Moral April 2

Kohlberg’s Theory Challenges: Role of Culture

• Similar sequence of stages across cultures

• But, different rates and end stages

• Bias in how moral reasoning is assessed?

  • He is researching from a Western lens

• May be differences in moral principles across cultures

  • Ethics of autonomy: rights, equality, freedom

    • Western is more concerned on this

    • Kohlbergs theory is more based on this

  • Ethics of community: duty, status

    • Other cultures emphasize this more

  • Ethics of divinity: purity, sanctity

    • Other cultures emphasize this more

• Most adults in USA are 3/4/5

• Most adults in Taiwan are 3/4/5

• Most adults in Kenya, New Guinea are stage 2/3

Maybe stage 5 moral reasoning is due to cultural differences

• He believed industrialized societies are more morally advanced

• This is HEAVILY critiqued

Kohlberg’s Theory Challenges: Role of Gender

• Kohlberg’s original study→ all male participants

  • His theory is based on men

• Carol Gilligan: principle of care

  • Argued for this principle, that it is more prevalent amongst women and girls

• Most studies show similar moral reasoning across gender; everyone can consider moral principles of both justice and care

Slide 2

Kohlberg’s Theory Challenges: Role of Gender

Kohlberg’s original study→ all male participants

Carol Gilligan: principle of care

Most studies show similar moral reasoning across gender; everyone can consider moral principles of both justice and care

Kohlberg’s Theory Challenges: Does moral thought matter for moral behaviour?

• individuals who score higher on these moral dilemmas tend to score higher on prosocial behaviours and less likely to be aggressive

• Moderate correlation

Why be prosocial?

SHaring, cooperating…etc

• Empathy & Sympathy

• Norms & expectations

• Desire something in return; reciprocal altruism

• positive emotions

• Situational influences

People more likely to share when they are happy

Prosocial Behaviour: Influences

• Age

  • Increases with development → theory of mind development?

    • Perspective taking, recognizing someones lack of something

• Nature → genetics?

  • Individual continuity

    • Kids who are big sharers, tend to be teens and adults that are big sharers.. genetic component it suggests

• Nurture?

  • Modeling/social learning

    • More likely to share if you see other people share

  • Family values

  • Parenting style/discipline

    • More likely to be prosocial when parents are authoritative, equal amounts of expectations/explanations

  • Life circumstances

    → socioeconomics, experiencing traumatic event?

    • Szechwan earthquake: After the earthquake the 6 year olds share less, but the 9 year olds share more

      • 1 month after this sharing increasing but after 3 years it goes back to baseline

Prosocial Behaviour: Culture

Across cultures, common to see increase in prosocial behaviour with age

• between 3 and 5 years, less self hoarding and more sharing at 5
  

• More in collectivistic cultures? FILL

  • But somewhat mixed results!

  • May be cultural differences in who children are prosocial towards?

    • Kids in US more likely to share with strangers, in phiillipines kids more likely to share with family members

• Cultural differences in response to socialization of prosocial behaviour?

  • Kids in US vs India

    • US: watching parents model stingy sharing, kids also had stingy sharing/share less, generous sharing, kids showed no difference in sharing. ONLY imitate stingy

    • India: watching stingy parents, kids became more stingy, when parents were generous, kids also became more generousIndia. Kids model BOTH stingy and generous behaviours
      

Types of Aggression

• Instrumental aggression: motivated by a desire to obtain goal

  • Bullying for lunch money

• Hostile aggression: no clear goal, motive to harm; often impulsive and driven in response to others’ behaviour

  • Someone bumps into you, you hit them

• Physical aggression: intent to physically harm

• Verbal aggression: threats, name-calling, yelling

• Social/relational aggression: directed towards damaging reputation and/or relationships

  • Kicking someone out of a friend group

Aggression and Ages

• Physical aggression → high in toddlerhood/early childhood, then decreases
  

• Social/relational aggression → increases in middle childhood/adolescence

  • Potentially more for girls

  • Recent research suggests, it may not be as strong anymore for girls

Influences on Aggression

Biological influences → genetics, neurological differences

Parenting → harsh, punitive; low monitoring; high conflict

Peers → time spent with other antisocial children

Patterns of thinking → hostile attribution bias

Antisocial Behaviour: Cheating

Carrying out forbidden behaviours for an unfair advantage

• Can take many forms

• Is common in youth: 80-90% report cheating during high school

  • Appears lower in childhood, rapid increases in adolescence

  • Kids who learn to cheat, tend to learn less… can predict professional dishonesty in adulthood

Why do kids and teens cheat?

• Pressure for performance

• Social norms

• Social comparison

• Not enough time to prepare/study

• Lack of interest

• Perceive teacher to be unfair or uncaring

Influences on Cheating

• Situation: more common when not being monitored

• Peers: more common when observe/perceive others to be cheating

• Mindset: more common for fixed mindset about intelligence

• Praise: more common when told you are “smart” (ability praise)

  • When praised for your ability rather than effort, you are more likely to cheat

  • When kids are praised for their ability.. more likely to cheat to maintain/uphold this trait

  • When kids are praised for performance/baseline condition, they are less likely to cheat

Zhao et al. (2018). Does ability praise increase cheating when it’s indirect– ie, just overheard about another person?

Young children are more likely to cheat after overhearing that a classmate is smart

• 3 years old did not increase their cheating after hearing how smart somebody else is

• 5 year olds did increase their cheating when they heard how smart somebody else is

  • Possibly due to Development of Theory of Mind, thinking about how other people are thinking about you and their perspectives

  • Possibly due to tracking information loads?

Studying Development

These influences of cheating are all intertwined by these three domains

• Physical

  • Neurological developments

• Cognitive

  • Mindset, theory of mind

• Social and Emotional

  • Teachers, peers, school