Social Cognition and Moral Development

Social Cognition and Moral Development
© Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

© 2015. Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
13.1 Social Cognition Learning Objectives Define social cognition and explain the meaning and significance of having a theory of mind Summarize key steps in the development of a theory of mind and the contributions of nature and nurture to this development Describe developments in trait perception and perspective taking and explain why social cognitive skills hold up well in later life © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Social Cognition Social cognition Thinking about the perceptions, thoughts, emotions, motives, and behaviors of self, other people, groups, and even whole social systems Ability to understand human psychology, describe other people, and adopt other people’s perspectives © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Developing a Theory of Mind
A false belief task assesses the understanding that: People can hold incorrect beliefs These beliefs, even though incorrect, can influence their behavior Theory of mind Understanding that people have mental states such as desires, beliefs, and intentions and that these mental states guide their behavior © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Eighty-five percent of 4-year-olds passed the false belief task Eighty percent of the children with autism failed Children with autism may display social deficits because they lack a theory of mind Have “mind blindness” © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Abilities considered important early steps in developing a theory of mind Joint attention Understanding intentions Pretend play Imitation Emotional understanding © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Wellman proposed children’s theory of mind develops in two phases Desire psychology Belief-desire psychology Late elementary school Children grasp that different minds construct different views of reality Their interpretations of events are influenced by these views © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Chimpanzees, gorillas, and other great apes share with humans some basic theory-of-mind skills Developing a theory of mind requires a certain level of neurological and cognitive maturation Mirror neurons involved in theory of mind Neurons that are activated both when we perform an action and when we observe someone else perform the same action © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Trait Perception Young children perceive others in terms of their physical appearance, possessions, and activities Age 7 or 8 Children’s descriptions of people show that they think about others in terms of their enduring psychological traits Adolescents see people as unique individuals with distinctive personality traits © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Perspective Taking Another important aspect of social cognitive development Outgrowing egocentrism and developing perspective-taking skills Ability to adopt another person’s perspective and understand her thoughts and feelings By age 8–10, children appreciate that two people can have different points of view By age 12, they become capable of mentally juggling multiple perspectives © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Social Cognition in Adulthood
Social cognitive skills continue to improve after adolescence Elderly people continue to display the sophisticated social cognitive skills When elderly adults do show declines: They are due to declines in fluid intelligence, executive control processes, information processing speed, and memory © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Social Cognition in Adulthood
Social cognitive skills hold up better than other nonsocial cognitive skills Areas of the cortex that support social cognition and emotional understanding age more slowly People use these abilities each day They do not need to use mentally taxing cognitive processes © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

13.2 Perspectives on Moral Development
Learning Objectives Define and illustrate the three main components of morality Compare and contrast the main messages about moral development of psychoanalytic, cognitive-developmental, social learning, and evolutionary theorists Distinguish between Kohlberg’s preconventional, conventional, and postconventional levels of moral reasoning © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Perspectives on Moral Development
Three basic components of morality Emotional component Feelings regarding right or wrong actions that motivate moral thoughts Cognitive component How we think about right and wrong and make decisions about how to behave Behavioral component How we behave when we experience the temptation to cheat or are called upon to help a needy person © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Moral Emotion: Psychoanalytic Theory and Beyond
Empathy Vicarious experiencing of another person’s feelings Important for moral development Can motivate prosocial behavior Positive social acts Keep us from engaging in antisocial behavior © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Moral Emotion: Psychoanalytic Theory and Beyond
Moral emotions motivate moral behavior Early relationships with parents to moral development Children must internalize moral standards to behave morally even when no authority figure is present © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Moral Reasoning: Cognitive- Developmental Theory
Cognitive-developmental theorists study morality via development of moral reasoning Thinking process is involved in deciding whether an act is right or wrong Moral development is assumed to depend on social cognitive development Moral reasoning is said to progress through universal stages © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Moral Reasoning: Cognitive- Developmental Theory
Kohlberg’s stages of moral reasoning Moral growth progresses through three broad moral levels Preconventional morality: rules are external to the self rather than internalized Conventional morality: individual has internalized many moral values Postconventional morality: individual defines what is right in terms of broad principles of justice © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Moral Behavior: Social Learning Theory
Social learning theorists interested in behavioral component of morality Moral behavior learned through observational learning and reinforcement and punishment principles Moral behavior influenced by situational factors © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Moral Behavior: Social Learning Theory
Moral cognition is linked to moral action through self-regulatory mechanisms Involve monitoring and evaluating our own actions Moral disengagement Allows us to avoid condemning ourselves when we engage in immoral behavior, even though we know the difference between right and wrong © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

The Functions of Morality: Evolutionary Theory
Evolutionary theorists focus on: How moral emotion, thought, and behavior may have helped humans adapt to their environments over the course of evolution Our genetic self-interest to act altruistically toward kin Pass on our genes © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

13.3 The Infant Learning Objectives Summarize evidence that infants are capable of empathy and prosocial behavior Describe antisocial behavior in infancy and how it differs from that of older children Explain how parents can help their infants develop a conscience © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Empathy and Prosocial Behavior
Newborns display a primitive form of empathy Distressed by other infant’s cries By age 1 to 2 Become capable of truer form of empathy By age 2 Ability to take the perspective of the friend © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Empathy and Prosocial Behavior
Research has found prosocial acts by toddlers Helping Fourteen-month-old infants spontaneously help adults Cooperation Fourteen-month-old infants participate in cooperative games Altruistic rather than selfish motivations Before age 2, show greater happiness when they give treats to appreciative puppet © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Antisocial Behavior Richard Tremblay proposes that humans: Do not need to learn to be aggressive Need to learn how not to be aggressive Frequency of aggression normally rises from infancy to a peak around age 4 or 5 and then decreases © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Early Moral Training Kochanska has studied development of conscience involves mastering two components: Moral emotions Associating negative emotions with violating rules and learning to empathize with people who are in distress Self-control Being able to inhibit one’s impulses when tempted to violate internalized rules © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Early Moral Training How can parents help children develop a strong conscience? By forming a secure parent–infant attachment By establishing a mutually responsive orientation for caregiver and child Close, emotionally positive, and cooperative relationship in which child and caregiver care about each other © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

13.4 The Child Learning Objectives Discuss ways in which children are more morally sophisticated than Piaget and Kohlberg believed Summarize an optimal approach to socializing morality in childhood © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Moral Understandings Piaget and Kohlberg believed that: Young children were primarily focused on the consequences of acts Even three-year-olds can take both intentions and consequences into account By age four: Children’s moral thinking becomes more sophisticated They have the basics of a theory of mind © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Moral Understandings Children who pass theory-of-mind tasks are: More forgiving when a wrong is committed accidentally Better able to distinguish between lying and having one’s facts wrong More attuned to other people’s feelings and welfare © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Moral Understandings Children distinguish between different kinds of rules Moral rules: Standards that focus on the welfare and basic rights of individuals Only moral rules as absolute, sacred, and unchangeable Social-conventional rules: Standards determined by social consensus that tell us what is appropriate in particular social settings © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Moral Socialization Approaches to discipline Love withdrawal Power assertion Induction More often positively associated with children’s moral maturity Invokes empathy © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Moral Socialization Kochanska’s research shows that children are likely to be easiest to socialize if they are: By temperament fearful or inhibited Likely to experience guilt when they do wrong Avoid distress in the future Capable of effortful control Are able to inhibit their urges to engage in wrongdoing © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

13.5 The Adolescent Learning Objectives Describe how moral reasoning changes during adolescence and the significance of developing a moral identity Compare how Kenneth Dodge and Gerald Patterson account for the behavior of aggressive youth Explain the roles of nature and nurture in aggression and the approaches that have been used to prevent it © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Moral Identity Adolescents who develop a sense of moral identity tend to be: More capable of advanced moral reasoning Able to translate moral values into moral action Development of moral identity: Can be fostered by parents Induction and occasional disappointment Fostered via involvement in community service © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Changes in Moral Reasoning
Ten year olds Preconventional reasoning Teen years Conventional reasoning dominant mode of moral thinking Adulthood Postconventional reasoning, if it emerges at all © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Antisocial Behavior Juvenile delinquency Law breaking by a minor Some diagnosed with conduct disorder Persistent pattern of violating the rights of others or age-appropriate societal norms Fighting Bullying Cruelty © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Antisocial Behavior Two subgroups of antisocial youths Early-onset, seriously disturbed group that is recognizable in childhood Hurting others and/or animals Persistently antisocial across lifespan Later-onset, less seriously antisocial group that behaves more antisocially during adolescence Outgrows behavior by early adulthood © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Antisocial Behavior Dodge’s social information-processing model Our reactions to frustration, anger, or provocation depend on the ways in which we process and interpret cues in situations Aggressive youth develop a hostile attribution bias © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Antisocial Behavior Patterson’s coercive family environments Highly antisocial children and adolescents: Often grow up in coercive family environments Family members are locked in power struggles Trying to control the others through negative, coercive tactics © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

13.6 The Adult Learning Objectives Summarize changes in moral reasoning over the adult years Analyze the limitations of Kohlberg’s theory of moral development with reference to cultural differences in moral thinking and dual-process models of moral decision making Distinguish between religiousness and spirituality and discuss their development and relationships to adjustment © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Most studies find no major age differences in complexity of moral reasoning Kohlberg’s theory Children think about hypothetical moral dilemmas primarily in a preconventional manner Adolescents adopt a conventional mode of moral reasoning Minority of adults shift to a postconventional perspective © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Culture and Morality Results in cross-cultural studies Postconventional moral reasoning emerges in Western democracies People in collectivistic cultures: Stage 3 conventional moral thinkers Sophisticated concepts of justice that focus on the individual’s duty to the group © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Moral Intuition and Emotion
Greene has proposed the dual-process model of morality Both deliberate thought and intuition/emotion play distinct roles Explain why we sometimes make judgments based on quick, emotion-based intuitions Other times make judgments using more deliberative cognitive processes Use different parts of the brain to make intuitive and deliberative moral decisions © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Predicting Moral Action
Kohlberg’s stage theory Underestimates children’s moral sophistication Fails to recognize cultural differences in thinking about morality Neglects intuition/emotion Says too little about the many influences besides moral reasoning on moral behavior © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Religion and Spirituality
Religiousness Sharing the beliefs and participating in the practices of an organized religion Spirituality Involves a quest for ultimate meaning and for a connection with something greater than oneself Both are positively associated with health, mental health, and well-being © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Religiousness and spirituality may be especially beneficial in late adulthood Linked to having a sense of meaning and purpose in life Provides participation in a caring community Important in certain racial and ethnic groups Both African American and Caribbean Blacks age 55 and older report more religious participation © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

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