NELSON ALTERNATIVE METHOD Kristie Shitley Nick Seguin Karen Brendel

WHY  AIM-To demonstrate that 3 yr old children can use motives and outcomes to make moral judgments (which contradicts Piaget ‘s thought that only 6 yr olds do this)  HYPOTHESIS- all 3-4 yr old children are capable of making moral decisions on the basis or motive/outcome

SAMPLE  Study children yr olds and yr olds, equal gender ratio, mixed ethnicities, varying levels of intelligence, and all with parental consent  Sample obtained by…  going to a local school and asking for parental permission of all of those in the 2 nd - 4 th grade classes, all of those who age out will be omitted and the rest who have parental permission will be randomly selected to fill the 100 needed ensuring no bias  WHERE  in a quiet nook of the child’s classroom, a familiar setting in order to increase their comfort levels

WHEN  Snapshot study  this is a fairly short study, not taking very long to study the stories, done during the half hour allotted for ‘recess’ each day, one child done per day taking 100 school days if schedule goes as planned

WHAT  the participants are to listen to and judge eight stories as either being morally good or bad

PROCEDURE  were told a story  there were eight stories provided, 4 of which detail a girl and her mom and the other 4 of a boy playing ball with his friend  the possible motive/outcome conditions include  good motive/good outcome, good motive/bad outcome, bad motive/good outcome, bad motive/bad outcome)  good motive= girl wants to hi-five her mom, boy wants to play ball with his friend  bad motive=girl wants to hit her mom, boy wants to throw the ball at his friend  good outcome=girl hits her mom’s hand in a hi-five, boy’s friend catches the ball  bad outcome=girl hits mom in the face, boy throws ball and hits friend in the head  with corresponding drawing  (one set with explicitly drawn motives via little thought bubbles and another set w/ motives only shown by the actors facial expressions)  and then make a judgment  using 7 smiley faces, 3 sad faces ranging in sizes, one neutral face, and 3 smiley faces ranging in sizes and colors  the smaller the smiley faces which indicates the lesser morality the more red the face, and the bigger the smiley face meaning the better the morality the more yellow the face gets  were then instructed to repeat the story, if motive/outcome info was not mentioned, the researcher asked specific questions regarding the info

PROCEDURE CONT…  with corresponding drawing  (one set with explicitly drawn motives via little thought bubbles and another set w/ motives only shown by the actors facial expressions)  and then make a judgment  using 7 smiley faces, 3 sad faces ranging in sizes, one neutral face, and 3 smiley faces ranging in sizes and colors  the smaller the smiley faces which indicates the lesser morality the more red the face, and the bigger the smiley face meaning the better the morality the more yellow the face gets  were then instructed to repeat the story  if motive/outcome info was not mentioned, the researcher asked specific questions regarding the info

DATA  Data collected was quantitative data  Data was analyzed using Scheffe’s procedure for post hoc comparisons among means  helps compare the various conditions

PRACTICAL ISSUES  PROS  Fairly simple apparatus used, the stories and drawings are easy to copy or makeup  It’s a snapshot study so it’s rather cheap considering it’s rather fast and there’s no need to rent out a room to conduct the experiment because it’s taking place at the school  CONS  It’s difficult to get such a diverse sample ethnicity wise because there’s always a chance that the opportunity sample obtained is biased towards one ethnic group  The fact that some children will be tested way before others may skewer the results because as the days pass the children age and may age out while the study is still being conducted and they may be biased because their fellow classmates may have told them what the experiment was about

ETHICS  PROS  It was a rather short amount of time spent on the experiment, and the experiment took place in the child’s classroom which is a familiar place these both combat feelings of discomfort  All the children had parental consent which meant that the parents probably had the ability to withdrawal their children from the study (RTW)  CONS  Using children is kind of an ethical weakness because they may have felt that they didn’t have the power to say ‘no’ to the study because they were so young.  Also making the children miss their recess time might have upset them