Lecture 10 - Moral Development

prosocial behaviour

prosocial behaviour

being nice to other people

what are the theories behind when and why children help?

some think they are born selfish and have to be taught to be helpful, some think they are born altruistic and some think they are born strategic

altruisim

born with instinct to help others indiscriminately and that drive

why do we stop and help people in general?

maybe parents trained us to be this way, might have absorbed social values like treat others how you want to be treated

refuting innate selfishness in children (study)

• a ball rolled away and researcher  pretend he couldn't get it and the toddler helped him out

• 8 month old observing someone put towels on the laundry line with close pins but drops one and cant reach it and the child picks it up and gives it to him

• Control: threw it on the floor on purpose and did not reach for it so child didn't help

*children can detect when help is needed

reward hypothesis

maybe children help because they are expected to be rewards

experiment 2 (are babies born to help)

put magazine in cabinet then close door and go to get more and at return tries to put magazines with the door closed child sees struggle and opens the door for him then a different adult came a put a spoon on top of the box dropping through the hole and tries to get it from the top but child knows there’s a slide flap that’s easier to get the spoon from and child helps. Lastly the same clothespin task is done but child is playing on the side before it occurs so will the child take the cost of stopping to play their gam in order to help someone else?

experiment 2 (are babies born to help) results

The child stops playing and gives the pin to the person then goes back to playing showing they have concept of theory of mind cause they have to think about the goals of another person in order to help them achieve it

what are some possibilities that could explain why children help?

• maybe cause parents are present

• they expect some reward

• might be from early socialization/teaching about helping

why are the possibilities that explain why children help wrong?

when rewarding them for help once they took the reward away the helping behavior went away, parents aren’t cause because in the studies the same behavior was observed regardless of the presence of parents, not socialization because chimps show the same helping behavior even with strangers and humans

what are the different types of helping?

selective or indiscriminate helping, extrinsic vs intrinsic and strategic vs altruistic

selective vs indiscriminate helping

helping is selective if its more likely to be directed at some individuals than others

extrinsic vs intrinsic helping

extrinsically motivated helping is maintained by a system of reinforcement imposed by others

strategic vs altruistic helping

helping is a strategy if the goal of benefitting the recipient is a means to achieving another goal vs purely helping another

selective helping study

• 2 experimenters offer a toy but fails, one fails by accident and the other one doesnt give it on purpose

• New toy, when both experimenters are reaching for the toys, do they help the one who is being nice to them

selective helping study results

way more likely to give it to the experimenter who wasn't mean/accidentally didn’t give the toy (evidence for selective helping)

intrinsic helping/empathy study

• 18 - 25 months 

• Experimental: 1 experimenter harms another destroying possessions

• Control: same action w/o harm

• Both conditions there is no distress

• Dependent variable: does the fact that experimenter was harmed motivate child to share more?

• Each child has 2 and can give one to the experimenter who lost theirs

• Only attended to situation or commenting on situation was observed more in the neutral condition

intrinsic helping/empathy study (results)

•  More likely to share when experimenter was harmed (shows empathy)

helping task (reciprocity experiment)

• Apparatus and child needs to put blocks in it, there is 2 blocks out of reach but puppet can reach it

sharing task (reciprocity experiment)

• both puppet and child are putting blocks in apparatus but all blocks are near puppet and child has none and puppet either shares or helps vs refuses silently or verbally

• now roles are reversed, does the child’s behavior depend on what the puppet did before?

sharing task (reciprocity experiment) results

• Helping results: in all cases, there was no strategic helping at all and helped no matter what (2.5 and 3.5yr olds)

• Sharing results: for 2.5 no difference between conditions so not showing strategic helping, avg giving 2 blocks, for 3 and ½ most likely to share when the puppet shared with them before vs not likely if they had refused either silently or verbally before

• 3 and ½ year olds show strategic sharing and pay attention to reciprocity

dictator game

•  given sum of money and told you can keep it all or you can give some to stranger that is also in the study give as much or as little as possible

• How much would you give to the stranger?

what is the avg amount of money a stranger would give?

the average was 30$ or 3 bucks for adults

what might cause someone to give a bigger sum of money to a stranger?

If you expect to see the person again this might make a difference, thinking about reciprocity or worry that the voting is visible so reputation plays a role too

dictator game in children

• Used stickers instead of money and did the same game

• Results: gave 4 to the imaginary stranger

• Varied the value of the sticker

• Looked at low value stickers 

• Experimenter turns away while they are doing the game,

what were the results of the dictator game in children?

• 3yrs: 0 bar is the highest so 55% gave 0 to the stranger

• 15% gave more than half to the other person at each age (3-6yrs)

• 50/50 split seems to increase with age (up to 40% of 6yr olds)

what difference was observed in the dictator game when the dictator game used high quality stickers vs low quality stickers?

• Low value sticker results: keeping all of them drops off with age and equal split increase

• High value stickers: keeping them all drops off with age but equal split increase with age but not that much =, gave no more than 50/50

what conclusions can we draw from the dictator game in children?

• Value does impact sharing 

• Sharing increases with age

• Children are more generous with low value than high value rewards

• Children move towards a equal split

fishing game experiment (do children value effort when considering effort?)

• 3-5 yr olds in a fishing game, 2 objects have to fished out of 2 buckets one child in charge of one bucket and a puppet in charge of another

• Sets it up so puppet does more work than the child (condition 1) or less work than the child (condition 2)

• Child has to distribute rewards and share with puppet, will the amount of work affect how much they share? (like the dictator game)

fishing game experiment (do children value effort when considering effort?) results

when left in a room to distribute rewards child gave  herself 4 to herself and 3 to the puppet, looked to see when experimenter was watching when she got to 50/50 split of rewards, when deciding to give the extra to herself

• Results: gave more stickers to themselves when they did more work for both 3 and 5 yr olds

• If puppet did more work = 50/50 but if they did more work they allocated more stickers to themselves 

disadvantageous inequity

 the bad deal

advantageous inequity

the good deal

inequity game

• 2 kids that are strangers and skittles placed on trays and researcher decides the distribution so 4:1 and kid with handle has decision making power so he can say if he likes or doesnt like it, if he likes it they get the distribution of skittles and if he says he doesnt like it nobody gets anything

• Accept or reject

inequity game (results)

• When he gets less/on bad end of the deal he decides to reject and prefers no one gets anything rather than one person gets more than the other 

• Control: 1 skittle on both sides

• 1:1 = dont see rejections really at any ages

• 1:4 (unequal/disadvantageous): amount of rejection is way higher and increases with age

• What about if they are on the good side?

• 4:1 (unequal/advantageous): they are just as happy to get more than the other person then to get 1 to 1 up to age 7, age 8-9 = now responding to unfairness ½ of the time and there are more rejections

what conclusions can we draw from the inequity game?

• Disadvantageous inequity aversion emerges early and grows stronger with age

• Advantageous inequity aversion emerges late

inequity game: reputation version

• Option1: put stickers in plastic eggs so you can't see what inside, one that participant gets and one for their classmate, either 4:1 or they both get 4 (equal and nice, no cost to this option), nobody will see what you chose

• Condition 2: egg is transparent so ppl can see what you chose

• Manipulate if other person is staring at them doing it or not

what were the results of the inequity reputation game in the visible/transparent egg condition?

kids 70% to give 4 stickers when actor/distributor is visible, when the other kid didn't look at them only 30% gave 4 stickers

what were the results of the inequity reputation game in the visible/opaque egg condition?

30% gave 4 stickers when actor was watching and 12% gave 4 stickers when actor wasn't looking

fairness expectations in children/ equality among 3rd parties (study)

• 19 month olds: see 2 puppets and experimenter says shes got 2 toys, then experimenter either gives both toys to 1 puppet or 1 per puppet

fairness expectations in children/ equality among 3rd parties (study) results

• Looked longer at unequal distribution (suggests expectation for equal distribution

• Inanimate control condition: no difference in looking time, only expect it when its about 2 agents no expectations for inanimate objects

fairness expectations in children when the amount of work is unequal (study)

• 21 months: stage setting, 2 experimenters and they have to clean up and get stickers if they clean

• Condition 1: only 1 does the work

• Condition 2: both do the work

• In all conditions experimenter distributes them equally

fairness expectations in children when the amount of work is unequal (study) results

looked longer when reward was the same for unequal amount of work done

• Only form this expectation when stickers really are a reward for cleaning up toys 

• Also don't form expectation when they cant see how much work was done by each person

third party equality in 6-8 yr olds (study)

• 5 erasers give 2 to mark and 2 to dan, what does child say they should do with the last one?

• What if they never know how much other one gets?

• What if one worked harder?

thrid party equality in 6-8 yr olds (study) results

• says to throw it away even though they like erasers (100% of participants said this )

• 80% said throw it in garbage

• only 10% said should throw it away, so liked to make the inequality when amount of work was also unequal 

what trends do we observe in kids conceptualization of fairness?

• Fairness matters in children and adults in the absence of prosociality and envy

• Children understand that some things justify inequality while other do not

• They will throw away resources, even their own in order to be fair

where does moral judgment come from?

•  babies are born selfish and they must learn to value others and judge right from wrong (view 1)

• babies are born good and get corrupted by society, become more selective in when to be good and when to be selfish (view 2)

Do babies have a preference for those who are helpful vs those who aren't? (experiment procedure)

• Red character tries to get up the hill and the yellow one comes in and helps red character get up the hill

• Condition 2: blue character pushes the red character back down the hill

• Yellow = good, red = bad

• Babies get to choose which one they want to play with, experimenter doesn't know what the experiment was prior

Do babies have a preference for those who are helpful vs those who aren't? (experiment procedure) results

• 6 months: 100% picked the helping character 

What if the red ball was just an object not an agent would this change results?

there was no difference in what babies reach for because they only care when agents are involved

who do babies choose between Helper vs neutral character than a neutral study with a hinderer vs a neutral character?

babies preferred helpful to neutral and preferred neutral to hinder so they seem to have a baseline preference for helpful individuals

what was piaget’s belief about childrens intentions?

believed that children under 7 believed what determines an action is good or bad is the consequence of the action not the motives of the intentions behind it and that its not until age 11 that they consider intentions

babies intentions study

when there was a large stain on carpet by accident vs small stain on purpose young kids thought it was worse for the large stain and older kids said the small stain was worse considering intention

how does intention evolve with age?

• the intentional action gets judged worse and worse than the accident and this difference is significant even at age 5 

who did 10 month olds reach for when deciding between an accidental vs an intentional helper?

• reached for intentional helper more than the accidental one (shows intention is guiding reaching behaviour)

who did children reach for when choosing between an accidental vs intentional harmer?

• reached for intentional helper more than the accidental one (shows intention is guiding reaching behaviour)

what did Aristotle believe makes someone moral?

what makes you a moral person is that it was morally easy to do so no part of you would be reluctant to do it, no inner struggle

what is the view opposing aristotle’s on what makes someone a moral person?

What makes something moral is that it was a hard thing to do, what makes it moral is if it was the right thing to do, doing it cause its the right thing even though all else being equal you wouldn't want to do it 

judging inner conflict study

3-5 yr olds get 2 stories about 2 characters where they both did good things but one struggled to make the moral decision while the other didnt and the kids had to pick which was more good

inner conflict condition (emma story )

she has to clean up her toys but wants to play with her friends finds it hard to give up playing with friends for cleaning but does it anyways cause its the right thing to do 

no inner conflict condition (amy story)

•  amy is told to do the dishes but her favourite show is playing, easy for her to chose to do dishes cause she alr watched tv earlier so she cleans it and has no trouble with her decision

which person did the children think were more good morally?

3 to5 yr olds preferred the person who found it easy + gave the prize but adults thought the opposite 

judging inner conflict experiment 2

•  just moral judgement this time and found that pattern was the same as the first experiment

judging inner conflict experiment 3

the experimenters asked kids who was most likely to act morally in the future and found that the kids said it was the person who had no inner conflict while the adults were 50/50 split between both people

judging inner conflict experiment 4

experimenters wanted to see what the kids and adults thought if in both conditions they gave into temptation (no struggle to give in vs struggle to given)

judging inner conflict experiment 4 (results)

•  see that adults prefer conflicted person and 6-8 say the same but 3-5 yr olds are split (thinks its more likely to be bad just do it, no inner struggle stuff)

ultimatum game

• you can propose a split of the 10 dollars and that person can reject (get zero) or accept

• anonymous/one shot deal

• Adults usually offer 50/50 and reject 30% 

• Person can punish low ballers

2nd party punishment

ppl can punish the person who has done wrong to you

ultimatum game in children

in 4 to 5 yr olds they accept any offer they receive while 6-8 yr olds reject less than ½ split

• Kids on proposer side usually make equal offers in older children

• Strategic in kids cause when in the dictator game they offer less (6-8 yr olds, evidence of strategy 

3rd party punishment

• punish unfairness even when not personally affected by uncooperative behaviour, even when punishment is costly

3rd party punishment experiment in children

• Skittles can pull lever for 2 other ppl (impartial judge)

• Participant in study is just an observer of some distribution another kid, makes decision on behalf of 2 absent kids 

• Participant has to ok the distribution 

• Cost manipulation: rejection is costly or cost free

•  Equal trials:3:3 split

• Selfish trials: 0:6 split

• Get 25 skittle to start and they have to put one skittle in red box to reject distribution, non costly they dont lose any skittles

3rd party punishment experiment in children (results)

5 yr olds: when punishment was costly they almost never rejected the allocation, when there was no cost they punished a little more

6 yr olds: when punishment was costly they were more likely to punish the unequal divider and when there was no cost they were even more likely to punish the selfish divider

what are the conclusions we can draw from moral development in children

cost of punishment are salient for 5-6 yr olds, 6 yr olds are sensitive to both distribution and direction of inequality and from 6yrs old children are willing to pay to promote fairness even when they are unaffected 3rd parties