Psych 211 - Lecture 21 :Moral Development & Gender Development

Moral Judgment

• Morality of a given action is not always obvious

• Morality of a behaviour is based partly on the thinking (conscious intentions and goals) that underlies the behaviour

• Reasoning behind a given behaviour is critical to determine if behaviour is moral or immoral

• Changes in moral reasoning form the basis of moral development

Piaget's Theory of Moral Judgment

• Piaget defined two stages in children’s moral reasoning (The Moral

Judgment of the Child, 1932/1965)

• Moral reasoning changes from rigid acceptance of rules of authorities to modifiable moral rules related to social interactions

• Younger children

• Outcome is more important than the intention

• Older children

• Intention seen as important

• Individual differences

The Stage of Heteronomous Morality

• Characteristic of children

• Younger than 7 years

• Rules and duties to others regarded as unchangeable due

to social and cognitive influence

• Rigid acceptance of authorities’ rules

Transition Period

Children

• Enter a transition period in which interactions with their peers lead them

to develop the ability to take one another’s perspective and to develop

beliefs about fairness

The Stage of Autonomous Morality

• Children around 11 or 12 years

• No longer accept blind obedience to authority as the basis of moral

decisions

• Fully understand that rules are the product of social agreement; changed

by majority agreement

• Consider fairness and equality in rule construction and individual motives

and intentions in behaviour evaluation

Critique of Piaget’s Theory

Contributions

• Developmental systematic changes in moral reasoning

Critique

• Overall rejection of the theory

• Underestimation of intentionality in morality

• Role of cognitive development in moral reasoning

Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Reasoning

• Kohlberg was interested in sequences through which children

develop moral reasoning

• Develops over time

• Proceeds through specific stages:

• Discontinuous and hierarchical

• Advanced thinking with each new stage

• Heinz dilemma used to assess moral reasoning

Preconventional and Conventional Levels

Preconventional level

• Self-centred, focusing on getting rewards and avoiding punishment

• Stage 1: Punishment and obedience orientation

• Stage 2: Instrumental and exchange orientation

Conventional level

• Centred on social relationships, focusing on compliance with social

duties and laws

• Stage 3: Mutual interpersonal expectations, relationships, and interpersonal

conformity

• Stage 4: Social system and conscience orientation

Basic Moral Reasoning

• Most children and adolescents

engage in only basic moral

reasoning

• Even if their reasoning is at a

higher level, they sometimes

act in ways that do not reflect

their highest level of moral

reasoning, such as the person

in this photo, who knows

stealing is immoral

Postconventional level

• Centred on ideals, focusing on moral principles

• Stage 5: Social contract or individual rights orientation

• Stage 6: Universal ethical principles

Critique of Kohlberg’s Theory

Contributions

• Contribution of cognitive

processes to moral behaviour

• Developmental systematic

changes in moral reasoning

• Individual’s levels of moral

reasoning and moral behaviour,

especially for people reasoning

at higher levels

Critique

• No sufficient distinction

between moral issues and social

convention

• Reasoning not continuous

• Use of dilemmas not valid

across cultures

• Gender differences not

indicated; theory based on

studies of boys

Gilligan’s Theory of Moral Development

• Differences in the way males and females reason morally because

of the way they are socialized

• Males: Tend to value principles of justice and rights

• Females: Tend to value caring, responsibility for others, and avoidance of

exploiting or hurting others

Social Domain Theory of Moral Development (4)

Moral reasoning grows

gradually

• Through social interactions with

peers and adults and parental

guidance

Differences occur in moral

judgment

• From diverse environments with

bidirectional relationship

influences

Parents transmit values

• Explicitly through teaching and

discipline

• Implicitly by example

Peer relationships involve

equal power

• More behavioural agency in

moral situations

• Observation and initiation of

moral behaviour in numerous

settings with peers

Moral Development Timeline (according to SDT)

• By age 3: Violations of moral rules are more wrong than violations of

social conventions

• By age 4: Moral transgressions, but not societal transgressions, are

wrong

• From ages 4 to 9: Moral transgressions are morally wrong

• Children, but fewer adolescents, feel that parents have authority

• Parents feel otherwise

• This leads to adolescent–parent conflicts

Domains of Social Knowledge (3)

• Successful negotiation of social worlds requires understanding

principles in three social knowledge domains

• Moral domain

• Societal domain

• Personal domain

Cultural and Socioeconomic Similarities and Differences

• Culture shapes social judgment

• Meeting others' needs is seen as

a moral duty, not just a personal

choice

• Lower SES children may struggle

to distinguish between moral and

social-conventional actions

compared to middle-class

children

The Development of Conscience

Conscience

• Integral regulatory mechanism that

increases individual’s ability to conform to

standards of conduct accepted in their

culture

• Restrains antisocial behaviour or

destructive impulses

• Promotes compliance with adults’ rules

and standards and adherence to cultural

standards

• Fosters prosocial behaviour

Conscience Development: Nature or Nurture?

• Conscience is tied to cultural standards, historically seen as

learned (nurture) rather than innate (nature)

• Studies with infants indicate an innate preference for helping over

hindering actions

• Infants show early signs of a moral sense before parental teaching

• Innate preferences for prosocial behaviour may form the foundation upon

which learned morality from family and culture is built

Timing of Development of Conscience

• Conscience develops slowly

• By age 2, recognize moral standards;

exhibit guilt with wrongdoing

• With age, take on parents’ moral values

• Temperaments matter

• Fearless children show less guilt than

do fearful children, even with gentle

discipline

• Allele variant of the gene SLC6A4

makes children reactive to their rearing

environment; goodness of fit

Prosocial Behaviour, Empathy, Sympathy

Prosocial behaviour

• Voluntary behaviour intended to benefit another;

helping, sharing with, and comforting others

Empathy

• Emotional response to another’s state or condition

that reflects other person’s state or condition

Sympathy

• Feeling of concern for another in response to other’s

emotional state or condition

Developmental Timeline of Prosocial Behaviour

The perspective of others is required to sympathize or empathize:

• By 14 months

• Distressed when others are seen in distress

• Cooperation driven by sympathy and sense of fairness

• By 18 to 25 months

• Sharing demonstrated

• By 2 to 4 years

• Other prosocial behaviours increase

• Middle childhood and adolescence

• Moral reasoning and perspective-taking influence helping, sharing, and donating

Cooperation

• Another form of prosocial

behaviour

• May be driven by sympathy

and child’s sense of

fairness

• May have evolved

Individual Differences in Prosocial Behaviour

Biological factors

• Humans have a biological (evolutionary)

predisposition for prosocial behaviour;

necessary for the survival of the species

Genetic factors

• Identical twins are more similar in prosocial

behaviour than fraternal twins

• Specific genes identified that might

contribute to individualized, prosocial

tendencies

• Temperament contributes to individual

differences in social cognition

The Socialization of Prosocial Behaviour: Parents

• Three ways parents socialize

children’s prosocial behaviour:

• Modelling and teaching prosocial

behaviour

• Arranging opportunities for their

children to engage in prosocial

behaviour

• Disciplining their children and

eliciting prosocial behaviour from

them

The Socialization of Prosocial Behaviour

• Modelling and communication of values

• Imitation of adult and positive relationship

• Similarity of parent-child prosocial behaviour levels

• Opportunities for prosocial activities

• Performance in household tasks

• Voluntary community services and activities; community learning

• Discipline and parenting style

• Constructive and supportive, authoritative parenting; reasoning

• Physical punishment, threats and authoritarian approach

• Eliciting prosocial behaviour

• Peer influences

• Relationships with other children

• Conflict resolution practice

• Interventions

• Experience helping and cooperating with others

• Exposure to prosocial values and behaviours

Antisocial Behaviour

Disruptive, hostile, or

aggressive behaviour

that violates social

norms or rules and that

harms or takes

advantage of others

The Development of Antisocial Behaviours (3)

• Aggression

• Behaviour aimed at harming or injuring others

• Instrumental aggression

• Aggression motivated by the desire to obtain a

concrete goal

• Relational aggression

• Intending to harm others by damaging peer relationships; leads to conduct disorders

Individual child uses of both kinds of aggression; tends to be consistent across childhood

The Development of Aggression

Aggressive behaviour occurs before 12 months of age, usually over objects; it does not involve bodily contact or hitting

• By 18 months, physical aggression is normative (goal-directed)

• During elementary school, overt physical aggression remains low or declines for most (hostile; relational)

• Serious violent acts increase in mid-adolescence

• Differences

• Individual differences

• Gender differences

• Conduct disorders

Individual Differences in Aggression

• Considerable consistency in individual

differences in both girls’ and boys’

aggression across childhood and

adolescence

• Aggression in middle childhood and

adolescence; especially in boys

• Relational aggression in childhood and

subsequent conduct disorders; girls

• Early life neurological deficits

Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Conduct Disorder (4)

Definitions

• Oppositional Defiant Disorder

• Conduct Disorder

Diagnostic criteria and prevalence

• DSM-5-TR

• Relatively low prevalence; 3.3%

Treatment gaps and comorbidity

• Only 54% receive mental health treatment

• High comorbidity with other disorders

Predictors and influencing factors

• Various family, child, and contextual factors

• Age of onset, specific problem behaviours, and individual characteristics

The Origins of Aggression: Biological Factors

• Consistency between aggressive behaviour in childhood and

adolescence

• Biological correlates

• Genetic risks, heredity, temperament

• Neurological deficits

• Hormonal

The Origins of Aggression: Social Cognition

• Aggressive children tend to interpret the work

through an aggressive lens

• They may evaluate aggressive responses more

favourably

• Reactive aggression

• Emotionally driven, antagonistic aggression sparked by

one’s perception that other people’s motives are hostile

• Proactive aggression

• Unemotional aggression aimed at fulfilling a need or desire

The Origins of Aggression: Family Influences

• Cold, punitive parenting

• Troubled family interaction

• Poor parental monitoring;

parental conflict

• Poverty, neighbourhood

violence, and family stress

Peer Influences: Aggression and Antisocial

Behaviour

• Having aggressive friends and being

exposed to violence

• Peer pressure to be involved in

antisocial behaviour

• Culture oriented toward adults’

expectations

• More aggression in less acculturated

children

Biology and Socialization: Their Joint Influence on

Children's Antisocial Behaviour

• Genetically informed recent research findings:

• Often combination of genetic and environmental factors predict

antisocial, aggressive behaviour

• Some children are more sensitive to parental quality

• Children with specific gene appear to be more responsive to their

environment than children with different variants

• SLC6A4

• DRD4

• MAOA

Interventions for Aggressive and Antisocial Children

• Children with aggressive or antisocial problem behaviours

can be successfully treated

• Individual psychotherapy

• Combination of psychotherapy and drug therapy

• Parent education and intervention

• School-based intervention

• Community-based programs

• Positive youth development

• Service learning

Sex vs. Gender definitions

Sex

Categories distinguishing between biological males and females on the basis of characteristics such as hormones, reproductive organs, sex chromosomes, etc. (varies by context)

Gender

Socially defined category encompassing expectations of behaviour, social roles, or other characteristics; includes men, women, as well as many other non-binary categories

Both involve fuzzy categories with lots of exceptions

cisgender, transgender, gender binary, Non binary 

Cisgender

Identifying with the gender that

one’s culture assumes/pushes

based on biological sex

Gender Binary

Classification of gender into two

anatomy-based categories:

Men/Boys and Women/Girls

Transgender

Identifying with a gender other

than what one’s culture assumes

based on biological sex

Nonbinary

People whose gender does not fit

within the gender binary

prescribed by their culture

Perceiving Gender Categories

Between 18 and 24 months, children

begin to develop gender schemas

• Organized beliefs and understanding of gender

Ingroup/outgroup gender schema

• What/who “matches” their gender”

Own-gender schema

• Knowledge tied to one’s own gender identity

Show early gender expectations

• Surprise at gender-atypical behaviours; preferential looking patterns (e.g.,

habituate to female face → look longer at car than doll

Gender Labelling

Stereotypical gender labelling increases

over the course of the preschool years

• Objects, activities, characteristics

Shortly after learning to label others,

begin to reference their own gender

• Identify as a boy, girl, or other gender

Preschoolers don’t appear to exhibit

consistent belief in gender constancy

• If you change your appearance or

behaviour, your gender changes too

Gender-Typed Behaviour

By age 2, many children exhibit

gender-typed preferences or tendencies

• E.g., prefers “boy toys” over “girl toys”

Lots of individual variability!

• Some children are rigid, others flexible

• Many prefer “cross-gender-typed” play

Gender Segregation

Tendency to affiliate with same-gender

peers, avoid other-gender peers

• Increases between 3 and 6

Gender in-groups reinforce both

gender stereotyping and conformity

• More time with children of a given

gender, more gender-typed behaviour

• Conflict between nonconforming interests

and pressure to conform puts children at

risk of anxiety/depression

Gender in Middle Childhood

By age 6, most children see gender as a

stable aspect of identity (gender constancy)

• Still stereotypical thinkers, but more flexible

and realize there are exceptions

• “Some girls have short hair!”

• Trans children are less stereotypical in their

thinking about gender

• And so are their cis-siblings!

Beliefs about gender are learned!

By age 9 or 10, children recognize that gender

is a socially constructed category

• Not necessarily a reflection of biology

Also aware that there can be social

repercussions for violating gender norms

• Recognize gender discrimination and judge

it to be unfair

• Nonetheless, children frequently exclude

others on the basis of gender in middle

childhood

Gender in Adolescence

Adolescence is a time of both gender-role

intensification and gender-role flexibility

• Varies between individuals, contexts

Some teens become increasingly

concerned with adhering to gender roles

• Increases in rates of gender discrimination

and harassment

• Particularly towards girls, gender-

nonconforming children, and LGBTQ+

children

For other teens, adolescence is a time of

identity flexibility and exploration

• Peers typically tolerate more flexibility

in girls than in boys

• Dependent on opportunities and

support offered by others

Social support is particularly important for

gender-nonconforming youth

• Increased stigmatization when their

community is highly hetero-/cisnormative

Development of Gender Identity: Terms

Felt gender typicality: Sense of similarity and belonging with one’s gender in group

Gender-role contentedness:Satisfaction with the expected roles and opportunities associated with one’s gender in group

Gender centrality: Personal importance of one’s gender identity relative to other social identities

Development of Gender Identity

How do kids develop their view of themselves as boys, girls, non-binary etc.?

• They interact with the environment and internalize societal norms and expectations in the process of self-socialization

• Self-socialization experiences vary from kid to kid because the relationship between child and environment is bi-directional

• Family, peers, teachers, media, cultural context, etc. are the “environment” providing input to the child

• Then children makes sense of that environmental input

Development of Gender Identity:

Making sense of input

Balanced identity model predicts kids

make choices that establish consistency

across their group identity (e.g., “I identify

as a boy”), group-attribute associations

(e.g., “Boys like cars”), and self-concepts

(“I like cars”).

Stereotype emulation hypothesis predicts children will emulate stereotypes associated with their gender to gain social acceptance or approval, especially if they identify strongly with their gender ingroup

Children don’t just passively accept stereotypes…

The stereotype construction hypothesis predicts they are likely to assume other members of their gender ingroup are like them.

• “I like dolls and I’m a girl. Girls like dolls.”