Social and Moral Development Unit 2

utilitarianism

Focuses on outcomes rather than intentions

moral theory that says the right action is the one that produces the greatest overall happiness (or least suffering) for the greatest number of people

Deontology

A moral theory that says the rightness of an action depends

on whether it follows moral rules or duties, not on its consequences

Focuses on intentions and principles rather than outcomes.

Virtue Ethics

A moral theory that focuses on being a good person, not just doing the right thing

Says morality is about developing good character traits (virtues) like honesty, courage, kindness, and fairness

The right action is what a virtuous person would do

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

Omelas is a beautiful, joyful city — everyone there

lives in happiness and peace.

The city’s happiness depends on the suffering of

one child, who is locked in a basement, neglected,

and miserable. Everyone in Omelas knows about

the child.

Most citizens accept it as a necessary trade-off for the greater good.  A few, however, walk away from Omelas — refusing to live in a happiness built on someone else’s pain.

Paul Bloom’s approach to morality

he doesn't really want to name what is a moral issue versus not. His argument is that we kind of just know it when we see it.

Audan Dahl’s approach

obligatory concerns with others’ welfare, rights, fairness, and justice, as well as the reasoning, judgment, emotions, and actions that spring from those concerns

Greene et al. dual process model

Says: Moral judgments come from two different psychological systems: emotional and rational

Moral logic: Our moral thinking is a tug-of-war between emotion and reason.

Emotion System (dual Process System)

The automatic system which is fast, intuitive, and driven by feelings

Rational system (dual process system)

the controlled system which is slow, deliberate, and based on reasoning

DPM: in moral dilemmas the emotional system….

supports deontological judgments (e.g., “It’s wrong to kill, no matter what”)

DPM: in moral dilemmas the rational system….

utilitarian judgments (e.g., “It’s okay to harm one person if it saves more lives”)

Criticisms of of Dual Processing System (3)

Too simple: Real moral reasoning blends emotion and reason.

Brain evidence unclear: fMRI regions aren’t purely emotional or rational.

Artificial dilemmas: Trolley problems don’t capture real-life moral complexity.

Haidt’s Social Intuitionist Model

the emotional dog and its rational tail

Moral judgments stem largely from intuitions (gut feelings), not deliberate reasoning.

Reasoning often comes after, to justify decisions.

Emphasizes the social nature of morality (persuasion, influence, group belonging).

Moral dumbfounding: even when moral issues have no reasoning for them we still continue to try and justify our beliefs (incest test)

Critisms of Haidt’s Approach (2)

Underestimates reasoning: Critics argue reasoning sometimes plays a central role, not just post-hoc

justification.

Simplifies social influence: The model emphasizes social persuasion but may underplay other factors like deliberation or institutional rules

Haidt and Graham, Moral Foundations theory

Morality is built on several foundations (like taste buds):

Helps explain cultural and political variation in moral priorities

what are the six foundations in moral foundations theory

care/harm

fairness/cheating

loyalty/betrayal

authority/subversion

purity/degradation

liberty/opression

Grahm et all 2009, politics

found that the differences in how we weigh different moral foundations is spilt between political alignment of loiberal vs conservative

Criticisms of MFT (4)

Foundations may not be universal: Critics argue the proposed moral “foundations” may not capture all cultures or moral diversity.

Measurement issues: Surveys like the Moral Foundations Questionnaire may bias responses or fail to capture complex moral reasoning.

Overemphasis on intuition: MFT focuses on automatic moral intuitions, possibly underestimating reasoning and deliberation.

Political overgeneralization: The theory links moral foundations to liberal vs. conservative differences, but this may oversimplify individual and contextual variation.

give overview of Kirk Right, Dyadic Morality

Says: Morality is fundamentally about perceiving harm.

Core idea: People judge actions as moral or immoral by seeing them as a victim causing suffering to a wrongdoer — forming a dyad: Perpetrator → Harm → Victim

Key insight: Even when no physical harm exists, moral judgments often center on perceived suffering or vulnerability.

the dyad: perpetrator vs victim

Criticisms of dyadic morality

Too narrow focus on harm: Critics argue not all moral judgments involve harm (e.g., fairness, loyalty, purity concerns).

Cultural variation: Some societies prioritize norms or duties over harm, challenging the idea that harm is universal in moral judgment.

Overemphasis on perception: Moral judgment may involve principles or reasoning, not just intuitive perceptions of victim-perpetrator relationships.

Ambiguity in “harm”: Hard to define what counts as real vs. perceived harm; subjective interpretations can complicate predictions.

Piaget’s Theory of Moral Development

Says: Children’s moral reasoning develops in stages, influenced by cognitive growth and social interaction

Stages: Heteronomous and autonomous morality

Key insight: Moral development moves from obedience to authority toward cooperation and understanding intentions.

Heteronomous morality

(ages ~4–7)

Rules are fixed and absolute, handed down by authority.

Focus on consequences, not intentions.

Example: “Breaking 10 cups is worse than breaking 1,

Autonomous morality

(ages ~10+)

Rules are flexible and agreed upon.

Focus on intentions and fairness.

Example: “Accidental breaking is less bad than deliberate mischief.

Kohlberg’s theory of moral development

Emphasis on reason

Sequential stages from childhood through adulthood.

Adults can reach post-conventional reasoning, where morality is based on universal ethical principles, not just social rules.

Criticized for being too focused on justice reasoning and culturally narrow

social domain theory

Adults (like kids) distinguish between:

• Moral domain (justice, rights, welfare),

• Social-conventional domain (customs, norms, etiquette),

• Personal domain (individual choices).

Shows that morality is not just about rules but differentiated domains of social knowledge.

• Not particularly concerned with “starting states”

• Very constructivist; children construct a distinction between

social conventional and morality

Pre-conventional stage of moral development

Ages 3-7

Moral reasoning is based on reward and punishment, stages 1-2

Conventional Stage of Moral Developement

8-13 years old

Moral reasoning based on External Ethicsstages 3-4

Post- Conventional stage of moral development

adulthoof

moral reasoning based on personal ethics

stages 5-6

Moral domain

justice, rights, welfare

Social-conventional domain

customs, norms, etiquette

Personal domain

individual choices

Yoo & Smetana 2022 (SDT)

Design: gave kids morale rules and social constructs from different scenarios to try ad determine if kids could distinguish between the two

ex: hitting is inherently imorale even without social conventions (laws or rules) that say so

found that children @ the age of 3 can distinguish between the two and this ability gets stronger

Criticisms of SDT ( Rottmann & Young)

• the distinction between social-convention and morality is not that clear cut (ie hitting kids isn’t illegal but may be considered morally wrong & eating meat isnt illegal but can be seen as a moral issue as some)

• overemphasis on reasoning rather than gut intuition

• does not apply well to“victimless crimes”

What do evolutionary theories argue

• morality is an adaptation for cooperation

What do cultural evolutionary theories argue

suggest that moral norms evolve to solve coordination and cooperation problems

Criticisms of Evolutionary theories

• reliance on infant research

• nearly impossible to falsify bc we cannot intervene on the evolutionary scale

Hamlin et al. Social evaluation by preverbal infants

• Nativist perspective

• showed preverbal infants puppets of agents needing to get over a hill

  • helper agents helped the og agent over and hinders pushed them down

  • preverbal infants then asked to pick a character and they chose the helper more

Hamilin et all 2011, how does social evaluation apply to treatment

• do infants have a preference for how good or bad agent should be treated

• 9 and 8 month olds prefer agents who are mean to previously mean agents

• follow up study showed that toddlers would give a treat to previously nice agents and if there wasn’t enough they would take the treat 

Bloom Book the Moral life of babies

we don’t necessarily know distinctions of what the morality is, is it a desire to help the nice puppet or a desire to harm the mean puppet

Marshall puppet experiement

• showed infants blue and yellow puppets the yellow puppet was physicaly nice

• asked children if they would rarher hit or tickle both the prosocial and antisocial puppets

• equal number wanted to hit and tickle the mean one but most chose to tickl the nice one

Woo et all 2017 on intentionality

• intentional harm and help vs accidental helping and harm

• babies prefer those who were intentionally helpful vs unintentionally helpful

• babies prefer those who are unintentionally harmful vs intentionally harmful

Hamlins interpretation of social evaluation theories

• Hamlin argues that infants have a rudimentary sense of morality: even before language, babies can evaluate social interactions.

• Core finding: Infants prefer “helpers” over “hinderers” in simple puppet shows

• this is evidence that humans have innate moral evaluation system

• later studies shows that infants also judge intentions not just physicl outcomes

• an earl foundational moral cognition may later evolve into a more complec moral reasoning

Critisicsms of Hamlins work on social evaluation

Replication Issues

• Some labs fail to replicate the preference for helpers.

• Suggests the effect may depend on small changes in stimuli or procedure.

Alternative Explanations

• Preferences might be due to associative learning rather than moral judgment.

• Babies could simply learn: “Positive events → approach, negative → avoid.”

Cultural & Developmental Differences

• Not all infants or cultures show the same patterns.

• Questions the idea that moral evaluation is universal and innate.

Ecological Validity Concerns

• Puppets and animations are artificial social scenarios.

• Raises question: Do babies behave this way in real-life social interactions?

Luca et Al

• multi lab replication study of helper hinder work

• found that many of the results that Hamlin found did not replicate

• at no age do they see a preference for helper agent

potential causes for the replication issues in helper hinder work 

• orginal findings were wrong and this is not a nativist skill

• reliance on the hill paradigm in the replication, a meta analysyis found that these replicated the least 

• live events vs videos, in the hamlin studies children were shown live puppet shows versus in the replication they were son videos

• lingering effects of the pandemic

hamlins response to replication issues

• there may have been covid related noise in the findings because eve her findings did not replicate when bringing children into the lab during covid

Gerci et al prosocial interactions

looked at 5 day old neonates

had longer looking times at the helping vs the non helping

may show early emergence of morality jusgements

prosocial behavior

helping, sharing, comforting, informing

proximate motivations

are the immediate cause of a behavior

ultimate motivations

are the evolutionary functions of a behavior

Warneken and Tomasello—- do infants help strangers

After the experimenter created a small problem (like dropping a marker), each trial had three phases:

• Object focus (1–10s): The experimenter looked only at the object.

• Alternating gaze (11–20s): The experimenter looked back and forth between the object and the child.

• Verbal cue (21–30s): The experimenter said something like “My marker!” while continuing to alternate gaze.

In control trials, the experimenter just looked at the object with a neutral expression for 20 seconds.

No rewards or praise were given if the infant helped.

Each child did 10 tasks total:

• 5 in the experimental condition and 5 in the control condition, with the order systematically varied.

• For each task, 12 children were in the experimental condition and 12 children were in the control condition — making it a between-subjects comparison for each tas

parental presence impact on children helping strangers warnken et a;

Five conditions tested parental influence:

• Parent present but passive

• Parent highlighted the problem

• Parent actively encouraged

• Parent ordered the child to help

• Parent absent

Results:

• Children helped frequently and equally across all conditions.

• No difference in helping when parents were absent or in a later test phase.

Conclusion: Toddlers’ helping is spontaneous and intrensically motivated

Barragan and Dweck on reciprocal interactions

children helping behavior may be accounted by reciprocal behaviors that happen whilst they are being welcomed into the lab

Warneken and Tomasello—- do infants help strangers results

• found that in reaching tasks both chimps and preverbal infants help, my be conserved across species

Indiscriminate motivations

Prosocial behavior is similarly likely to be directed at anyone.

Ex. Children will give the help to all people regardless of their prior actions

Extrinsic motivations for prosocial behavoir

Motivated behavior that is maintained by the reinforcement imposed by other people.

Ex. Children’s prosocial behavior will increase when they are rewarded with a gift

Intrinsic motivations for pro social behavoit

Motivated behavior is not affected by imposed reinforcement. Often described as an internal desire to do good.

Ex. Children’s prosocial behavior will not increase when they are rewarded.

strategic motivations for prosocialbehavoir

The goal of prosocial behavior benefiting a recipient is a means to achieving another goal. Not all strategic behavior has to be consciously strategic or calculated.

Ex. If children are observed by a peer they will share more with others. Their goal is to appear generous to others

altruistic motivations for prosocial behavior 

The only goal of the prosocial behavior is to benefit the recipient.

Ex. Regardless of being observed children will share generously with others.

Summary of tge Martin and Olsen review paper

Children’s prosocial behavior is influenced by

• Features of the recipient

  • familiarity, adult or peer presence

• The context

  • energy and resource costs

• Actor’s mindset

There are parallels between motivations of prosocial behavior in adults and children.

There are many questions left unanswered about children under 3 y/o

Many of the motivations underlying adult prosocial behavior are also present in young children

Warneken and Hare 2007— Rewards

• compared no reward vs material reward vs non material reward (praise)

• in the reward condition there was decrease in helpfulness, children start to help to help themselves over helping others 

Over-justification effect

When people start doing something for the reward instead of for its own sake, their internal interest often decreases

Warneken & tomasello 2012 on parentel effect influence

Results:

• Children helped frequently and equally across all conditions.

• No difference in helping when parents were absent or in a later test phase.

Conclusion:

• Toddlers’ helping is spontaneous and intrinsically motivated, not driven by parental cues or pressure

Evolutionary adaptation

Trait selected for because it improved survival or reproduction.

Functional and heritable.

ex Vision: Each component of the eye (lens, retina, etc.) contributes to a functional system that directly increased survival

evolutionary Spandrel (byproduct)

Trait that arises incidentally from another adaptation.

Not directly selected for its current form or function.

Ex) Reading: A recent cultural invention; it relies on pre-existing systems

that evolved for other reasons

role of judgement in understanding children’s motivations for helpfulnes

• Reveals moral understanding: Judgments show how children conceptualize helping—what they see as kind, fair, or obligatory—even before they consistently act that way.

• Separates knowledge from performance: Children may know helping is good but fail to help due to shyness, self-interest, or limited self-control. Judgments tap understanding independent of situational constraints

Positive duties

• Involve prosocial acts—providing aid, comfort, or sharing.

• Often seen as optional or supererogatory (“good to do,” not always “bad not to do”)

Negative duties

• involve avoiding harm, theft, or unfair treatment.

• Seen as strict moral rules (“wrong to do”).

supererogatory actions:

actions that go above and beyond

Miler et al on social responsibilities 

• derived from social domain theory (is this a moral or personal obligation)

• gave vignettes where they manipulated the severity and relationship associated with the issue 

• asked if the behavior was okay or desirable (not helping someone)

• asked if people have to do a specific action even if it does not directly impact them 

Miler et al on social responsibilities results

• in extreme need situations, regardless of familiarity in the person, all ages across inda and us say that ppl should help'

• in moderate need, us devalues strangers more than india

• in minor need higher in young children in the us and higher overall in india

Miler et al on social responsibilities conclusions

marked cross-cultural variation exists in the scope of social

responsibilities considered as moral and in the criteria

applied in judging that such issues constitute moral

obligations. Specifically, Indian subjects were found to

maintain an extremely broad view of interpersonal moral

duties...we observed that American subjects considered a

smaller domain of social responsibilities as moral

obligations, and their judgments were affected both by need

and role considerations.

Marshall et all on “starting state” for children—when do they take into account social relationships

• showed children vignettes about a kid who forgot their lunch for school, asked who was meaner for not sharing the food the friend or the unhelpful stranger

• adults say the friend, 9 yo say the friend, 5 yo don’t distinguish between the two

Marshall et al 2021—how does culture shape prosocial obligations

• this study showed a vignette on a child falling and getting hurt— asked kids who has a obligation to help but did not ask them to pick between the different actors

• found that all children regardless of age show that parents have obligation to help

• most young children believe that strangers still have an obligation to help

• in us and Germany this obligation is lower and in uganda it is higher

Marshall and Wilks 2024 —-does distance matter in social obligation

• showed vignettes that were varying differences in social close vs far and physically close vs far

• found that younger children believe that regardless of distance you should help

Weller and Laagttuta, 

• manipulated race of child that needed help with photos and found children though that those with similarities (ingroups) felt an higher obligation to help

Warneke and tomessello on alltruism

Warneken & Tomasello argue that infants help for intrinsic reasons. Their experiments show that helping persists even when external rewards are removed or when rewards are introduced afterward, which can actually reduce spontaneous helping.

They propose that helping is supported by an evolved tendency for shared intentionality, or a motivation to share goals, emotions, and attention with others. Essentially, an understanding of intentions and an intrinsic motivation to cooperate support early altruistic act

Wynn’s critique on Warneken

Wynn argues that while infants show early helping, these behaviors are not evidence of unbounded, natural altruism. She suggests the original paper overstates the universality and spontaneity of helping, neglecting social, relational, and contextual constraints

She points out that helping is selective. Children are more likely to help familiar, cooperative, or trustworthy individuals. Factors such as social context, relationship quality, and perceived fairness limit when and whom children help

What alternative explanations does Wynn suggest for early helping?

a. A desire for social interaction or approval, not pure altruism.

b. Early sensitivity to reputation or reciprocal exchange.

c. Children may help only when the situation is simple or socially rewarding.

In what ways do the two papers (wynn and warneken) agree and disagree about the nature of early altruism?

Both agree that helping emerges early in human development and that infants are capable of understanding others’ goals. They disagree on interpretation:

i. Warneken & Tomasello view early helping as evidence of an evolved,

intrinsic altruistic tendency.

ii. Wynn argues that helping is selective, constrained, and influenced by

social relationships, not an unbounded “natural altruism.”

Schmidt and Sommerville 2011: Fairness Expectations 

15 mo infants

showed them images of two ppl w food split between them, showed equal and unequal split post test showed the same thing but without people (control for symmetry)

@ 6 months looking times are at chance

@ 9 months and beyond babies look longer at unfair treatment

differences could be accounted by experience in sharing: 2017 study found that engaging with sharing increased the looking times when babies looked at unequal distributions 

Sloane et al 20212: sense of fairness

Showed infants two giraffe puppets

• gave equal and unequal distributions of toys

  • also included equal and unequal control trials with inanimate objects and the toys being revealed rather than distributed

  • looking times only statistically different in experimental condition

Second test showed toy clean. up scenario to children

• in one case once child did all the work and both got rewarded in other case both clean up and both get stickers

  • explicit condition: said that there was a promise for if the kids clean up they stickers

  • implicit: no explicit promise

  • control: opaque condition

Sloane et al 20212: sense of fairness results + conclusion

Infants in the explicit and implicit conditions detected a violation when the worked and the slacker were rewarded equally...a prior contract [was] not necessary for infants to hold expectations about the dispensation of rewards...infants showed clear expectations about the experimenter’s actions only when she could determine who had worked and who had not

Behavior economics

• Simple, controlled tasks used to study social decision-making

• Participants make choices about sharing, cooperation, or punishment

• Reveal preferences for fairness, generosity, and norm enforcemen

Dictator Game

One player divides a resource; the other has no say

measures: Pure generosity / fairness preferences

Ultimatum Game

Proposer offers a split; responder can accept or reject (if reject, both get nothing).

measures: Fairness + punishment of unfairness

Third-Party Punishment Game

Observer can spend their own resources to punish unfair offers between others

measures:Norm enforcement / moral concern

Ibbotoson 2014, little dictators

• meta analysis on dictator game results

• found that as age increases children learn fairness

inequality game blake and mcauliffe

experimenter set us candy equally or unequally and one child has the choice to reject or accept the distribution

• even at a young age disadvantageous inequality is rejected

• by the age of nine even advantageous inequality is rejected

• across cultures disadvantageous inequality is rejected

• it depends on cultural variation whether of not advantageous inequality is rejected

Broanan on primate reaction to unfairness

monkeys having negative reactions to unfsairness as well

reciprocity 

the tendency to repay positive and negative behavior to others—is a powerful mechanism to establish cooperation among humans and has been considered an evolutionary advantageous strategy

Worle and paulus on reciprocity

used puppet show to exhibit situation of no match, high match, and low match reciprocity in children

Children aged 5–6: reciprocity

They exhibited normative reasoning about reciprocity. That is, they judged protagonists who failed to reciprocate (after receiving a large share) more negatively than those who did reciprocate. Their spontaneous comments reflected the view that “you should return a favour”

Children aged 3–4: reciprocity

They did not clearly apply the reciprocity obligation. Instead, they seemed to value general prosocial behaviour (sharing, helping) but did not show distinct condemnation of failing to reciprocate. They did not treat reciprocity as a norm yet

Woorle conclusion on the norm of reciprocity

Thus, the study concludes that the norm of reciprocity emerges during the preschool years — around age 5. Younger children see generosity as good but don’t yet treat returning the favour as obligatory

Limitations on Woorle work on reciprocity

Works only with repeated interactions between the same

individuals.

• Requires memory and recognition of past partners.

• Breaks down easily due to mistakes or misunderstandings.

• Doesn’t scale to large groups or one-time interactions.

• Can’t explain helping strangers or anonymous giving.

reputation 

indirect reciprocity

• the beliefs or opinions that are generally held about someone or something

Sisco and Weber gofund me donation study

study on reciprocity in adults

• Analyzed over $44 million in GoFundMe donations to study patterns of prosocial behavior.

• 21% of donations were made anonymously, and surveys suggest about 2.3% of all donations were made without any egoistic motive.

Millinksi on tragedy of the commons

This study shows that people contribute more to a shared resource when their behavior affects their reputation in later interactions. In other words, linking cooperation to future social rewards can prevent the “tragedy of the commons,” where individuals would otherwise act selfishly and deplete the common good