Why do we help people?
- For the rewarding feeling
- Because of social norms
- Reaching one owns goal
- Sympathy and empathy: 10-14 months children start to becoming upset when they see that someone else is upset
Five levels of prosocial moral reasoning
- Hedonistic reasoning: preschool children, their own needs are central
- Needs-based orientation: recognition of others needs increases in elementary school years
- Approval and/or stereotyped orientation: elementary school children increasingly express concern about social approval and acting in a manner that is considered to be good by other people and society
- .
a. Self-reflective empathic orientation:In late childhood and adolescence, children’s judgement begins to be based on explicit perspective taking and morally relevant affect such as sympathy, guilt, and positive feelings due to the real or imagined consequences of performing beneficial actions
b. Transitional level: The individual’s justifications for helping or not helping involve internalized values, norms, duties, or responsibilities. They may also reflect concerns for the condition of the larger society or refer to the necessity of protecting the rights and dignities of other persons. These ideals, however, are not clearly or strongly stated. (Predominant mode for a minority of people of high school age or older.) - Strongly internalized stage: predominant for only a minority of high school students, helping is based on internalized vales, norms or responsibilities, the desire to protect the same rights for all humans , characterized by positive or negative emotions to whether or not one succeeds in in living up ones own values and accepted norms
Moral reasoning
changes from a rigid acceptance of the dictates and rules of authorities to an appreciation that moral rules of authorities to an appreciation that moral rules are a product of social interaction and therefore modifiable
o Influenced by IQ and perspective taking ability
o Authoritarian parenting is contra productive for morality
Stages of morality (piaget)
o Normal children progress all of these stages, individual differences in the rate of their progress are due to numeral factors: difference in cognitive maturity, contact with peers and reciprocal role taking and how authoritarian and punitive their patents are
1. Morality constraint
• Children younger than 7 years (children who have not achieved Piaget’s concrete operations)
• Rules and duties are seen as unchangeable and given by authorities
2. Transitional period
• From 7 or 8 to 10 years
• More interactions with other peers that include more give an take than with parents, by this they learn that rules can be constructed and changed
• They learn to take others perspective and to cooperate
• They start to value fairness and equality and begin to become more autonomous in their thinking about moral issues
3. Autonomous morality
• By about age 11 or 12
• Children no longer accept blind obedience to authority as the basis of moral decisions.
• They understand that rules are a product of social agreement and can be changed if the majority of a group agrees to do so
Kohlberg’s theory of Moral Judgement
o Discontinuous and hierarchical series of stages
o Preconventional moral reasoning: is self-centred, it focuses on getting rewards and avoiding punishment (10 years)
1. Punishment and obedience orientation: conscience is built on fear of punishment, the child does not differ between their own and other interests
2. Instrumental and exchange orientation: what is right is what is one one’s best interest or involves equal exchange between people
o Conventional moral reasoning: is centred on social relationships, it focuses on compliance with social duties and laws (14 and older)
3. Mutual interpersonal expectations, relationships and interpersonal conformity: good behaviour Is what is expected by people
4. Social system and conscience (law and order) orientation: 4 involves fulfilling one’s duties, upholding laws, and contributing to society or one’s group. The individual is motivated to keep the social system going and to avoid a breakdown in its functioning.
o Post-conventional moral reasoning: is centred on ideals, it focuses on moral principles (only small number even at age 36 achieve this stage)
5. Social Contract or Individual rights orientation: right behaviour includes upholding rules that are the best for the group, some are universally right for the whole humanity
6. Universal ethical principles: commitment to self-chosen ethical principles that reflect universal principles of justice
Critics on Kohlberg
He did not sufficiently differentiate between truly moral issues of social convention
Only applicable for intellectual peers
Based on western values
Moral judgement
decisions that pertain to issue of right and wrong, fairness, and justice
Social conventional judgements
decisions that pertain to customs or regulations intended to secure social coordination’s and social organizations
Personal judgments
decisions that refer to actions in which individual’s preferences are the main consideration
o By age of 3 children start to think that moral violations are worse than social violations
o They rely on judgements of their parents unless they violate social or conventional principles
Developmental consisteny
There is developmental consistency in children’s readiness to engage in prosocial behaviors (sharing, helping, comforting):
Children who share spontaneously – Tend to be more concerned with others’ needs throughout childhood, adolescence and even early adulthood.
Children who ignore even upon request – Tend to be less concerned with others’ needs and feelings when they are older.
Altruistic motives – Helping others for reasons that initially include empathy/sympathy for others and, at later ages, desire to act in ways consistent with one’s own conscience and moral principles.
Empathy
Emotional reaction to another’s emotional state or condition highly similar to other person’s state or condition.
In order to experience it, children must be able to identify emotions of others and understand that a person is feeling an emotion.
Age 10 – 14 months – Children sometimes become upset when they see someone else upset.
Age 18 – 25 months – Children start displaying empathy and are more likely to comfort someone that is upset rather than become upset themselves. Fro here they start showing concern and thus feeling sympathy.
Sympathy
Feeling of concern for another in reaction to other’s emotional state or condition.
Difference with empathy is that people experiencing sympathy do not merely feel same emotion as other person, they also experience concern.
Helping
To provide needed help, infants must understand goal of other and be motivated to help achieving it.
sharing
In sharing valuable resources, children are more tolerant and altruistic towards others.
Mutualistic cooperation – Young children tend to share food rewards equally regardless of whether they are pre-divided or not.
informing
Free exchange of information in communication, in which humans engage constantly, can be a kind of altruism too.
Cooperative act – Human communication is based on assumption that act provides useful information for listener.
