Exam 3: Cognitive Development in Adolescence: Moral Reasoning Flashcards
(23 cards)
Piaget’s Formal Operational (11+ Yrs)
-Able to think abstractly and make logical inferences about imaginative/hypothetical scenarios
-Verbal problem solving abilities
-Capacity to think about thought itself
-Thoughts full of idealism and possibilities
Formal Operational stage: hypothetical-deductive reasoning
adolescents have the cognitive ability to develop hypotheses or best guesses about ways to solve problems
Critiques of Piaget’s formal operational stage: individual variation
-much more individual variation: only 1/3 of adolescents think formal operationally and many adults never becomes formal operational thinkers
Critiques of Piaget’s formal operational stage: culture and education
culture and education exert stronger influences: children can learn/be trained to think at higher cognitive levels
Critiques of Piaget’s formal operational stage: stages
cognitive development is not so stage like
Adolescent Egocentrism
heightened self-consciousness of adolescents
Social thinking: imaginary audience
the feeling that one is the center of attention and is on stage
Social thinking: personal fable
sense of personal uniqueness and invincibility or invulnerability
-“no one gets. me”
-danger invulnerability and psychological invulnerability
Moral Development: Kohlberg’s theory
Argued advances in cognitive development did not ensure development of moral reasoning
-peer interaction and perspective-taking are critical for challenging children to change their reasoning
Level 1 of Moral Development (Kohlberg)
Preconventional level, no internalization
Level 1, stage 1: heteronomous mortality
children obey because adults tell them to obey. People base their moral decisions on fear of punishment
-decisions based on external environment
-more or dad says good/bad
Level 1, stage 2: Individualism, instrumental purpose, and exchange
individuals pursue their own interests but let others do the same
-what is right involves equal exchange
-engage in behavior and expect others would do the same behavior back
Level 2 Moral Development
conventional level: intermediate internalization
Level 2, stage 3: mutual interpersonal expectations, relationships, and interpersonal conformity
Individuals value trust, caring, and loyalty to others as a basis for moral judgements
-based on relationships
Level 2, stage 4: social system morality
moral judgments are based on understanding the social order, law, justice, and duty
Level 3 Moral Development
postconventional level: full internalization
Level 3, stage 5: social contract or utility and individual rights
individuals reason that values, rights and principles undergird or transcend the law
Level 3, stage 6: universal ethical principles
Moral judgments based on universal human rights
-personal individualized conscience is followed when faced with a dilemma between law and conscience
Critique of Kohlberg: gender difference affect moral reasoning- justice perspective
This is the male norm bias
a focus on the rights of the individual, in which individuals independently make moral decisions
Critique of Kohlberg: gender difference affect moral reasoning- care perspective
This is the female norm bias
a view of people in terms of their connections with others, emphasizing interpersonal communication, relationships with others, and concerns for others
Critiques of Kohlberg
-moral thinking might often be more of a gut reaction
-evidence suggests emotions play important role; kohlberg argued emotions have negative effects
-culturally biased
-underestimated impact of family relationships
Domain Theory of Moral Development
There are different domains of social knowledge and reasoning
Social Conventional Reasoning
focuses on conventional rules established by social consensus in order to control behavior and maintain the social system.
-the rules themselves are arbitrary
