Transcript Theories of Human Development

Aggression, Altruism,
and Moral Development
Chapter 14
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Instrumental aggression: major goal is to
gain access to objects, space, or privileges
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Hostile aggression: major goal is to harm
or injure
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Both form and expression of aggression
change with age
Figure 14.1 Trajectories of mother-rated aggression for children from age 2 to age 9
years. ADAPTED FROM NICHD EARLY CHILD CARE RESEARCH NETWORK, 2004.
Rough-and-Tumble vs. Aggression?
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Does rough and tumble play promote
social development?
rough and tumble could easily be
misinterpreted
Costabile et al. (1991)
Strength and type of blows
 Facial expressions
 Presence or absence of laughter and
angry words
 Presence or absence of a crowd watching
 Presence or absence of injury and crying
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Sex Differences
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On average, boys more aggressive
– Not until 2 ½-3 years of age though!
Biological differences
 Socialization differences
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THE DEVELOPMENT OF
AGGRESSION
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Overt aggression declines from middle
childhood through adolescence
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Relational aggression in girls, and indirect
aggression in males increases
Individual Differences in Aggression
Aggressive toddlers  aggressive 5 year
olds
 Aggression between 3 and 10 
aggression and antisocial behavior later in
life
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Figure 14.2. Aggression in childhood predicts criminal behavior in adulthood for both males and females. FROM
HUESMANN, ERON, LEFKOWITZ, & WALDER, 1984.
Individual Differences in Aggression
Few individuals are highly aggressive
 10-15% of classmates are abused by
bullies
 Proactive aggressors
 Reactive aggressors
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Social Cognition of Aggression
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Dodge et al.
– Kindergarten to fifth grade
– Given written descriptions of aggressive and
nonaggressive children, asked to name others
in class who fit description
– Aggressive = males…
– Participants = aggressive and nonaggressive
boys
Social Cognition of Aggression
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Stories varied on:
– Actions
 Negative outcome vs. Ambiguous outcome
– Recipient of action
 Self vs. Other
– Instigator of action
 Aggressive vs. Nonaggressive
– Task:
 Decide why event occurred, indicate how they
would respond
Social Cognition of Aggression
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Results
– Hostile intent attributed more often when
aggressive boy was instigator
– Hostile intentions attributed to negative
outcomes more than ambiguous outcomes
– When imagined self as recipient, aggressive
boys attributed more hostile intent, even in
ambiguous situations (hostile attributional
bias)
Social Cognition of Aggression
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aggressive boys biased
may lead retaliation
other children biased
This seems to be a characteristic of
reactive aggressors
Social Cognition of Aggression
Proactive aggressors may have friends and
do not feel as disliked as reactive
aggressors, so they may not be as likely to
have a hostile attributional bias
 Proactive aggressors – plan an aggressive
response to achieve an instrumental goal
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– Expect positive outcomes
– Feel capable of dominating others
Support for Aggression
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Peers
– Reinforcement
– Elicitation
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Families
– Coercive cycles
Origins of Coercive Cycles
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Parental behavior
– Ineffective at controlling child, parent loses
control
– Indiscriminate use of rewards/punishments
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Characteristics of child
– Arrested development
 Insensitive to social stimuli
Prosocial Behavior and Altruism
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Altruism – concern for the welfare of
others and willingness to act on that
concern
– 12 to 18 month olds offer toys to peers
– Toddlers can express sympathy
 Verbally rebuking children and physically punishing
them reduces compassion
 Discipline based on affective explanation increases
compassion
Prosocial Behavior and Altruism
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Developmental Trends in Altruism
– 2-3 year olds show sympathy/compassion
– 4-6 year olds – more real helping acts, fewer
during pretend play
Prosocial Behavior and Altruism
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Sex Differences in Altruism
– Girls are more likely to be helpful, generous,
and compassionate than boys (small
difference)
– Boys less cooperative and more competitive;
more interested in looking good or attaining
status/dominance over others
Prosocial Reasoning
Children with well-developed role-taking
skills are more helpful
 Prosocial moral reasoning
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– Preschoolers tend to be self-serving
– Older adolescents are much more responsive
to the needs of others
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One day a girl named Mary was going to a
friend’s birthday party. On her way she
saw a girl who had fallen down and hurt
her leg. The girl asked Mary to go to her
house and get her parents so they could
come and take her to a doctor. But if
Mary did, she would be late to the party
and miss the ice-cream, cake, and all the
games. What should Mary do?
Prosocial Reasoning
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Eisenberg found that responses formed an agerelated sequence
– Hedonistic responses – motivated by consideration of
selfish gain
– Needs oriented – consideration of others’ feelings and
needs
– Stereotyped – try to gain approval
– Empathic orientation – judgments include
sympathetic feelings
– Internalized values – based on internalized values
Prosocial Reasoning
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Also observed behavior in classroom for 2
months (4 and 5 year olds)
– Hedonistic and needs-oriented were most common
responses
– Needs-oriented reasoning = more likely to share
– Hedonistic = less likely to share
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Empathy: an emotional experience in response
to another person’s emotional state or situation
that is similar to that person’s emotion and is
accompanied by concern for the other person
Socialization of Prosocial Behavior
Modeling
 Disciplinary techniques (Hoffman)
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– Power assertion
– Love withdrawal
– Induction
Socialization of Prosocial Behavior
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Zahn-Waxler & Radke-Yarrow
– Measured mothers’ reactions to events where
their child caused distress or witnessed
distress
– Affective explanation
– Neutral explanation
– No explanation
Socialization of Prosocial Behavior
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Attributions
– Attribute a behavior to self…bowling study…
Moral Development
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How Developmentalists Look at Morality
– Affective component – stressed by
psychoanalytic theorists – moral affects
– Cognitive component – stressed by cognitivedevelopmental theorists – moral reasoning
– Behavioral component – stressed by social
learning and social information-processing
theorists – moral behavior
Moral Development
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The Affective Component of Moral
Development
– Freud’s Theory of Oedipal Morality
 Superego develops during phallic stage
 Identifies with same-sex parent
 Internalizes same-sex moral standards
–Girls have weaker superegos than boys
Moral Development
– Evaluation of Freud’s Theory
 Pride, shame, guilt are important for ethical
conduct
 Internalization of standards is vital
 Details of theory unsupported
–Harsh discipline = less morality
–Boys not more moral than girls
–Underestimated when children begin
expressing morality
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Story A. A little boy who is called John is
in his room. He is called to dinner. He
goes into the dining room. But behind the
door there was a chair, and on the chair
there was a tray with 15 cups on it. John
couldn’t have known that there was all
this behind the door. He goes in, the door
knocks against the tray, bang go the 15
cups, and they all get broken.
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Story B. Once there was a little boy
whose name was Henry. One day when
his mother was out he tried to reach some
jam in the cupboard. He climbed onto a
chair and stretched out his arm. But the
jam was too high up, and he couldn’t
reach it…While he was trying to get it, he
knocked over a cup. The cup fell down
and broke.
Moral Development
The Premoral Period
 Heteronomous Morality
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– Objective responsibility
– Immanent justice
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Autonomous Morality
Moral Development
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Moving From Heteronomous to
Autonomous Morality
– Cognitive maturation – decline in egocentrism,
increase in role-taking
– Social experience – equal status with peers is
vital
 Lessen respect for adult authority
 Increases self and peer respect
 Shows rules are arbitrary
Moral Development
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Evaluation of Piaget
– Describes general direction of change in moral
judgment fairly well
– Underestimates moral capacities of young
children
Moral Development
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Intentions – Nelson (1980)
– Read story in which child threw a ball to
playmate
– Motives were good or bad
– Consequences were positive or negative
– Acts ending in positive consequences judged
more favorably than those ending in harm
– Good intentions judged more favorably than
bad
Moral Development
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by age 4, recognize the difference
between truthfulness and lying
approve of telling the truth and
disapprove of lying
evaluate personal injury more harshly
than property injury
more tolerant of immoral acts followed
by an apology
Moral Development
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Social Conventional Reasoning (Turiel)
– 2 and 3 y/o interviewed about drawings
depicting familiar moral and social
conventional transgressions
– By 34 months, saw moral transgressions as
“more wrong”
– By 42 months, said moral violations would still
be wrong if undetected
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In Europe, a woman was near death from a special
kind of cancer. There was one drug that doctors
thought might save her. It was a form of radium
that a druggist in the same town had recently
discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but
the druggist was charging $2000, or 10 times the
cost of the drug, for a small (possibly life-saving)
dose. Heinz, the sick woman’s husband, borrowed
all the money he could, about $1000, or half of
what he needed. He told the druggist that his wife
was dying and asked him to sell the drug cheaper or
to let him pay later. The druggist replied “No, I
discovered the drug, and I’m going to make money
from it.” Heinz then became desperate and broke
into the store to steal the drug for his wife. Should
Heinz have done that?
Moral Development
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Level 1: Preconventional Morality
– Stage 1: Punishment-and-Obedience
Orientation
 Goodness or badness depends on consequences of
act – bad acts are punished
– Stage 2: Naïve Hedonism
 Conform to rules to gain rewards
Moral Development
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Level 2: Conventional Morality
– Stage 3: “Good Boy” or “Good Girl”
Orientation
 Moral behavior pleases, helps, or is approved of by
others
– Stage 4: Social-Order-Maintaining Morality
 Right conforms to legal authority; rules maintain
social order
Moral Development
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Level 3: Postconventional (or Principled)
Morality
– Stage 5: The Social-Contract Orientation
 Laws should express will of majority, and further
human welfare; if not, challenge them
– Stage 6: Morality of Individual Principles of
Conscience
 Individual abstract moral guidelines that transcend
laws
 Rare (a hypothetical construct)
 No longer measured
Moral Development
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Support for Kohlberg’s Theory
– Are Kohlberg’s Stages an Invariant
Sequence?
 Individuals do proceed through stages
in order
 Stages are not skipped
 Stage 3 or 4 is highest level for most
people
Moral Development
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Criticisms of Kohlberg’s Approach
– Issues with consistency
– Ecological validity
– Is Kohlberg’s Theory Incomplete?
 Emphasizes moral reasoning, did not focus on
moral affect or behavior
 Thought mature moral reasoning would lead to
moral behavior
– Supported by research
Moral Development
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Criticisms (con’t)
– Limited scope
– Is Kohlberg’s Theory Culturally Biased?
 Some aspects of moral development vary among
societies
– Cultural beliefs define morality
– Is Kohlberg’s Theory Gender Biased?
 Morality of justice for males, versus morality of
caring for females
– Not supported by research
Moral Development
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Criticisms (con’t)
– Does Kohlberg Underestimate Young
Children?
 Yes, as his focus was on legalistic concepts
 Did not examine distributive justice
Moral Development
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Damon – distributive justice rationales
– Level
– Level
– Level
– Level
0
1
2
3
(birth-5)
(5-6)
(6-7)
(8+)