Lecture 26 (Monday, November 19, 2012)
Understanding Social Behaviours
1. Conventional versus moral rules
Conventional rules = rules that are specific to a specific context that don’t generalize anywhere else
They are very restrictive to certain cultural institutions
Moral rules are more universal
By 7 or 8, children know the difference between the two
They know that it is worse if they break a moral rule than a conventional rule
2. Intentional versus unintentional transgressions
If you do something on purpose versus if you don’t
It is the intent that matters
Young kids understand role of intent when assessing own behaviour
Young kids sort of understand role of intent when assessing others’ behaviour (Nelson, 1980)
Example ▯a boy thinking to hit a girl with a ball, then he throws it on her head
Intent to harm
Kids got one version of that story and then they were asked to rate how good the boy was
They said that no matter what if it hit her head, he is a bad person
The intent didn’t matter
The kids understand that bad intent makes you a bad person, but they are still taking into
consideration the consequences, so even accidents make a person a bad person
The 3 year – olds and 5 year – olds don’t entirely get it yet, they are half way there, they put more
emphasis on outcome
Summary
Social – cognitive development runs parallel with cognitive development
Children’s descriptions of self and others are intertwined
Concreteness versus abstraction
Theory of mind
Children’s understanding of social situations (e.g. rules, intent) is pretty good
Rules by age 7 8
1 Lecture 26 (Monday, November 19, 2012)
Intent partially by age 3
Moral Development
So far about morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is
what you feel bad after – Ernest Hemmingway
Kohlberg sums that up
Three Approaches to Moral Development
1. Psychoanalytic
Role of the moral emotions (shame, guilt, pride)
Freud ▯
Erikson ▯neo – Freudian, he de – sexed them and took out the unconscious
2. Behaviourist
Role of reinforcements and punishments
Skinner
Bandura
3. Cognitive developmentalist
Role of moral
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