Moral Development & Aggression – Vocabulary Flashcards

Vocabulary-style flashcards summarizing key terms and definitions from the lecture on morality, empathy, prosocial behavior, moral reasoning theories, and aggression.

Moral Domain

The set of issues people judge using concepts of right and wrong, harm, justice, and welfare.

Moral Maturity

A developmental state marked by principled reasoning, dependability, fairness, caring, confidence, and integrity.

Moral Identity

The extent to which being moral is central to one’s self-concept and guides behavior.

Moral Foundations Theory

Haidt & Graham’s theory that human morality rests on five evolved foundations: care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity.

Care Foundation

Moral concern focused on preventing harm and promoting well-being of vulnerable others.

Fairness Foundation

Moral concern with reciprocity, justice, and resistance to cheating in cooperative exchanges.

Loyalty Foundation

Moral concern for ingroup cohesion and faithfulness, opposing betrayal.

Authority Foundation

Moral concern with respecting hierarchy and legitimate leadership to maintain social order.

Sanctity / Purity Foundation

Moral concern with avoiding contamination and maintaining bodily or spiritual purity; often linked to disgust.

Social Domain Theory

Turiel’s framework distinguishing moral rules (welfare, rights) from social-conventional rules (customs, etiquette).

Moral Rules

Rules viewed as universally binding because they protect welfare and basic rights (e.g., no hitting, stealing).

Social-Conventional Rules

Rules created by social consensus to coordinate behavior (e.g., dress codes); seen as alterable.

Universalistic Moral Thinking

Belief that certain rules apply to everyone and cannot be changed by consensus.

Empathy

An affective response that mirrors another’s emotional state and is accompanied by understanding of that state.

Compassion / Sympathy

Feeling sorrow or concern for another’s plight without necessarily sharing the same emotion.

Prosocial Behaviour

Voluntary actions intended to benefit others, such as helping, sharing, or comforting.

Helper Preference (Hamlin et al.)

Infants’ tendency, as early as 3–6 months, to choose characters that assist others over those that hinder.

Intrinsic Motivation to Help

Spontaneous, unrewarded helping driven by genuine concern rather than external incentives.

Induction (Discipline)

Disciplinary style that explains the effects of a child’s actions on others and suggests reparative steps.

Love Withdrawal

Discipline that withholds affection to control a child; creates anxiety but weak moral internalization.

Power Assertion

Discipline using authority or force; produces compliance but little internalized morality.

Committed Compliance

Child’s eager, self-regulated adherence to parental rules based on warm relationships.

Situational Compliance

Obedience dependent on external control rather than internal motivation.

Moral Self-Concept Training

Using labels like “helper” or “honest” to link moral behavior to a child’s identity.

Premoral Period

Piaget’s first stage (preschool) in which children show little concern for established rules.

Heteronomous Morality

Piaget’s stage (5–10 yrs) where rules are seen as fixed dictates of authority; judgment based on consequences.

Autonomous Morality

Piaget’s stage (≈10 yrs+) where rules are viewed as agreements; intent outweighs outcome in judgments.

Expiatory Punishment

Punishment applied for its own sake, unrelated to the nature of the wrongdoing; favored in heteronomous stage.

Immanent Justice

Belief that wrongdoing inevitably triggers automatic punishment by unseen forces.

Preconventional Level

Kohlberg’s first level where morality is based on external consequences (punishment or reward).

Punishment-and-Obedience Stage

Kohlberg’s Stage 1: right equals obedience to avoid punishment.

Naive Hedonism Stage

Kohlberg’s Stage 2: actions are judged by personal gain or reciprocal benefit.

Conventional Level

Kohlberg’s second level where morality centers on social approval and law-and-order maintenance.

Good Boy / Good Girl Stage

Kohlberg’s Stage 3: right behavior pleases or helps others and gains approval.

Social-Order-Maintaining Stage

Kohlberg’s Stage 4: moral rightness is fulfilling duties and upholding laws to maintain society.

Postconventional Level

Kohlberg’s third level where moral judgments are based on abstract principles beyond specific laws.

Social Contract Orientation

Kohlberg’s Stage 5: laws are social agreements; can be changed if they conflict with basic rights.

Universal Ethical Principles Stage

Kohlberg’s Stage 6: morality derives from self-chosen principles of justice and human dignity.

Moral Disengagement

Cognitive strategies (e.g., victim-blaming) allowing individuals to act immorally without self-condemnation.

Reactive Aggression

Impulsive, angry behavior in response to perceived provocation or threat.

Proactive Aggression

Deliberate, goal-oriented aggression used as a means to obtain desired outcomes.

Relational Aggression

Harming others through damage to relationships or social status, such as gossip or exclusion.

Hostile Attribution Bias

Tendency to interpret ambiguous actions of others as deliberately hostile.

Dodge’s Social Information-Processing Model

Framework describing six cognitive steps children use to respond to social situations, influencing aggression.

Coercive Home Environment

Family climate marked by hostile, negative reinforcement cycles that foster aggressive behavior.

Proactive Aggressor

Child who confidently uses aggression as a calculated strategy to dominate or gain rewards.

Reactive Aggressor

Child who responds aggressively due to perceived threats, often displaying high anger and suspicion.

Negative Reinforcement (Aggression Context)

Removal of an aversive stimulus (e.g., sibling stops pestering) that unintentionally strengthens aggressive acts.

Time-Out

Behavior-management technique removing a child from reinforcing situations to reduce aggression.

Incompatible-Response Technique

Ignoring minor aggression while reinforcing prosocial behaviors incompatible with aggression.

Distributive Justice

Concept of fairness in the allocation of resources among individuals.

Advantageous Inequity

Situation where one benefits from receiving more than others; children are slower to reject this unfairness.

Disadvantageous Inequity

Situation where one receives less than others; children protest this unfairness earlier in development.

Moral Universalism without Uniformity

Shweder’s idea that cultures share moral concerns but differ in which domains they emphasize.

Indigenous Moral Attribute Clusters

Culturally derived groupings (e.g., dependability, caring, tolerance) used to define moral character.

Conformity & Tradition (Chinese emphasis)

Moral values more frequently cited by Chinese students compared to Canadian peers in Jia et al. study.

Empathy-Based Personal Distress

Self-oriented discomfort experienced by young children when witnessing another’s suffering.

Prosocial Costliness

The degree of personal sacrifice involved in helping; high-cost prosocial acts emerge later than low-cost ones.

Affective Discipline

Parental technique that highlights the emotional impact of a child’s actions on others to foster empathy.

Committed Moral Resistance

Child’s internal wish to avoid wrongdoing because it conflicts with their moral self, not fear of punishment.

Peer Morality Challenge

Discussions with equals that create cognitive conflict, promoting more advanced moral reasoning.

Formal Operational Thinking

Piagetian cognitive stage enabling abstract, principled moral reasoning (needed for Kohlberg’s Stage 5).

Morality of Justice

Gilligan’s term for a moral orientation emphasizing rights, rules, and impartiality.

Morality of Care

Gilligan’s term for a moral orientation emphasizing relationships, empathy, and responsiveness.

White Lie

A prosocial or polite falsehood told to avoid hurting someone’s feelings.

Black Lie

A deceptive statement told to avoid punishment or gain personal advantage.

Inequity Aversion

Preference for equal outcomes and discomfort with unfair distributions.

Committed Prosocial Identity

Self-perception as a person who helps others, strengthening moral follow-through.

Social Modeling of Restraint

Observers learn moral behavior by watching models resist temptation and hearing their rationales.

Cognitive Disequilibrium (Moral)

State of mental conflict evoked by inconsistent moral ideas, driving stage progression in reasoning.

Intrinsic Altruism Hypothesis

Proposal that early, unrewarded helping reflects an evolved basis for human altruism.

Secure Attachment & Conscience

Close, trusting parent–child bond that predicts early internalization of moral standards.

Negative Emotion Blunting (Conflict Homes)

Reduced physiological reactivity in children repeatedly exposed to parental conflict, linked to later social difficulties.

Peer Victim

Child frequently targeted by aggressive classmates; often 10–15 % of peers in a typical classroom.

Collectivist Prosocial Obligation

Cultural view that helping and cooperation are duties rather than discretionary acts.