PSC 142 Study Guide - Final Guide: Institute For Operations Research And The Management Sciences, Parenting, Mexican Americans
Ch 10 - Altruism & Moral Development
● Prosocial moral reasoning
○
● Altruism
○ Infants & toddlers seem to recognize & may react to the distress of companions,
but their response may not always be helpful
■ They may also show distress because they see their companion in
distress
■ May turn away from distressed companion
● Or even attack them so they don’t experience distress themselves
● Socialization of empathy
○ Parents can help promote sympathetic responses by
■ 1. Modeling empathic concern
■ 2. Relying on affectively oriented forms of discipline that help young
children to understand the harmful effects of any distress they may have
caused others
○ Parents who are warm & nurturant & who respond sensitively when their child
becomes distressed tend to have children who are more empathic & prosocially
inclined
■ This sense of emotional security helps kids regulate their negative
emotions when seeing others distressed
● Makes them more inclined to interpret their own empathic arousal
as sympathy rather than personal distress
● Link between empathy & altruism
○ Link is modest at best for preschool & young grade - school kids
○ Link is stronger for preadolescents, adolescents, & adults
● Cultural influences on altruism
○
● The Felt - Responsibility Hypothesis
○ One possibility is that a child’s sympathetic empathic arousal causes him to
reflect on altruistic lessons he has learned - lessons such as the Golden Rule,
the norm of social responsibility, or even the knowledge that other people
approve of helping behavior
■ This reflection makes it likely that child will assume some personal
responsibility for aiding a victim in distress
○
● Modeling influences for altruism
○ Adult can model altruism, influencing child to act similarly
○ Altruistic exhortations, verbal encouragement to help others, provide the child
with opportunities to internalize principles such as the norm of social
responsibility that should contribute to the development of a prosocial orientation
○
○ Parents who continue to rely on rational, nonpunitive disciplinary techniques in which
they regularly display sympathy and concern for others (including their own child) tend to
raise children who are sympathetic and self-sacrificing,
● Morality
○ Moral components
■ 1. An affective, or emotional, component that consists of the feelings (guilt,
concern for others’ feelings, and so on) that surround right or wrong actions &
that motivate moral thoughts & actions
■ 2. A cognitive component that centers on the way we conceptualize right & wrong
& make decisions about how to behave
■ 3. A behavioral component that reflects how we actually behave when we
experience the temptation to lie, cheat, or violate other moral rules
● Moral rules
○ Standards of acceptable & unacceptable conduct htat focus on the rights & privileges of
indiviiduals
■ Focus on welfare & basic rights of individuals
■ Against things like Ex: hitting, stealing, lying, cheating, harming another etc.
● Social - conventional rules - standrards of condcut determined by social consensus that indicate
what is appropriate within a particular social context
○ Ex:
■ Rules of social etiquette
■ Rules of games
■ Rules at school
● Ex: snacking in class or need permission to use restroom
● Personal choices - decisions about one’s conduct htat are (or should be, in the person’s view)
under personal jurisdiction & not regulated by rules or authority figures
○ Ex: choice of
■ friends
■ leisure activities
■ What they can eat
■
Ch 7 - Achievement
● Mastery motivation - an inborn motive to explore, understand, & control one’s
environment
● The motivational view of achievement
○ Need for achievement (nAch) - a learned motive to compete & to strive for
success whenever one’s behavior can be evaluated against a standard of
excellence
■ High “need - achievers” learn to take pride in their ability to meet or
exceed high standards
■ Sense of self - fulfillment motivates them to work hard, be successful, &
outperform others
● Phases in learning to evaluate performances in achievement situations
○ Phase 1 - joy in mastery
■ Before age 2- babies pleased to master challenges, showing mastery
motivation
● They are NOT searching for others’ attention to see their
accomplishments
● Are NOT bothered by failures
○ They just shift goals & attempt to master a different toy
○ Phase 2 - approval seeking
■ Around age 2 - toddlers start to anticipate how others will evaluate their
performances
● Seek recognition
○ Phase 3 - use of standards
■ Around age 3 - kids react more independently to their successes &
failures
■
● Causal attributions - conclusions drawn about the underlying causes of one’s own or
another person’s behavior
○ Explanation
○ Weiner argues that people are likely to attribute their successes or failure to any
of 4 causes
■ 1. Their ability (or lack thereof)
■ 2. The amount of effort expended
■ 3. The difficulty (or easiness) of the task
■ 4. The influence of luck ( either good or bad)
○
● Locus of control - personality dimension distinguishing people who assume that they
are personally responsible for their life outcomes (internal locus) from those who believe
that their outcomes depend more on circumstances beyond their control (external locus )
●
● Incremental view of ability
○ Belief that ability is changeable, not stable, & that they can get smarter or
become more capable through increased effort & lots of practice
● Entity view of ability - belief that one’s ability is a highly stable strat that is not
influenced much by effort or practice
○ Ability is fixed, stable
○
● Mastery orientation - tendency to persist at challenging tasks because of a belief that
one has the ability to succeed and/ or that earlier failures can be overcome by trying
harder
○ Some kids who are mastery - oriented
■ Tend to attribute success to their high ability but tend to externalize the
blame for their failures
● Learned helplessness orientation - tendency to give up or stop trying after failing
because these failures have been attributed to a lack of ability that one can do little
about
Document Summary
Infants & toddlers seem to recognize & may react to the distress of companions, but their response may not always be helpful. They may also show distress because they see their companion in distress. Or even attack them so they don"t experience distress themselves. Parents can help promote sympathetic responses by. Relying on affectively oriented forms of discipline that help young children to understand the harmful effects of any distress they may have caused others. Parents who are warm & nurturant & who respond sensitively when their child becomes distressed tend to have children who are more empathic & prosocially inclined. This sense of emotional security helps kids regulate their negative emotions when seeing others distressed. Makes them more inclined to interpret their own empathic arousal as sympathy rather than personal distress. Link is modest at best for preschool & young grade - school kids. Link is stronger for preadolescents, adolescents, & adults.
