1
Q
Moral Judgment
A
- Judgments about how people should interact with each other
- Made based on principles concerning the distinction between right/wrong
–> Justice
–> Welfare
–> Fairness
2
Q
Piaget’s Theory of Moral Reasoning
A
- Development of moral judgment relies on cognitive development
–> Changes in understanding of rules and the importance of intentions - Premoral Stage:
–> 0-5 years old
–> Little understanding of rules - Heteronomous Stage:
–> 5-10 years old
–> Rules are fixed
–> Morality = obeying the rules of authority figures, like parents
–> Intentions don’t matter - Autonomous Stage:
–> 10+ years old
–> Rules can be changed by social agreement
–> Consider moral principles, like fairness, when deciding what is right and wrong
–> Intentions matter
3
Q
Kohlberg’s Theory of Mind
A
- Pre-conventional moral reasoning
- Conventional moral reasoning
- Post-conventional moral reasoning
4
Q
Preconventional Moral Reasoning
A
- 3-7 years old
- Moral reasoning based on external consequences
–> Avoiding punishment from authority figures
–> Gaining rewards - Similar to Piaget’s heteronomous morality
- Heinz dilemma:
–> “Heinz should not steal the drug because stealing is illegal and he could get caught and get in trouble.”
–> “Heinz should steal the drug, because he needs it for his wife to get better , and then he can be happy.”
5
Q
Conventional Moral Reasoning
A
- 8-13 years old
- Moral reasoning based on adhering to social rules and expectations
–> Maintaining social order and norms
–> Gaining approval from others by fulfilling duties - Heinz dilemma:
–> “Heinz should steal the drug because a good husband would do anything to save his wife’s life and people would understand why he did it.”
–> “Heinz shouldn’t steal the drug because stealing is against the law. If everyone was stealing, society would fall apart.”
6
Q
Postconventional Moral Reasoning
A
- 13 years old +
–> But not everyone reaches this stage - Moral reasoning based on personal principles and values
–> Focus on universal principles, like fairness, equality, justice
–> Willingness to critically evaluate rules that conflict with universal principles - Similar to Piaget’s autonomous morality*Heinz dilemma:
–> “Heinz should steal the drug because human life must be preserved and life is worth more than money or personal property.”
–> “While stealing is generally wrong, the intention to save someone makes it justifiable in this case. Laws should be flexible enough to account for such situations.”
7
Q
Piaget and Kohlberg’s Contributions
A
- First to acknowledge that moral reasoning changes systematically as children grow older due to cognitive development
- Recognized that children are increasingly able to take intentions into account as they age
8
Q
Theory of Mind and Morality
A
- Children are increasingly able to appreciate others’ intentions as they get older because of developments in theory of mind
- Children who fail false belief tasks are more likely to ignore intentions when making moral judgments
- Consistent with Piaget and Kohlberg’s ideas that cognitive development influences moral judgment
9
Q
Weaknesses of Piaget and Kohlberg’s Theories
A
- Underestimated children’s ability to distinguish between social conventions and morality
- Underestimated children’s ability to infer intention
10
Q
Distinguishing Between Social Conventions and Morality
A
- Study: 2.5-years-olds asked about the morality of different actions
–> Social convention violation: stories about a child breaking a rule (e.g. talking during naptime)
–> Moral transgression: Stories about a child causing harm (e.g. hitting, stealing) - Results: Children differentiated between rule violations and harms
–> Viewed both breaking rules and causing harm as bad but causing harm as worse
–> Said that rules could be changed or not apply at a different school
–> Causing harm is always wrong no matter what the rules said
–> Children across the globe behaved the same way - Suggests that very young children can distinguish between social conventions and morality, much earlier than Piaget and Kohlberg thought
11
Q
Can Infants Appreciate Intentions?
A
- Study: Can children appreciate intentions around 2 years of age?
- 21-month-olds participated in a lab task with 2 adults
–> Infants stood at a table with both adults
–> Both adults offered to give the infant a toy by placing it at the edge of the table but ultimately the child didn’t get the toy
*Negative intention: adult pulled the toy away
*Positive intention: adult watched in surprise as the toy rolled away from the infant
–> Then, experimenter presents both adults with a single new toy
*Toy falls to the floor and both adults reach for it - Does the infant help? If so, which adult do they help?
–> Evidence of selective helping
–> Contrary to Piaget’s theory, suggests that 2 year olds are able to appreciate intentions when judging others’ actions
–> 75% of children helped adults with positive intentions
12
Q
Two-Year-Olds Can Appreciate Intentions
A
- But what if different outcomes of actions? Will infants still base decision to help on intentions?
- Follow-up study to test this
- Same procedure except:
–> Positive intention but negative outcome: adult clearly offered the toy to the infant and watched in surprise as the toy rolled away
–> Positive intention and positive outcome: adult clearly offered the toy to the infant and child was able to examine it - Then, experimenter presents both adults with a single new toy
–> Toy falls to the floor and both adults reach for it - 2 year olds helped the adults equally (difference is not statistically sig.) suggesting that infants care more about intentions than outcomes of actions
13
Q
Evidence for Innate Morality
A
- Study: Is moral judgment innate?
–> 6 month-oldswatched a “morality play” in which a red puppet is trying to climb up a hill but fails
*Helper: Yellow puppet comes and helps red puppet
*Hinderer: Blue puppet pushes red puppet down - Results:
–> Depending on the study, 75-100% of babies prefer the helper vs. hinderer
–> Follow-up with 3-month-olds using preferential looking paradigm shows that they also prefer helper over hinder - Suggests that rudimentary moral judgment is innate
14
Q
Empathy and Morality
A
- Morality is rooted in empathy and sympathy
–> Empathy: Understanding and sharing the emotional state of another person
–> Sympathy: Feeling of concern for another person in response to their emotional state - Perspective-taking -> Empathy -> Sympathy -> Prosocial behaviour
15
Q
Prosocial Behaviour in Infancy
A
- Before 18 months: children tend to react to others’ distress with self-focused distress rather than prosocial behaviour
–> E.g.cry inreaction to hearing another infant cry because it is aversive
16
Q
Prosocial Behaviour in Toddlers
A
- 18-24 months: prosocial behaviour appears and increases throughout the 2nd year of life
–> Toddlers show a natural tendency towards prosocial action
*Spontaneously comfort others in distress, share belongings, and help others achieve goals
*Actually help less if they gain a reward for it - Due to capacity to feel empathy and sympathy
–> Facilitated by emergence of sense of self around 18 months of age - Suggests that prosocial behaviour is innate
17
Q
Evolutionary Roots of Prosocial Behaviour
A
- Behaving prosocially increased our chances of survival and helped pass on our genes
–> Helping forage for food and repelling enemies is easier as a group
–> Those who are likely to be helped when they werein need
–> Helping a relative, even if costly, benefits individual by ensuring the continuity of their genes
18
Q
Limits to Toddler’s Prosocial Behaviour
A
- Toddlers help selectively depending on:
–> how trustworthy, friendly, and helpful the other person is
–> the type of help required
*struggle to engage in helping that requires self-sacrifice
–> whether the person is similar to them
*E.g. More likely to help and share with a peer that is of the same gender
*Do this even if parents insist that it’s wrong to treat people differently - Young children tend to reason in more moral ways when asked about fictitious scenarios compared to having to behave morally themselves
19
Q
Two-Year-Olds Can Appreciate Intentions
A
- Evidence of selective helping
- Contrary to Piaget’s theory, suggests that 2 year olds are able to appreciate intentions when judging others’ action
20
Q
Prosocial Behaviour Beyond Toddlerhood
A
- Prosocial behaviour increases throughout childhood, particularly emotional helping and helping requiring self-sacrifice
–> Due to more sophisticated moral reasoning and improved perspective-taking ability
21
Q
Cultural Differences
A
- No consistent evidence
–> Age is more important than culture
–> Some studies show cultural differences but the pattern of results seems to be random
22
Q
Individual Differences in Prosocial Behaviour
A
- Genetics (nature)
- Socialization by parents (nurture)
23
Q
Genetics
A
- Identical twins are more similar in their level of prosocial behaviour than fraternal twins
–> Suggests genetic basis of prosocial behaviour - Possible involvement of individual differences in oxytocin gene
–> Oxytocin: neuro-hormone involved in social bonding and childbirth
24
Q
Genetics
A
- Genetic differences manifest as differences in temperament:
–> Proneness to distress
*Ability to experience emotion without getting overwhelmed by it is associated with greater empathy
*Better emotion regulation is positively associated with helping
–> Shyness
*High level of shyness negatively associated with helping
25
Socialization by Parents
1. Modelling of prosocial behaviour: Children tend to be similar to parents in terms of prosocial behaviour because they copy their behaviour
2. Parenting style:
- Authoritative parenting associated with more prosocial behaviour in kids
- Sympathy-inducing reasoning that focuses on the effect on other people most likely to lead to internalization of prosocial values
--> “Let’s donate money, because they need it more than us and it will make them happy.”
--> vs. “because it’s a good/nice thing to do"
3. Providing opportunities for child to engage in prosocial behaviour
- Performing household chores
- Community service hours in high schools
- Increases children's willingness to take on prosocial tasks in the future because feel competent to do it
26
The Rise and Fall of Physical Aggression
- Physical aggression begins around 18 months and increases until about 3 years old
--> E.g.biting, hitting, pushing, kicking
--> Toddlers lack perspective-taking skills and resort to aggression to get what they want
--> Most frequent is conflict with peers and siblings over possessions
--> Declines after 3 years old due to increases in language skills and emotion regulation
27
The Emergence of Relational Aggression
- Relational aggression emerges at 3 years old and continues into adolescence
--> A type of nonphysical aggression in which harm is caused by hurting someone’s relationships or social status, such as by threatening to withdraw a friendship, ignoring, or excluding a peer
--> Increases as a result of improvements in language and social cognition
28
Aggression in Girls vs. Boys
- Similar levels of aggressions just displayed differently
--> Girls tend to be more relationally aggressive and less physically aggressive than boys
--> Opposite for boys
- Finding that boys are more physically aggressive is true across cultures
29
Consistency of Aggressive Behaviour
- Consistency in individual differences in aggression over the lifespan
--> Those who were more physically aggressive as kids had more criminal convictions at age 30
30
Genetic Origins of Aggression
- Difficult temperament is associated with higher aggression
--> Combination of impulsivity, difficulties with attention, and proneness to anger in childhood is especially predictive of aggression in adolescence
- BUT genetic factors are not sufficient to become highly aggressive, just may put a child at risk for developing this behaviour
31
Social Cognition Contributions to Aggression
- Hostile attribution bias: The tendency to assume that other people’s ambiguous actions stem from malicious intent
- Child is more likely to retaliate aggressively
- More likely to elicit aggression or rejection from peers
32
Family Origins of Aggression
1. Parents model aggression to their children
- Parental conflict
- Spanking
2. Authoritarian and uninvolved parenting is associated with increased risk for aggression in children
- Very harsh physical discipline appears to lead to hostile attribution bias in children (harsh discipline -> hostile attribution bias -> aggression in children)
3. Parental monitoring reduces likelihood that teenagers will be associating with deviant, antisocial peers
33
Abuse and Hostile Attribution Bias
- Physically abused children:
--> Better able to recognize angry facial expressions
--> React more quickly to angry facial expressions
34
Comparing Parenting to Genetic Contributions
- The influence between parents and children tends to be bidirectional
--> Parents and child’s behaviour can also be caused by shared genes
- BUT harsh parenting seems to play a larger role than genes
--> For monozygotic twins, the twin who receives harsher parenting tends to develop higher levels of aggression than the other twin
35
Peer Influences on Agression
- Deviancy training: negative peer pressure wherein peers model and reinforce aggression and deviance by making these behaviours seem acceptable
36
Factors Contributing to Childhood Aggression
- Gender
- Genetics
- Parental modelling
- Harsh discipline
- Lack of monitoring
- Aggressive peers
- Hostile attribution bias
- Age
