Morality in Childhood Cummulative Final

Morality

Morality

the set of customs, standards, values, or codes of conduct that differentiate “right” and “wrong” actions, intentions, and decisions

Two schools of moral thought

1. Deontology 2. Consequentialism/Utilitarianism

Deontology

Focus on duty, and the rightness or wrongness of actions independent of their outcomes

Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative: An action is right if the person would will that the rule governing it be a universal rule

Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end

Motive is central

The Golden Rule – do unto others…

Individualist – personal moral code

Consequentialism/Utilitarianism

Actions should be judged by their consequences alone

By Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill

Act always in the way that will bring about the greatest total good (happiness) – the greatest good for the greatest number.

Actions are not judged on their motives, only on their outcomes

“The ends justify the means”

Sociocentric/collectivist view

Deontologists and consequentialists have what in common?

• Rational – the answers to moral decisions can be reached by reason and logic

• Parsimonious (a single rule for all moral questions)

• Focus on the abstract and universal (one rule for all situations, all people, all cultures)

How would each school of thought answer this question?- are they different?

A runaway trolley is coming down the track. It is headed towards five people who cannot get out of its way. You realize that you can save the five people by throwing a switch and diverting the trolley down another track, but, you know that if you do so, the trolley will kill a lone man who is on the other track.

The trolley is headed for five people. You are standing next to a large man on a footbridge spanning the tracks. The only way to save the five people is to push this man off the footbridge and into the path of the trolley. You cannot throw yourself onto the path as you are too slight and will not stop the trolley.

From a utilitarian perspective, there should be no difference– in each case, you should opt to kill the lone man for the greater good (saving 5)

From a deontological perspective, they are different – in the first, the death of the lone man is a side-effect, in the second, you are a direct cause of harm to another person.

Moral Dumbfounding

Our judgments of right and wrong are influenced by our emotional reactions – such as empathy and disgust, then we use reason ( even when we cannot rationally explain our answers)

_______ believe that morality is innate and universal, while _________ believe that morality is learned and varies across cultures.

nativists; empiricists

Empiricist

We are born “blank slates”

Moral principles are learned as a result of our experiences with family, religious leaders, society and culture

Morality is expected to vary across cultures

Nativist

Humans are born with a moral sense

It is given to us by God, or based in evolved psychological and neurobiological mechanisms

Morality is universal

Socialization

the process by which children are assisted by others to adopt the values, standards and behaviors of their group

Moral development involves:

Learning to care for and respect the welfare of others; empathy

Accepting societal values, attitudes and behavioral standards for not causing physical or psychological harm to others and assisting others who need help

Accepting conventional forms of behavior

Important parts of the brain for moral behavior

Dorsolateral PFC and Ventromedial PFC

Rationalist

Rationalists presume moral knowledge comes from reasoning about one’s experience with the world – it is self-constructed through interactions with the world and the people in it

Children’s moral abilities are highly dependent upon their cognitive abilities

The ability to verbalize reasons for behavior weighs heavily in determining a child’s moral “stage”

Who are rationalists?

Piaget, Kohlberg, Turiel, Gilligan

Piaget’s theory of Moral Development

Morality is also a developmental process; At each developmental stage, children engage in new forms of social relationships and their thinking about moral rules changes

Piaget observed children playing marbles; Observed how children understood the rules of the game – he questioned them about their thinking about the rules and from this created the stages of moral development (premoral, heteronomous morality, and autonomous morality)

Believes that It is not innate, it is not learned, it is self-constructed through social interactions (playing) with other children. Playing games together, coming up with rules, taking turns, is experimenting with the social world, just as playing with the glasses and water is experimenting with the physical world

premoral stage (piaget)

From 0-4 years, Characterized by anomy (no regulation by others or the self); very limited awareness and understanding of morality and social rules

Marked by egocentrism; Cannot take others’ perspectives into account and project own thoughts and wishes onto others

Heteronomous Morality (Piaget)

Years 5-10, What determines whether an action is good are bad are the consequences and consequences determine how bad it is

Children believe in:

Moral absolutism (justice and rules are fixed and cannot be changed) -

Heteronomy (strict adherence to rules and duties, rather than personal convictions)

Acts that are not consistent with rules are “bad” and those that are consistent with them are “good”

Immanent justice (all transgressions should be punished)

Autonomous Morality (Piaget)

Shift from egocentrism to perspective taking (children cognitively able to take the perspective of others)

Recognition that rules are the product of social agreement and can be changed by mutual consent (children participate in elaboration of moral norms instead of receiving them readymade)

Autonomy: behavior is self-regulated, child can follow his or her own sense and set of morals

Actions are judged on the basis on intentions rather than consequences

Violation of rules are not always wrong or inevitably punished; the punishment given should fit the crime

egalitarian interactions

peer relationships which are balanced and equal help to foster moral development and perspective-taking

Criticisms of Piaget

Underestimated capacities of young children

There is evidence that children as young as 3-4 years can take other people’s perspectives and understand intentions

Stages are not so distinct; Piaget himself found significant overlap in the different stages – more like phases

Argued that girls are less advanced morally

Children appear to make different judgments about the legitimacy of rules and punishments depending on whether the rule concerns moral or social conventional violations

Kohlberg’s Theories of Moral Development

Followed the development of moral judgment beyond the ages studied by Piaget and determined moral maturity was longer and more gradual process

Created a stage theory on moral development that expanded on Piaget’s theories; Progression through the stages depends on: – The individual’s motivation (needs) – Opportunities to take the perspective of others (social perspective-taking) – Exposure to social institutions that foster equality and reciprocity (democratic institutions)

Preconventional Morality (Kohlberg)

Right and wrong determined by punishment and rewards; morality is external. Consists of two stages: punishment/obedience and instrumental relativist

Stage one: punishment/obedience (Kohlberg)

“Might makes right.” Do good to avoid punishment

Stage 2: Instrumental Relativist (Kohlberg)

“What’s in it for me?” Do good to be rewarded.

Conventional Morality (Kohlberg)

Right and wrong determined by social rules and obligations. Made of two stages: good boy/nice girl and law and order

Stage 3: Good Boy/Nice Girl (Kohlberg)

Do good to please others and to obtain approval.

Stage 4: Law and Order (Kohlberg)

Doing one’s duty extends beyond immediate relationships to society. Morality is maintaining social order.

Post-conventional Morality(Kohlberg)

Morality involves upholding personal moral principles of rights and justice. Consists of two stages: social contract and universal ethical principles

Stage 5: Social Contract (Kohlberg)

Recognizes difference between moral and legal rules; rules that are unjust should be changed via democratic process.

Stage 6: Universal Ethical Principles (Kohlberg)

Right and wrong determined by personal reflection to reach impartial principles like Categorical Imperative.

How do you teach morality (Piaget and Kohlberg’s views)

rejected traditional “character education” practices (i.e., teaching children virtues by example and rewarding them when virtuous)

Goal of moral education is developmental – to help the person reach the next stage: do this by making children reason through moral dilemmas

“Just community” schools – students are full-participation members in democratic community; have a say in all policies and decisions (teachers still provide strong guidance)

Criticisms of Kohlberg’s Moral Theory

Original stories oversimplified the nature of dilemmas people face in everyday moral decision making

Emphasizes only abstract rights and principles of justice, doesn’t consider other factors of morality, like emotions, interconnectedness, compassion, etc.

Evidence of regression (moving back to earlier stages) raised questions concerning the invariant sequence

Turiel’s Theory of Moral Development

Found that children as young as 3 years of age don’t treat all rules the same; they distinguish between different domains (domain theory)

There are 3 domains of social knowledge: moral issues, social-conventional issues, and personal/psychological issues

Moral Issues (Domain theory)

harm, welfare, and fairness

Social-Conventional Issues (domain theory)

customs, tradition, and social norms (e.g., modes of dress, table manners, greetings)

Personal/Psychological Issues (domain theory)

privacy, bodily integrity and control, choices and preferences (e.g., choice of friends and recreational activities)

Children as young as 3-4 years treat moral transgressions as:

o more generalizably wrong

more independent of rules and authority

more serious

more deserving of punishment

less alterable

more important than conventional rules

Criticisms of Turiel’s Domain Theory

The fact that children can differentiate between moral and conventional transgressions does not mean that they understand the differences

How knowledge of the domains develops through social interaction is not described in detail

Carol Gilligan’s theories on moral development

Gilligan thought Kohlberg was biased against women (only males included in his studies)

Morality of justice and rights- Based on equality

Morality of caring and responsibility- Based on non-violence

Believed that morality of care was more typical of women; emphasized gender differences in morality

Criticisms of Gilligan’s theory of moral development

Moral reasoning doesn’t appear to follow these distinct gender lines

Most evidence shoes that both males and females reason based on justice as well as care; in a meta-analysis of 113 studies of moral reasoning 72% found no gender differences

According to the rationalists, very young and pre-verbal children are _______

amoral/pre-moral

empathy and empathetic concern in infants

Even babies experience distress when they see others in distress and will attempt to soothe them

Shortly after their 1st birthday, more than half of the children had made at least one prosocial response indicative of empathic concern that was predominantly physical (e.g., hugging, patting)

1.5- to 2-year-olds show concern and subsequent prosocial behavior toward a victim of harm even if the victim expresses no overt distress cues while being harmed (Vaish et al., 2009)

Children sympathize less in response to “crybabies” – they can discern justified and unjustified distress (Hepach et al., 2013; Chiarella & Poulin-Dubos, 2013)

helping behaviors in infants

In 2nd year, infants behave altruistically by helping others without being asked

By 14-18 months, infants will pick up an object that an adult has accidentally dropped or open a cabinet door when an adult cannot do so because his hands are full

Young children may not be able to articulate it in language, but their actions indicate they understand a lot about helping, sharing, the feelings of others, fairness, and social norms

They are tuned to the needs of others and are motivated to act prosocially

view their cooperative efforts as joint – they are interdependent with others and show signs of recognition of joint commitment

Socializationists

believe children become prosocial as a result of encouragement and rewards from adults

Moral evaluation and judgment in infants

By 8 months of age, the value of a social act is not determined solely by its positive or negative effect upon a recipient, but also on that recipient’s own status as a positive or negative individual

infants’ preference for Givers versus Takers is influenced by prosocial behaviors

Toddlers in the give-atreat condition gave the treat significantly more often to the Prosocial puppet (81% subjects); Toddlers in the take-atreat condition took the treat significantly more often from the Antisocial puppet, (88% subjects)

Equality bias

young children’s tendency to focus on equality of outcomes

Children prefer those who divide resources equally and are biased to divide resources equally themselves

studies suggest that even young children (<3 years) are capable of:

• Empathy and compassion: feel suffering at the pain of those around us and want to make this pain go away.

• Helping and cooperation: intrinsically motivated to help and work together with others

• Moral judgment: some capacity to distinguish between kind and cruel actions.

• A rudimentary sense of justice: a desire to see good actions rewarded and bad actions punished.

• A rudimentary sense of fairness: a tendency to favor those who divide resources equally, and sensitivity to situations in which one is getting less than someone else.

Infant studies suggest that

From early on, children are tuned to others’ needs and emotional states (empathy) and are motivated to act prosocially toward them; These motivations are innate – they are present before the influence of experience

Moral emotions

“are linked to the interests of welfare either of society as a whole or at least of persons other than the judge or agent” (Haidt, 2003)

Moral emotions provide the internal motivational force to do good and to avoid doing bad

Haidt’s faimilies of moral emotions

1. Other-condemning: anger, contempt, disgust

2. Other-suffering: sympathy/empathy

3. Other-praising: awe, gratitude

4. Self-conscious: embarrassment, guilt, shame

Self-conscious emotions

Shame and guilt are self-conscious emotions because they are evoked by self-reflection and self-evaluation

Thought to serve as an “emotional moral barometer” that indicate when we transgress moral (and nonmoral) standards

Actual behavior is unnecessary for shame and guilt to exert an influence – they can be evoked by anticipated behavior, inhibiting the behavior (transgression) before it is committed

Guilt

Negative feelings about a specific behavior or action taken by the self

Primary concern is with a particular behavior’ involves feelings of tension, remorse, a sense of responsibility and regret, and a desire to undo aspects of the behavior, but it does not effect one’s core identity

Motivates reparative action and thus thought to be an adaptive emotion

Shame

intense negative feelings about the stable, global self

Tends to be associated with personal distress, rather than attempts at reparations or empathy; shame does not engender prosocial/moral behavior

Shame/guilt are ___________ that effect decision making and behavior

somatic markers

Moral transgressions produce a negative somatic (bodily/arousal) state that “marks” that behavior o In future situations that require selecting among possible behaviors, that somatic state is evoked (actor may be aware or unaware of the state) and inhibits the action

Development of self-conscious emotions

Children’s capacity for self-recognition (e.g., in mirror), emerges ~18months), so we shouldn’t expect to see signs of shame or guilt in children younger than 18 months

In the second year of life, children become aware of their transgressions and begin to experience negative emotions

Early precursor of guilt/shame (cannot differentiate between these two in young children) is distress (e.g., crying) following misbehavior

After 2 years of age, they are increasingly able to respond with other-oriented sympathetic concern

Children who experience guilt after misbehavior are likely to transgress less in future

Across all 3 ages, children who showed more ________ also were less likely to misbehave (be more moral) when tested at 56 months

guilt

Evolutionary psychology

understanding our mental faculties though the same lens – as a product of evolution

Individuals who were______________________________were more successful than those who continued to ________: they survived and left more offspring. Those offspring also exhibited and propagated these tendencies

less selfish and worked cooperatively in groups; work alone

Capacities like sensitivity to other’s emotional states, empathic concern, cooperation, altruism, gratitude _______ based on cooperation with other people within our social group

evolved

The function of morality in evolutionary theory is to….

allow otherwise selfish individuals to reap the benefits of cooperation

Groupishness

Our moral minds were designed to unite us into groups (teams) and divide us against other teams (Us vs. Them)

Evolved Moral Capacities

Empathy:we care about what happens to others

Anger, disgust: we punish/avoid uncooperative others

Shame, guilt: we punish ourselves for being uncooperative

Judgment/selfconsciousness: we attend to how people treat others and modify our behavior accordingly. We also gossip

Embarrassment: when we fail to cooperate, we show we are sorry

Indignation: we are inclined to punish antisocial others, even when we are not directly affected by their actions

The capuchin experiment suggests that these monkeys have expectations about fairness. This implies they:

• have norms regarding fair distribution • can compare the rewards they receive with those available and those received by others • can compare their own efforts with those of others • experience negative emotions when these comparisons contradict their expectations about fairness • experience social emotions homologous to human moral outrage (unfairness/inequity)

What are the evolutionary advantages of a sense of fairness?

• Recognizing when you receive less than a partner tells you that the benefits of cooperation may be in danger • Protesting against this situation (inequity aversion – IA) helps restore the cooperative relationship and its benefits

The Ultimatum Game

In the Ultimatum Game, Player 1 proposes to divide up sum of money ($10) between Player 1 and 2. Player 2 can accept the offer (money is divided as proposed) or reject (no one gets anything)

What usually happens: Proposers usually make offers that are fair (e.g., 50-50 split) and responders often reject offers that are more than just a little unfair (e.g., 70/30); this is because of our human inequity aversion

Empathy in non-primate species

Ravens (Fraser & Bugnyar, 2010) and rooks (Seed et al. 2007) Bystander post-conflict affiliation behavior among individuals who share a valuable relationship

Dogs (Cools et al., 2008), horses (Cozzi et al., 2010), elephants (Byrne et al., 2008)

An elementary type of empathy, emotional contagion, which is the display of matched emotional expressions and behavior, can be demonstrated in rodents (e.g., Langford et al., 2006)

The evidence suggests that these animals are sensitive to the emotions of others, and in some cases, motivated to do something to ameliorate the other individual’s state

de Waal’s Russian Doll Model

Empathy is a multilayered phenomenon

At the core is emotional contagion, the simplest form of empathy →seen in lower mammals (e.g., rodents)

More complex forms of empathy, such as consolation behavior and perspective-taking, are built on this core → seen in big-brained mammals

The most basic other-caring relationship is that of _____________________. All forms of human prosocial and moral behavior thought to have roots in this basic attachment.

a parent and its offspring

Oxytocin and prosocial behaviors

Oxytocin is released during labor and when a mother is caring for an infant, particularly when breastfeeding

Oxytocin appears to have been co-opted by evolution to support other forms of bonding and affiliation – grooming, sexual arousal and love, sympathy and trust

Oxytocin has important benefits: People with high levels of oxytocin in their blood are more likely to cooperate, share, and trust others o People given oxytocin through a nose spray behave in a more trusting, generous way (e.g., they give more money during the ultimatum game) and are more empathic towards others

Innateness

the extent to which the brain is prewired; but the brain is also plastic, and can be rewired

Our ______ are the product of natural selection, but are also shaped by our environments and culture (nurture)

brains

New Atheism

Religion is an evolutionary “by-product,” belief in God(s) is an accident

We are hypersensitive to agency (faces in clouds, gods cause weather)

Religion is an accident – there is no evolutionary benefit; Religion is also a parasite – makes people do bad things for themselves but good for the religion (e.g., suicide bombings)

Religion conferred an evolutionary advantage

Religion does benefit groups by making them more cohesive and cooperative

Religious groups were more cohesive, had an advantage and survived better

Religion acts as social glue – it is the community that drives its effects on moral behavior, not the beliefs

Religious people are more likely to give to charity

Haidt’s theories of moral foundations

Studies morality and emotion, and how they vary across cultures

Haidt wondered, if morality was really all about harm, why many cultures moralize practices with nothing to do with harm?

gut feelings (intuition) are the basis of all judgments, reasoning comes later

WEIRD morality

Western • Educated • Industrialized • Rich • Democratic

The WEIRDer you are, the more you see a world full of separate objects, rather than relationships

In WEIRD cultures, morality is narrow and concerned with autonomy - individuals harming, oppressing, or cheating others.The individual (and his or her rights) is central

Richard Shweder

Found clear cultural differences between Orissa and the US in moral judgments, even when the scenarios involved clear harm or inequity

Moral Intuitions

Immediate, reflexive reactions such as revulsion, disgust, and sympathy that trigger the response that an act is wrong

Fast, automatic, and affect-laden processes

Evaluation of good/bad, like/dislike without any awareness of the steps to get there

Immediate gut reaction without reasoning

The product of evolution (pre-wired)

Shaped by our culture (re-wired)

Social Intuitionist Model

Automatic processes (intuition/the elephant) run the human mind, and have done for our evolutionary history

When reasoning evolved, the brain did not hand over the reins. Instead, reasoning evolved because it did something useful for the elephant - finding reasons/justifications for the elephant’s actions and decisions

we rationalize our intuitive judgments in order to influence other people

Haidt’s moral tastebuds

Harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, in-group loyalty, authority/respect, purity/sanctity, liberty/oppression

These moral taste receptors are innate and universal psychological adaptations (products of evolution) that draw people’s attention to specific types of events (e.g., cruelty, disrespect, unsanitariness) and trigger automatic intuitive reactions (e.g., sympathy, anger, disgust)

care/harm

it is wrong to hurt people; it is good to relieve suffering

Adaptive challenge: Protect and care for children

Original triggers: Suffering, distress, or neediness expressed by child

Current triggers: Baby seals, cute cartoon characters

Characteristic emotions: Compassion, empathy

Relevant virtues: Caring, kindness

Fairness/ Reciprocity

justice and fairness are good; people have certain rights that need to be upheld in social interactions

Adaptive challenge: Reap benefits of two-way partnerships

Original triggers: Cheating, cooperation, deception

Current triggers: Marital fidelity, broken vending machines

Characteristic emotions: Anger, gratitude, guilt

Relevant virtues: Fairness, justice, trustworthiness

In-Group/Loyalty

people should be true to their group and wary of threats from the outside. Allegiance, loyalty and patriotism are virtues; betrayal is bad

Adaptive challenge: form cohesive coalitions

Original triggers: threat or challenge to group

Current triggers: sports teams

Characteristic emotions: group pride, rage at traitors

Relevant virtues: Loyalty, patriotism, self-sacrifice

Authority/Respect

people should respect social heirarchy; social order is necessary for human life

Adaptive challenge: Forge beneficial relationships within hierarchies •

Original triggers: signs of dominance and submission

Current triggers: bosses, respected professionals

Characteristic emotions: respect, fear

Relevant virtues: obedience, deference

purity/sanctity

the body and certain aspect of life are sacred. Cleanliness and health, as well as their derivatives of chastity and piety, are all good. Pollution, contamination, and the associated character traits of lust and greet are all bad

Adaptive challenge: avoid contaminants

Original triggers: waste products, diseased people

Current triggers: taboo ideas • Characteristic emotions: disgust

Relevant virtues: temperance, chastity, piety, cleanliness

Liberty/Oppression

Feelings of resentment toward those who dominate and restrict liberty Often in tension with Authority/Respect

Hatred of bullies and dominators motivates people to come together, in solidarity, to oppose or take down the oppressor

The particular triggering events for __________ and reactions they evoke are shaped by the culture you grow up in

moral intuitions

Bloom’s criticisms on Haidt’s moral foundations

Paul Bloom (Yale) argues for the importance of deliberative reasoning, and against the “reason as slave to the passions” (intuition/emotion) view

“Moral dumbfounding” only occurs in contrived situations – most of our everyday moral dilemmas (e.g., drunk driving, equal pay for equal work, charity donations) can be easily justified by appealing to fundamental concerns about harm, equity and kindness

If moral attitudes were merely the result of nonrational factors, they would not show change over time

COOL cognition

controlled by DLPFC; Intelligence, reasoning, control of behavior, regulation of emotion

HOT cognition

Controlled by VMPFC; emotion, desire, gut feelings

Dual systems model

Two brain systems compete for control of behavior:

System 1 involves automatic, “hot,” emotional processes

System 2 involves controlled, “cool,” cognitive processes

Phineas Gage

A railroad worker who survived a severe brain injury to PFC in 1848, leading to significant changes in his personality and behavior.

Antonio Damasio VMPFC patients

showed that patients with damage to ventromedial PFC did not show an autonomic response (measured by skin conductance) to emotionally charged stimuli

These patients also experienced everyday difficulties in decision-making – particularly in using emotion to guide decisions

proposed that VMPFC patients lacked the “gut feelings” that we have when we encounter particular stimuli or situations

patients with VMPFC lesions exhibited abnormally _____________ judgments on moral dilemmas

“utilitarian”

System ___ brings about deontological moral judgments (based on rights and duties, while system ___ brings about utilitarian judgments (the greater good)

1 (automatic hot emotional processes); 2(controlled cool cognitive processes)

_______________ was more activated by the personal condition (footbridge) than by the impersonal or nonmoral conditions

Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC)

Impersonal dilemmas (switch) elicited more activity in _________________

dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)

When there is strong conflict (as in the footbridge dilemma), ___________ tends to dominate – consistent with fact that deontological judgment often trumps the greater good

emotional intuition

FMRI and The Ultimatum Game

Unfair offers light up the insula, associated with anger, disgust and autonomic arousal as well as amygdala

Unfair offers that are later accepted had greater DLPFC than insula activation – reasoning and “cognitive control” may be needed to “overcome” the unfairness reaction and accept the offer.

sex difference – males activated their amygdala to a much greater degree to unfair offers

ASPD (Antisocial Personality Disorder) is characterized by:

✓ shallow emotional responses ✓ diminished capacity for empathy or remorse ✓ increased likelihood of antisocial behavior ✓ poor behavioral control ✓ lack of moral emotions (guilt, shame, empathy); deficient conscience development; don’t care about emotions of others ✓ intact intellectual capabilities