Lecture 5: Social and Moral Development

Question 1

Self concept

-how you think about yourself

Answer 1

• develops during early childhood
• initially predominantly ‘concrete’, with basic descriptions of emotions/attitudes: eg ‘I can run really fast’ if asked what’s good about themselves, asked to describe themselves eg ‘I’m a cheerful person’ they focus on basic things they can do or simple descriptions or how they are
• refined in middle childhood with use of personality traits to describe self
• later adolescence, becomes more complex. Understand that me-self dependent on context

Question 2

Influences of self esteem

Answer 2

Age
• high in early childhood
• young children high self-esteem, over-estimate their abilities
• drops during first years of school

social comparison: reality of mixing with others
• more ‘realistic’ in middle childhood
• generally stable, and high, for majority from 8 years

Culture
• gender differences: about achieving, the individual, then self-esteem will be high, community more about the culture, collective, modestly highly valued, then self-esteem might look like have lower self-estem however to do to with how tests have been devloped
• japan cf America (generally nation about themselves, Japan-idea of modesty, sharing achievements value far more)
Child-rearing practices
• nurturing/loving environment better chance of having good self-esteem

Question 3

Influences of self esteem

Answer 3

Age
• high in early childhood
• young children high self-esteem, over-estimate their abilities
• drops during first years of school

social comparison: reality of mixing with others
• more ‘realistic’ in middle childhood
• generally stable, and high, for majority from 8 years

Culture
• gender differences: about achieving, the individual, then self-esteem will be high, community more about the culture, collective, modestly highly valued, then self-esteem might look like have lower self-estem however to do to with how tests have been devloped
• japan cf America (generally nation about themselves, Japan-idea of modesty, sharing achievements value far more)
Child-rearing practices
• nurturing/loving environment better chance of having good self-esteem

Question 4

Influences of identity development

Answer 4

• personality
• family
• peers, friends, school

Question 5

Gender Identity

Answer 5

Early childhood
• By age 2 can label self and others as male/female
• 3 prefer gender-stereotypical toys
• 4 develop rigid stereotypes eg occupation
Middle childhood
• knowledge of stereotypes increases
• can consider conflicting social information and therefore can display gender-stereotype flexibility

Question 6

Development of gender identity: Social Learning Theory

Answer 6

• behaviour comes first, then self-perception
• evidence that parents do treat children differently depending on gender
• engage in behaviour from looking at others, the more you engage in a behaviour that was likely to be reinforced if it conformed to stereotypes, that came first then that’s how you start to label yourself

Question 7

Development of gender identity: Cognitive-Developmental Theory

Answer 7

• self-perception comes first
• Kohlberg: Development of Gender Constancy linked to cognitive maturity
• cognitive understanding, ability to cognitively process the idea of gender and what it meant and then to label yourself

Question 8

Moral development

-3 components

Answer 8

1. Emotional: empathy for distress, guilt if cause of distress
2. Cognitive: developing social cognition enables decision-making re moral dilemmas
3. Behavioural: behaviour may not necessarily follow on from emotions/thoughts

Question 9

Theories of moral development: Psychoanalytic perspective

Answer 9

• Morality appears between 3&6 yrs
• Children jealous of same-sex parent, but fear loss of relationship so compensate by identifying with same sex parent-super-ego
• Current psychoanalytic research emphasises attachment (still focusing on emotion)

Question 10

Theories of moral development: Social Learning Theory

Answer 10

• Develops through modelling then reinforcement
• Internalisation of social norms important, but cannot explain all moral behaviour
-Eg where society and ethical principles conflict
-Child more active in constructing morality

Question 11

Theories of moral development: Piaget

Answer 11

Two stages

1. Heteronomous Morality (5-10 years)
   - rules given by authority figures
   - rules are immutable and must be obeyed
   - focus on consequences of behaviour rather than the intentions eg experiment with kid carrying try vs taking cookie
2. Autonomous Morality (from 10 years)
   - rules are socially constructed and flexible
   - base judgements on intentions

Question 12

Evaluation of Piaget’s theory of moral development

Answer 12

• Children can take intentions into account at a younger age if intentions are made more obvious
• Young children do question adult authority in certain contexts
• Many children show heteronomous and autonomous reasoning
• Kohlberg extended and refined Piagets theory from 10 yrs to adulthood

Question 13

Theories of moral development: Kohlberg

Answer 13

• Presented ‘moral dilemmas’ to 10 yrs to adults
• ‘Heinz’ dilemma
• looked at how participants justified their decisions-not about decision you come to, its about how you justified the decision that you came to
• categorised into 6 stages
• believed stages were universal and invariant

Question 14

Influences on moral reasoning

Answer 14

• personality: flexibility to improve moral reasoning
• children-rearing processing: caring/supportive, discuss moral concerns openly
• Schooling-moral dev improves in late adolescence if remain in education
• Cultural variation-emphasis on individualism vs collectivism