Child Development - Moral Development

Paget's theory of Moral Judgement

Children's moral reasoning changes from strict adherence of rules by authority figures to an understanding that rules are social agreements

Piaget believes what accounts for change in moral reasoning?

Interactions with peers (more than adult influences)

According to Piaget there are two stages of development in a child’s moral reasoning?

outcome is more important than intention

intention is paramount

Heteronomous Morality (younger than 7 - pre-operational stage) (Piaget)

judge actions based by consequences, justice is what authority say is right, punishment is justified

Heteronomous Morality develops from social and cognitive sources. Examples?

socially most parents impose authority in a coercive way, cognitively young children lack mental flexibility and must perceive rules as concrete

Autonomous morality (11-12+) (Piaget)

rules as product of social agreement, consider fairness and equality, punishments fit the crime

Individual differences in the rates of children’s progress are due to

differences in cognitive maturity, interactions with peers, how authoritarian parents are

critiques of Piagets theory?

lack of empirical support, underestimates children’s ability to appreciate intentionality

Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Reasoning

Discontinuous and hierarchical stages (each stage shows a new and more advanced stage of reasoning)

Pre-conventional stage 1

Obedience to authorities is right, motivated by avoidance of punishment, morality based on direct consequences

Pre-conventional stage 2

what is right is what is in the child's best interest and how it will affect themselves and family

Conventional stage 3

Judgements are based on whether whether authorities say it is right or wrong

Conventional stage 4

Moral behaviour is fulfilling ones duties, upholding laws, and contributing to society or ones group. Motivated to keep a social system going

Postconventional or Principled level stage 5

Realization that laws and rules are flexible and subject to change if they do not promote the common good

Postconventional or Principled stage 6

Judgements reflect universal ethical principles that transcend specific laws or social contracts (none of the boys he interviewed got to this stage)

According to Kohlberg, what contributes to higher-level moral reasoning?

advances in cognitive skills, especially perspective taking

Critiques of Kolhberg? (4)

Did not differentiate between moral issues and social convention

Cultural differences not sufficiently addressed

Uses discontinuous stages

Gender bias

Social Domain Theory of Moral Development

Gradual change based on the child's social interactions with peers and adults and direct socialization from parents

According to social domain theory of moral development, differences in moral judgement result from

Differences in the environments and the experiences they have within those environments

Social domain theory argues that, to successfully negotiate their social worlds, children must understand principles in three different domains of social knowledge

Moral domain, societal domain, and personal domain

moral domain

Children understand that universal concepts of right and wrong, fairness, justice, and individual rights apply across contexts and supersede rules or authority

Societal domain

Concepts regarding the rules and conventions through which societies maintain order. Clothing choices, manners, and forms of greeting all fall under the societal domain

Personal domain

actions in which individual preferences are the main consideration: the are no right or wrong choices. Decisions about ones appearance, how to spend money, choice of friends

Conscious

internal regulatory mechanism that increases the individual's ability to conform to standards of conduct accepted in their culture

is consciousness learnt or innate?

Evidence suggest a innate sense that babies have innate drive to prefer actions that help others over ones that hinder them, these innate preferences for prosocial behaviour may provide the building blocks on which mortality learned from family and culture is built

Prosocial Behaviour

voluntary behaviour intended to benefit others, such as by helping, sharing with, or comforting them

empathy

An emotional response to another’s emotional state or condition (e.g., sadness, poverty) that reflects the other person’s state or condition

Sympathy

a feeling of concern for another in response to the other’s emotional state or condition

What distinguishes sympathy from empathy

concern, people who experience sympathy for another person are not merely feeling the same emotion as the other person.

Vaish and colleagues (2009) findings on development of prosocial behviour

empathy was apparent from a young age such as 2 (showing concern towards the hurt adult), at 3-4 children showed sympathy (by comforting the hurt adult)

cooperation is driven by and can be seen how young

sympathy and a sense of fairness, children as young as 14 months can cooperate with another child

biological factors of prosocial behaviours

have predisposition for prosocial behaviours because collaboration for foraging for food and repelling enemies ensured survival

Aknin, Hamlin, & Dunn, 2012 at British Colombia showed what about biological factors of prosocial behaviours

2-year-olds are happier when giving treats to others than when taking treats for themselves

Genetic differences can influence influence empathy, sympathy, and prosocial behaviour indirectly via what?

Temperament

Modelling and teaching of socialization of prosocial behaviours

Social-learning theory – children learn by watching and imitating others’ behaviour, parents can engage their children in conversations that about empathy to foster prosocial values

Arranging opportunities to engage in prosocial behaviour

Opportunities for children to act in a prosocial way enhances later prosocial behaviour (e.g., chores, volunteering)

Discipling children and eliciting prosocial behaviour

Authoritative parenting style is associated with prosocial behaviour in children, it supports emotion regulation and concern for others

Peer socialization and pro social behaviour

Allows children to practice concepts such as fairness and justice, learn sharing and taking turns, resolve conflicts, and understand why it’s wrong to hurt or take advantage of others

Antisocial Behaviour

disruptive, hostile, or aggressive behaviour that violates social norms or rules and that harms or takes advantage of others

Aggression

subcategory of antisocial behaviour that involves acts intended to physically or emotionally harm others

when does aggression emerge in infants

before 12 months but bodily contact begins around 18 months

Instrumental aggression

aggression motivated by the desire to obtain a certain goal

Relational aggression

intending to harm others by damaging their peer relationships

Many children with early aggressive behaviour show

neural differences associated with hyperactivity and poor attention

biological factors of agression

Antisocial behaviour runs in families and is partially due to genetics

Genetics contribute to both proactive and reactive aggression, but play a larger role in

proactive

Hostile attributional bias

Aggressive children are more likely than nonaggressive children to attribute antagonistic motives to others in contexts in which the other person’s motives and intentions are unclear

Reactive aggression

Emotionally driven, antagonistic sparked by one's perception that other people's motives are hostile, particularly likely to perceive others' motives as hostile

Proactive aggression

unemotional aggression aimed at fulfilling a need or desire

“coercive cycle”

the aggression of children who are difficult to control may be unintentionally reinforced by parents who, once their efforts to coerce compliance have failed, give in to their children’s fits of temper and demands

Passive gene-environment correlation

Parents who's genes predispose them to aggressive or punitive parenting will pass those genes to their children

Children who are frequently exposed to verbal and physical violence between their parents tend to be

more antisocial and aggressive than other children

Selection of peers for aggressive behaviours

Aggressive children tend to socialize with other aggressive children

socialization of peers for aggressive behaviours

Close friends aggression reinforces and escalates delinquent behaviour over time

Differential susceptibility

certain gene variants (serotonin, dopamine, MAOA) increase sensitivity to environmental quality

How does the concept of differential susceptibility explain the emergence of aggressive behaviour in some children?

When these children grow up under tough conditions they are more likely to be more aggressive, but if they have a good support systems within peers, teachers, safe places they might be less likely