviewed males as it was believed that girls lagged behind in moral reasoning. Gender bias.

Question 41

What did Gilligan propose about gender differences in moral reasoning?

Answer 41

Females are more likely to emphasise caring and responsibility whilst males focus on principles of justice and rights.

Females have a different social and moral understanding. Selfishness and responsibility is more present for them.

Males and females cannot be compared because they have different social and moral understandings.

Question 42

What is a limitation regarding Kohlberg’s proposal of discrete stages?

Answer 42

Moral development does not follow discrete stages. The way one solves a moral dilemma depends on the situation in question. Reasoning from different stages may be used.

Question 43

What is a problem with the scenarios Kohlberg provided?

Answer 43

They are not realistic. They are negative (present bad options - either steal, or let your wife die).