Children's Moral Development Flashcards
(42 cards)
What are the two types of rules under Piaget’s 1932/1965 proposal of moral judgement?
Rules of games:
- studied children playing marbles, interested to see how children dealt with issues regarding fairness
Moral rules:
- asked children “why is it wrong to lie or steal” or presented children with vignettes & asked them about ‘naughtiness’
What were children asked in Piaget’s Inkblot Moral Puzzle?
A little boy wants to help his father by filling the ink-well, he accidentally spills it and makes a large stain.
The other little boy plays with the ink-well even though it is forbidden and has been told many times not to touch it. He spills some ink and makes a small stain.
Which boy was naughtier?
What happens in the Moral realist stage in the stages of moral development?
Judgement is made based on the extent of damage caused.
How does a child in the Moral subjectivist stage of the stages of moral development think?
Subjective factors, including intentions, are considered.
What happens to a child in Morality of Constrain/heteronomous stage of moral development?
- Children aged younger 7
- Children start being aware of rules
- However rules are specified by an authority figure and are absolute
- People’s intentions do not matter, only the consequences of an action
- Children believe rules are ‘real things’ (like an object)
What happens to a child in the Transitional Period of Piaget’s stages of moral development?
- Children aged 7/8-10/11
- Children have more interaction with peers
- They learn rules can be constructed by the group
- Allows them to become more autonomous in their thinking about moral issues
What happens to a child in the stage of Autonomous Morality in Piaget’s stages of moral development?
- Child is aged 11 or 12
- Moral relativism emerges
- Rules are no longer seen as fixed, can be the product of social agreement
- Start evaluating the fairness of the punishment delivered by adults
- Motives and intentions become crucial in judging people’s behaviour
What is the evidence to support Piaget’s stages of moral development?
There is evidence from children from many different countries that motives and intentions are taken into consideration as children grow older.
Give some criticisms of Piaget’s stages of moral development?
- Stories place large demand on memory
- Information on intentions of character appear first in the story
- Information on scale of damage made by the character appear last in the story
Due to limitations on memory, younger children might focus on what was said last (Parson et al., 1976)
What happened in Wimmer, Wachter, & Perner’s (1982) study?
- Were interested in whether children
- 76 Ps aged 4, 6 & 8
- Had to do a reward-allocation task, Ps had to allocate a reward to one of two characters in a story
- One boy is lazy and puts in no effort, but has high ability, so has a high outcome
- Second boy puts in a lot of effort, but has low ability so low outcome
What were the results of Wimmer, Wachter & Perner’s (1982) study?
- No age differences found in gender
- The character with more effort received more reward
Concluded even 4-year-olds understand causal relationship among effort, ability & achievement outcome
What did Kanngiesser & Warneken do in their 2012 study of merit and fairness?
- Aimed to measure merit & fairness
- Children aged 3-5
- Child worked with a puppet to collect gold coins from a big bucket
- Coins are exchanged for prizes, such as a sticker
- Child then had to decide how to share their prize stickers with puppet partner
What were the results of Kanngiesser & Warneken’s (2012) study of merit and fairness?
By the age of 3, children choose to reward their peers based on merit. Children gave puppet more stickers if it had ‘worked harder’ collecting coins
Give some limitations of Piaget’s proposal of the Stages of Moral Development.
- When stories are presented together with pictures/video clips, pre-school children take into account people’s intentions to their actions
- Strichartz and Burton (1990) found that from 6 years onwards, children take into account other people’s intention when assessing the naughtiness of someone lying
Outline Kohlberg’s 1976 proposal of moral development
Proposed moral development goes through different stages that are discontinuous and hierarchical
What was the Moral Dilemma Kohlberg used to measure moral development?
- Heinz’ wife was very ill
- There was one drug the doctors though could save her (form of radium recently discovered)
- Drug was expensive to make, but pharmacist was charging Heinz 10x what it cost to make
- Heinz borrowed money but couldn’t get together enough for drug
- Pharmacist wouldn’t sell it cheaper or let Heinz pay him later
- So Heinz considers stealing drug for his wife
What questions did Kohlberg ask children after they heard the Moral Dilemma?
- Should Heinz steal the drug?
- Would it be wrong or right if he did? Why?
- Is it a husband’s duty to steal the drug for his wife if he cannot get it any other way?
What are the six stages of Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Reasoning?
- Obedience and Punishment (pre-conventional)
- Self-interest (pre-conventional)
- Good boy/girl (conventional)
- Law and order (conventional)
- Social contract (post-conventional)
- Principled conscience (post conventional) - not everyone achieves this level
What falls under the Methodology limitation to Kohlberg’s proposal of moral development?
- Heinz story was too abstract for young children to understand
- Method used to score answers of children was subjective and up to interpretation by research
What limitations to Kohlberg’s proposal of moral development fall under Gender Bias?
- Kohlberg developed his proposal by interviewing only boys&men, as it was believed females lagged in moral reasoning
- Gilligan (1977, 1982) claim males focus on principles of justice & rights when reasoning for moral dilemmas, females are more likely to put emphasis on caring&responsibility
What limitations to Kohlberg’s proposal of moral development fall under ‘There are no discrete changes’?
- Moral development does not follow discrete stages: at a given time, a person might solve a dilemma using reasoning from stage 1 but could solve a different dilemma at the same time using reasoning from stage 3
- The situation in question is what determines what type of reasoning needs to be used
What limitations to Kohlberg’s proposal of moral development fall under ‘Unrealistic Stories’?
Kohlberg’s dilemmas:
- are very removed from children and even young adolescents
- the dilemmas present 2 bad options: steal or let your wife die
List some strengths of Kohlberg’s proposal of moral development?
- Evidence for first 5 stages of moral reasoning proposed (from many different countries/societies/ethnicities)
- Demonstrates there are relative systematic changes with age in children’s moral judgement
- Children with higher levels of perspective take or cognitive skills have higher levels of moral judgement
- This theory helps us understand how cognitive processes contribute to moral behaviour
What stages fall under the Pre-conventional heading in Kohlberg’s 6 stages of moral reasoning?
Obedience and Punishment
&
Self-interest
