moral development dev psych

Moral Judgement

Research questions on moral development

▪ How do children think developmentally about moral issues?

▪ Does children’s reasoning about moral issues relate to their behavior?

▪ How early do caring and sharing or aggression and cruelty first appear in children?

▪ What factors contribute to differences among children in helpful and caring behaviors or antisocial behaviors?

▪ Can steps be taken to help children develop caring and helpful behaviors and reduce the likelihood of their developing immoral or antisocial behaviors?

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

• The stage of heteronomous morality

• Characteristic of children who have not achieved concrete operation

  • Younger than 7 years

  • Rules and duties to others regarded as unchangeable due to social and cognitive influence

  • Rigid acceptance of authorities’ rules

• Qualitative change: a child's fundamental way of thinking, perceiving, and interacting with the world changes entirely as they grow

Piaget’s Transitional Period

Children reaching concrete operational stage of cognitive development

▪ Ages 7 to 10 years

▪ More interactions with peers

▪ Developing ability to perceive other’s perspectives and cooperate

Piaget’s autonomous morality

Rules based on social interaction & social agreements of groups

Ages 11 to 12 years

Moral relativism—no longer accept blind obedience to authority

Rules can be changed

Critique of Piaget’s theory

▪ Theory supported by research

▪ However, little support that peer interaction stimulates moral judgment

▪ Young children (even <2) incorporate intentionality into their judgements when it is made more obvious.

Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Reasoning

• Kohlberg was interested in sequences through which children’s 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

Kohlberg's Levels and Stages of Moral Reasoning

Preconventional level: self-centered, focusing on getting rewards and avoiding punishment

▪ Stage 1: punishment and obedience orientation

▪ Stage 2: instrumental and exchange orientation

Conventional level: centered 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

Postconventional level: centered on ideals, focusing on moral principles

▪ Stage 5: social contract or individual rights orientation

▪ Stage 6: universal ethical principles

Mean Percentage of Moral Reasoning at Each Stage for Each Age Group

Critique of Kohlberg’s theory

▪ Theory useful in understanding contribution of cognitive processes to moral behavior

▪ However, not sufficient distinction between true moral issues and social convention

▪ Reasoning not continuous

▪ Theory based on studies of boys

Gilligan: Gender and Moral Development

• Gilligan’s theory

  • 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, whereas females value caring, responsibility for others, and avoidance of exploiting or hurting others

  • Would cause males to score higher on Kohlberg’s hierarchy than others.

• Inconsistent - boys do not score higher than girls

• Consistent - girls do tend to exhibit more of the sort of moral reasoning

  • Gilligan suggested they would

Social Domain Theory of Moral Development

• Growth in moral reasoning occurs through gradual changes based on child’s social interactions with peers and adults and through direct socialization from parents.

• Differences in moral judgment are understood to result from differences in environments. Influence and relationships are bidirectional.

• Contemporary theory: Morality develops continuously

• Morality is socialized by parents, peers and other individuals

• Argues that children must understand principles in 3 domains:

  • Moral Domain: Grasp universal concepts of right and wrong, fairness, justice, etc (ex: Cannot steal another child’s toy)

  • Societal Domain: Concepts regarding rules and conventions in a society (ex: manners, appropriate clothing for contexts)

  • Personal Domain: Individual preferences rather than right/wrong (ex: choice of friends)

• Support for SDT has grown in last 20 years such that children regularly use and distinguish between these domains

• By age 3: children believe that violations of moral rules are worse than are violations of social conventions.

• By age 4: children believe that moral transgressions are wrong

Cultural Influences on Morality

• Moral, societal and personal judgments are found across cultures and children’s ability to distinguish is constant

• Some types of judgment (e.g., fairness) are fairly universal

• Specific issues in societal and personal domains differ:

  • Children in India believe they have moral obligation to care for parents, friends and strangers, children in the U.S. see it as matter of personal judgment (Miller et al., 1990)

  • Candy experiment illustrates stronger parental influence in India than U.S.

The Development of Conscience

• Conscience

  • An internal regulatory mechanism that increases the individual’s ability to conform to standards of conduct accepted in his or her culture

  • Restrains antisocial behavior or destructive impulses

  • Promotes children’s compliance with adults’ rules and standards and adherence to cultural standards

  • Fosters prosocial behavior

• Conscience develops early

  • By age 2, children recognize moral standards; they exhibit guilt when they do something wrong.

  • With age, children take on their parents’ moral values.

• Temperaments matter—fearless children show less guilt than do fearful children—even with gentle discipline

Prosocial Behavior

• Empathy: an 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

• Voluntary behavior intended to benefit othersBoth empathy and sympathy require taking others’ perspective

• Some elements of perspective taking emerge early

  • 14 mo become distressed when others are distressed

  • 18-25 mo toddlers will share objects w/ adult who has been harmed

  • Children are less able to act on feelings of sympathy until 3 years

Hamlin (2013) Helping or Hindering Puppet Studies

did an experiment where she showed babies a video of a shape trying to climb a hill. One shape would come along to help the climber the hill, while another would hinder the climber's progress. Hamlin found that babies preferred the helper shape

The Origins of Individual Differences in Prosocial Behavior

• Biological factors

  • Humans have a biological (evolutionary) predisposition for prosocial behavior; important for the survival of the species.

• Genetic factors

  • Identical twins are more similar in prosocial behavior than are fraternal twins.

  • Specific genes identified that might contribute to individualized, prosocial tendencies

  • Temperament contributes to individual differences in social cognition

• Parents socialize prosocial behavior in children by

  • Modeling and teaching prosocial behavior

  • Arranging opportunities for their children to engage in prosocial behavior

  • Disciplining their children and eliciting prosocial behavior from them

The Development of Antisocial Behaviors

Aggression: behavior 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 use of both kinds of aggression tends to be consistent across childhood

The Development of Aggression

Aggressive behavior occurs before 12 months of age, usually over objects; it does not involve hitting (e.g., tugging at an object)

By 18 months, physical aggression is seen.

Physical aggression decreases and verbal aggression increases when language development and control over emotions and actions begin

Prevalence of Self-reported Violent Crime for Males and Females at Different Ages

The Origins of Aggression

• Consistency between aggressive behavior in childhood and adolescence

• Biological correlates

  • Genetic risks, heredity, temperament

  • Neurological differences

  • Hormonal

• Social cognition

  • Aggressive children tend to interpret the world through an “aggressive” lens.

    • They may evaluate aggressive responses more favorably.

• 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

• Family influences

  • Harsh or low-quality parenting

  • Abusive parents

  • Parental punitiveness: cold, punitive parenting

    • Reciprocal relation between aggressive behavior and harsh punitive punishment

  • Troubled family interaction

  • Poor parental monitoring

  • Parental conflict

  • Poverty, neighborhood violence, and family stress

• Peer influence on aggression

  • Having aggressive friends and being exposed to violence

  • Peer pressure

  • In cultures where there is less emphasis on adherence to adults' standards, peers have a greater influence

Interventions for Aggressive and Antisocial Children

Children with aggressive or antisocial problem behaviors 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

Summary

▪ There is evidence of prosocial behavior and moral judgements early in life

▪ Both prosocial behaviors and moral judgements mature in complexity as children age.

▪ Antisocial behavior, like aggression is common in young children but typically decreases with age.

▪ Biology and socialization together can contribute to the maintenance of children’s aggressive tendencies