Moral Development

Moral development • Research on moral development has emphasised the cognitive aspect of morality - specifically, children's ability to justify and judge actions in moral terms. • Moral development also involves moral behavior. This was initially a focus of investigation but has often been neglected in recent developmental research.

Hartshorne , May & Shuttleworth (1930) • Tested thousands of U.S. children for the consistency of their moral behaviour. • Children were placed in a variety of situations where there was a temptation to commit a misdemeanour - to cheat, for example.

Hartshorne and May (1928-1930) • Main conclusion : children displayed little consistency across situations. A child who cheated in marking his or her score on the paper and pencil test might or might not be honest, or altruistic, in one of the other moral dilemmas. • This study led to an emphasis on the situational determinants of morality - the way that situational pressures might lead many or even most people to cheat - or to be honest - depending on the exact nature of the situation.

Hartshorne et al. (1930) • In one test, children were given a paper and pencil test. The completed papers were collected and duplicated. The papers were then returned to the children, with a key for self-marking. Thus, children had the opportunity to inflate their scores, but the experimenters could check on this by looking at the duplicates.

Responses to the problem of situational variability • Social psychologists explored the situational factors that increase or decrease the likelihood of moral behaviour • Developmental psychologists turned away from behaviour and looked for greater consistency at the level of judgement and reasoning

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Situational factors emphasized by Social psychologists: Milgram on disobedience

Situational factors emphasised by Social psychologists: Milgram on disobedience

• Adults were very likely to disobey (90%) if they had seen two other people do so (Milgram 1965). • They were more likely to disobey if the experimenter issued orders by phone rather than being present.

• Adults were more likely to disobey (70%) if they had to press victim’s hand on a shock plate rather than simply administer shock with victim seated in another room (34%).

Milgram (1974) • 70% defied the experimenter • 30% remained obedient (as in the picture)

Studies of judgement and reasoning by developmental psychologists • • • • •

Piaget Kohlberg Turiel and Smetana Independent vegetarians Recent work on the role of emotion and moral dumbfounding

Situational factors emphasised by Social psychologists: Latané & Darley on the unresponsive bystander • People are more likely to offer help (in the case of a crime or apparent illness) if there are few others in the vicinity to help. • When a lot of other people are close by individuals responsibility seems to diffuse, and intervention is rarer. People appear to ask themselves: “Why me?”

Kant, Durkheim and Piaget • Autonomy versus Heteronomy: Heteronomy – Kant argued that a moral act is something that you want to do because you think it's a good thing to do (Autonomy Autonomy) and not because it is demanded by someone else or by some outside rules (Heteronomy Heteronomy). – Durkheim argued that children will only distinguish between right and wrong if they are taught by an external authority - a parent, or a teacher. He implied that children are prone to heteronomy. heteronomy – Piaget set out to show that children slowly realize what is right and wrong when interacting with peers. He claimed that children attain autonomy. autonomy

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Piaget on parents • “The average parent is like an unintelligent government that is content to accumulate laws in spite of their contradictions and the ever increasing mental confusion to which this accumulation leads.”

Paired stories: a 3-stage interview

Piaget (1932) • Children were given pairs of simple stories, matched in most ways but unlike in others, and children were asked to say which story described the naughtier action. For example, children were told about a child with a good intention causing a lot of damage and a child with a bad intention causing a little damage and asked to say which child was naughtier.

Piaget (1932) • He summarised his findings in terms of two moralities: • heteronomous (lasting until approximately 8 years). • autonomous from approximately 8 years onward.

1. Presentation of the 2 stories and first question 2. Countersuggestion 3. Alternative question

Piaget (1932) • Heteronomous morality: – younger children tend to conceive of wrongdoing in terms of fixed and absolute moral principles imposed by external authority. – they assess amount of wrongdoing in highly literal objective terms (i.e. the amount of damage caused), without taking the intentions of the actor into account.

Piaget (1932)

• Autonomous morality – older children regard moral rules as the product of group agreement and as instruments for cooperation, rather than as externally imposed imperatives. – they assess actions more by their intended than their actual consequences.

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Larry Kohlberg (in 1975)

Kohlberg • Kohlberg developed, refined, and eventually transformed Piaget's claims. • Boys from 10 years upward were given a story in the form of a moral dilemma • For example, should a man in a civilian airdefence post, after a heavy bombing raid that may have endangered his family, stay at his post and help others, or go to his family?

Kohlberg • Participants were asked to say not simply what action should be taken but why it should be taken. So, like Piaget, Kohlberg tried to get at the system or rationale that underlay children’s particular judgements. • Using this procedure, Kohlberg carried out a large-scale longitudinal study of American males between the ages of 10 and 36.

Kohlberg

• 10-year-olds tended to justify actions in terms of whether they would provoke or avoid punishment (Stage I) or serve the interests or needs of the main protagonists (Stage II).

Kohlberg

Kohlberg

• Adolescents and adults focused more on conformity to rules, expectations and laws; they emphasised the desire to be perceived as a good person (Stage III) or to meet the dictates of conscience (Stage IV) - rather than the desire to avoid punishment or pursue one's own interests as at Stages I and II.

• Finally, a small proportion of adults claimed that occasionally non-conformity was morally justified, if it was in the service of some higher-order moral principle such as equality (Stage V) (Colby, Kohlberg, Gibbs & Lieberman, 1983).

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Cross-cultural replications of Kohlberg’s study • Development through the first three stages has been found in many cross-cultural studies. • Later stages are rarely found among people in traditional, rural communities or among adults who have had no higher education. • However, certain types of justification are difficult to code within Kohlberg's system raising the possibility that it is biased toward Western notions of moral sophistication (Snarey, 1985).

Smetana (1981) • 3- and 4-year-olds were asked to judge moral breaches (e.g. hitting another child) and conventional breaches (e.g. putting toys away in the wrong place). • They were asked to say how bad each violation would be, and whether the violation would be still bad or okay in a school which had no rules about hitting or putting things away.

Mean judgements of seriousness of transgression

Smetana (1981) • 3- and 4-year-olds judged : – moral breaches as more serious when compared to conventional breaches (e.g. “very bad” as compared to “a little bit bad”). – moral breaches as remaining wrong even in the absence of an explicit rule but conventional breaches as being rendered okay.

4 3.5 3 2.5

moral transgressions

2 1.5

conventional transgressions

1 0.5 0 3yr boys

3yr girls

4yr boys

4yr girls

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Mean judgements whether an action would be alright in a context with no rules

Convince-your-neighbor • Smetana’s research has shown that:

0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5

moral transgressions

0.4 0.3

conventional transgressions

0.2

– 3- and 4-year-olds judged moral breaches as more serious when compared to conventional breaches (e.g. “very bad” as compared to “a little bit bad”). – moral breaches as remaining wrong even in the absence of an explicit rule but conventional breaches as being rendered okay.

0.1 0 3yr boys

3yr girls

4yr boys

4yr girls

Discussion Point

How do Smetana’s findings relate to Kohlberg’s and Piaget’s theories?

How do Smetana’s findings relate to Kohlberg’s and Piaget’s theories? 1. They are irrelevant (think why). 2. Smetana’s findings are consistent with Piaget’s but not with Kohlberg’s theory (think why). 3. Smetana’s findings are consistent with Kohlberg’s but not with Piaget’s theory (think why). 4. Both Kohlberg’s and Piaget’s theories are inconsistent with Smetana’s findings (think why).

Smetana (1981)

The role of harm and distress

• Thus, preschoolers are sensitive to the distinction between a moral and a conventional breach. • Contrary to Kohlberg's dilemma-based data, they do not reduce what is wrong to what gets punished. • Contrary to Piaget’s emphasis on early heteronomy, they do not judge what is wrong in terms of externally imposed rules. They show signs of autonomy!

• How do young children decide what is morally right versus morally wrong if they do not use adults rules and prescriptions? • Moral breaches such as hitting and grabbing cause harm and distress. • Children might note which actions directly cause harm and distress and judge them as wrong simply on that basis - independent of whether or not the action is proscribed.

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Supportive evidence • Children’s reactions to breaches. • Veterans and novices at preschool. • Children’s explanations of why an act is wrong. • Judgements about novel actions (‘mibbing’) • Studies of abused and neglected children.

Proportion of moral & conventional transgressions responded to by toddlers & caregivers

1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0

moral trangressions conventional transgressions

Toddlers

Adults

Veterans and novices at preschool: (Siegal & Storey, 1985) • Preschool novices treat both types of breach as serious. • Preschool veterans judge conventional breaches more lightly. • So, children who have been in preschool longer differentiate moral breaches more sharply from conventional breaches.

Children’s reactions to breaches (Smetana, 1984). • Observation of children in preschool shows that they do react with distress to moral breaches but rarely react to conventional breaches. • By contrast, caregivers in the preschool respond to both types of breach - especially to conventional breaches.

(Smetana, 1984). • If children were to be guided by their caretakers, they would judge conventional breaches as more serious than moral breaches. • If they are guided by children’s reactions, they would judge moral breaches as worse than conventional breaches - This fits the earlier findings of Smetana (1981).

Veterans and novices at preschool: (Siegal & Storey, 1985) • Experience with other children provides a criterion (no-distress versus distress) for down-grading the seriousness of a conventional breach). • By implication, interaction with other young children helps mark the distinction.

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Children’s explanations of why an act is wrong • If asked to justify a rule - to explain why it is wrong to hit other children or take their possessions, children mostly refer to the consequences for the victim - the harm and distress the action will cause.

Studies of abused and neglected children: Smetana et al. (1984) • Abused and neglected children (whose parents presumably are poor at moral instruction) also differentiate between minor (conventional) breaches and major (moral) breaches - in much same way as normal children do.

Hussar and Harris (in press) • Independent vegetarians: Vegetarian children growing up in a meat-eating family. • Family vegetarians: Vegetarian children growing up in a vegetarian family. • Meat-eating children: Typical children growing up in a meat-eating family.

Judgements about novel actions (‘mibbing’): (Smetana, 1985). • Children are told about some novel activity (e.g., ‘mibbing’) in a story, and also told that when a story character engages in this activity it makes other children cry. • Children tend to judge the action as if it were violating a moral rule rather than a conventional rule, and they back up their judgement by referring to the distress caused.

Do children ever act on their moral judgments? • Some vegetarian children choose not to eat meat even though their parents and friends do so. • Are they acting on the basis of a moral judgment – do they judge it to be wrong to eat meat?

Hussar and Harris (in press) • Children were asked to think of a type of meat that they do not eat and to explain why they do not eat it.

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Percentage giving different explanations

Are independent vegetarians evangelical? • All three groups judged the badness of: • Moral transgressions (e.g., hitting another child) • Conventional transgressions (e.g., eating salad with the fingers) • Private decisions (e.g., reading alone during recess). • Eating meat.

Mean ‘badness’ judgment by group and type of act

Are independent vegetarians zealots? • No - even though they justify their own decision in moral terms - avoiding harm to animals - they do not condemn other people. • We went on to ask children about meat eating by others and by the self.

Mean ‘badness’ badness’ judgment by group and type of commitment 4

3

Independent Vegetarians

2

Family Vegetarians

1

Meat Eaters

0 Moral

Personal

Uncommitted Participant

Eating Meat = Animal Suffering • “I really don’t believe in killing animals for their meat and I think so many animals have been treated so, like, poorly when they are kind of caged for meat.” • “I love animals. I don’t think it’s right that people kill animals just to eat meat and then like throw away like half of it . . . like people just throw away stuff and that’s like an animal that was killed. Like I don’t like the way they treat animals like in the slaughter houses.”

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Eating Meat = Animal Suffering

Overview

• “I don’t believe in killing animals. Well, I know what happens to the animals when they get like [turned] into meat . . . I think it’s really horrible.” • “There are a lot of companies that make hot dogs that are very cruel to the animals that they’re made from so that’s why I choose not to eat them . . . I still don’t believe that animals should be killed. Since I like animals, it would kind of be hypocritical by liking them but not really doing anything.”

• Independent vegetarians choose not to eat meat for moral reasons and they say it is bad if they do eat meat. • Yet they are not zealots - they do not condemn other people for eating meat. • For most of us, we have heard about animal suffering but we eat meat regardless...

Challenges to reasoning-based accounts

Greene et al. (2001)

• Greene et al. (2001) • Haidt (2001).

Greene et al. (2001) • In a second (‘Footbridge’) dilemma, a trolley again threatens to kill five people. You are standing next to a large stranger on a footbridge that spans the tracks, in between the oncoming trolley and the five people. In this scenario, the only way to save the five people is to push this stranger off the bridge, onto the tracks below. He will die if you do this, but his body will stop the trolley from reaching the others. Ought you to save the five others? Would you push the stranger off the bridge?

• In one (‘Trolley Switch’) dilemma, a runaway trolley is headed for five people who will be killed if it proceeds on its present course. The only way to save them is to hit a switch that will turn the trolley onto an alternate set of tracks where it will kill one person instead of five. Ought you to turn the trolley in order to save five people at the expense of one? Would you hit the switch?

Greene et al. (2001) • The authors argue that the switch dilemma is impersonal and less emotionally charged. By contrast the footbridge dilemma is personal - it calls for an act of violence against another person - and is therefore likely to be very emotionally charged.

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Greene et al. (2001) • Subjects were given three sets of dilemmas. • Non-moral practical dilemmas included questions about whether to travel by bus or by train given certain time constraints and about which of two coupons to use at a store. • Moral-impersonal dilemmas included a version of the trolley switch dilemma, a case of keeping money found in a lost wallet, and a case of voting for a policy expected to cause more deaths than its alternatives. • Moral-personal dilemmas included a version of the footbridge dilemma, a case of stealing one person's organs in order to distribute them to five others, and a case of throwing people off a sinking lifeboat.

Greene et al. (2001) • Participants responded to each dilemma by indicating whether they judged the action it proposes to be "appropriate" or "inappropriate.

Greene et al. (2001)

Greene et al. (2001) 7000

• fMRI scans showed that areas of the brain associated with emotion were more active in the personal (footbridge) dilemmas than the impersonal or practical dilemmas.

6000 5000 4000 Appropriate Inappropriate

3000 2000 1000 0 Moral Personal

Greene et al. (2001) • Subjects took longer to make “appropriate” than “inappropriate” responses in the footbridge problems - presumably because of the emotional interference from thinking about pushing someone to his death. • All other response options would be less emotionally arousing.

Moral Impersonal

Practical

Greene et al. (2001) • By implication - some ‘moral’ judgments (it would be wrong to push the man over the footbridge) are based primarily on emotion rather than reasoning or judgment.

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Greene et al. (2008) • Subjects answered problems like the footbridge problem with or without a cognitive load. (The cognitive load consisted in monitoring a stream of numbers at the foot of the computer screen and hitting a button every time the number 5 appeared). • When subjects made a utilitarian judgment (e.g. it’s ok to push the man off the footbridge), they did this more slowly under a cognitive load.

• Two kind of dilemma: – Classic “Kohlberg-type” reasoning dilemmas – Emotionally charged dilemmas

Haidt, Haidt, Bjö Björklund & Murphy (2000)

Haidt, Haidt, Bjö Björklund & Murphy (2000)

• “In Europe. A woman was near death from a very bad disease, a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium for which a druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to make. The sick woman’s husband, Heinz, went to everyone to borrow the money but he could only get together about half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying, and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said, “No, I discovered the drug and I’m going to make money from it.” So, Heinz got desperate and broke into the man’s store to steal the drug for his wife. Was there anything wrong with what he did?”

• Julie and Mark who are brother and sister are traveling together in France on summer vacation from college. One night they are staying alone in a cabin near the beach. They decide that it would be interesting and fun if they tried making love. At very least it would be a new experience for each of them. Julie was already taking birth control pills, but Mark uses a condom too, just to be safe. They both enjoy making love, but they decide not to do it again. They keep that night as a special secret, which makes them feel even closer to each other. So what do you think about that? Was it OK for them to make love?

Haidt, Haidt, Bjö Björklund & Murphy (2000)

Haidt (2001)

• Heinz

• • • •

Haidt (2001)

Sure: 6.20 Confused? : 2.87 Arguments dropped: 2.9 Admissions of dumbfounding: 0.1

• Incest

• • • •

Sure?: 5.37 Confused?: 4.00 Arguments dropped: 6.0 Admissions of dumbfounding: 1.3

• Most people immediately say that it was wrong for the siblings to make love, and they then begin searching for reasons. They point out the dangers of inbreeding, only to remember that Julie and Mark used two forms of birth control. They argue that Julie and Mark will be hurt, perhaps emotionally, even though the story makes it clear that no harm befell them. Eventually, many people say make an admission of being ‘dumbfounded’: “I don't know, I can't explain it, I just know it’s wrong.”

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References • Colby, A., Kohlberg, L., Gibbs, J. & Lieberman, M. (1983). A longitudinal study of moral judgment. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development. 48, pp. 1-124. • Greene, J. Sommerville, R.B., Nystrom, L.E., Darley, J.M. & Cohen, J.D. (2001). An fMRI investiagtion of emotional engagement in moral judgment. Science, 293, 2105-2107. • Haidt, J. (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review, 108, 814-834.

References • Kohlberg, L. (1969). Stage and sequence. In D.A. Goslin (Ed.) Handbook of socialization theory and research. Chicago: Rand McNally. • Latané, B. & Darley, J. (1970). The unresponsive bystander: Why doesn’t he help? New York: Appleton-Century Crofts. • Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view. New York: Harper & Row.

References • Hartshorne, H., May, M.A., & Shuttleworth, F.K. (1930). Studies in the Organization of Character. Oxford, England: Macmillan, 1930. • Hussar, K. (2005). Paper presented at the Association for Moral Education conference, Cambridge, MA, 4th-5th November. • Hussar, K. (2007). Paper in preparation. HGSE.

References • Piaget, J. (1932/1965). The moral judgment of the child. New York: Free Press.. • Siegel, M., & Storey, R.M. (1985). Daycare and children's conceptions of moral and social rules. Child Development, 6, 1001-1008 . • Smetana, J. G. (1981). Preschool children's conception of moral and social rules. Child Development, 52, 1333-1336. • Smetana,J.G. (1984).Toddler's social interactions regarding moral and conventional transgressions. Child Development, 55, 1767-1776.

References • Smetana, J.G. (1985. Preschool children's conceptions of transgressions: Effects of varying moral and conventional domain-related attributes. Developmental Psychology, 21, 18-29. • Smetana, J.G., Kelly, M., & Twentyman, C.T. (1984). Abused, neglected and nonmaltreated children's conceptions of moral and socio-conventional transgressions. Child Development, 55, 277-287 • Snarey (1985). Cross-cultural universality of socialmoral development: A critical review of Kohlbergian research. Psychological Bulletin, 97, 202-232.

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