Chapter 12

Social Cognition and Moral Development

Modified: 2025-07-03 11:21 AM CDST

I. Social Cognition (p. 372)

• A. Introduction Material
  • 1. John Gibbs (author of Moral Development and Reality) spent a summer at a camp where a mildly intellectually disabled adult named Edward was tormented by other campers and wondered why he never interceded.
  • 2. Social cognition—thinking about the perceptions, thoughts, emotions, and behaviors of self and others (e.g., taking the perspectives of others like Edward)
• B. Developing a Theory of Mind
  • 1. False belief task—assesses understanding that people can have based on, or influenced by, incorrect beliefs
  • 2. Theory of mind—understanding that people have mental states (e.g., desires, beliefs) that guide behavior
  • 3. Rely on theory of mind (called mind-reading skills) to predict and explain human behavior
  • 4. Passing false belief task indicates possession of theory of mind.
  • 5. One false belief task involves finding a hidden marble.
  • 6. Research on normal development as well as autism
  • 7. Despite normal levels of intelligence, people with autism often fail the false belief task, while children with Down syndrome with lesser mental ages pass the task.
    8. Appear to have “mind blindness” as they appear to lack theory of mind
  • 9. This possibly lack of theory of mind could make life difficult.
  • 10.Professor with autism indicates that she has to create a memory bank of how people behave and what emotions they express in various situations and then to compute how people might be expected to behave in similar situations.
• C. First steps in infancy
  • 1. Although it is not until around age 4 years that children can pass the false belief task, forerunners of theory occur in the first 2 years.
  • 2. Joint attention—at 9 months, infants begin to look at objects being looked at by caregivers
  • 3. In first months of life, infants come to understand that other people have intentions—set goals and achieve them
  • 4. Pretend play in infancy begins between 1 and 2 years of age.
  • 5. Imitate others during first year of life
  • 6. Comforting a playmate provides evidence of emotional understanding.
  • 7. Some evidence for ability to solve false belief task as young as 15 months (i.e., surprised when an actor looks in the wrong box in order to find a toy)
  • 8. Infants know more about the world than we give them credit for.
• D. Desire and belief-desire psychologies
  • 1. By age 2, begin to ask others, “Why?” (reflects understanding of the concept of desire)
  • 2. By age 2½, begin to attempt to deceive others by planting false beliefs in others (deliberate deception)
  • 3. Desire psychology—by age 2, children begin to talk about/explain their wants and desires
  • 4. 18-month-olds express happiness at Goldfish crackers and disgust (mostly) at broccoli.
  • 5. Belief-desire psychology—by age 4, children begin to pass along false ideas and attempt to fulfill their own desires
  • 6. Understand that beliefs do not always reflect reality
  • 7. Appreciate what others do because they desire things and believe that certain actions will help fulfill those desires
  • 8. Four-year-olds more sophisticated students of psychology than the egocentric beings described by Piaget
  • 9. Theory of mind better thought of as set of understandings that are constantly being refined
• E. Nature and nurture
  • 1. Nature evidence
    • a. Support from evolutionary perspective from primates like chimps, gorillas, and other apes who show the capacity to deceive
    • b. Theory of mind comes from maturing neurological systems and cognitive advancement, so abnormal brain development in autistic children may be responsible for lack of theory of mind.
    • c. Research using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has been used to identify areas of prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal areas involved in thinking about people’s beliefs.
    • d. Areas of adult brain that respond during a false belief task do not respond during questioning about false photographs.
    • e. Areas of prefrontal cortex active in adults’ ability to think about others’ beliefs are active in 4- to 6-year-olds who are able to pass the false belief task.
    • f. Mirror neurons—activated both when we perform an action and when we observe someone else perform the same action; appear to be involved in theory of mind understanding and empathy (all areas of difficulty for people with autism)
  • 2. Nurture evidence
    • a. Acquisition of theory of mind requires experience with other humans (participating in a “community of minds”).
    • b. Deaf children of deaf parents who communicate effectively with children (often through sign) result in child developing a theory of mind on schedule; deaf children of hearing parents who do not converse in sign early show delays in ability to perform false belief tasks (may struggle until age 8 to 10 years).
    • c. Preschoolers who interact more with siblings tend to acquire theory of mind skills quicker (engaging in pretend play may be especially instructive).
    • d. Parents can impact development of theory of mind.
    • e. Parental “mind-mindedness,” talking in elaborate ways about their children’s mental states, tends to lead to advanced theory of mind skills.
    • f. Cultures in which children do not have experience talking about thoughts and beliefs show delayed acquisition of theory of mind skills (i.e., culture plays role in acquisition of this skill).
    • g. Acquiring a theory of mind, the foundation for all future social cognitive development, begins in infancy and toddlerhood through a combination of nature and nurture factors (e.g., joint attention, mirror neurons).
    • h. Children who have mastered theory of mind tend to have more advanced social skills and are more socially adjusted.
    • i. Theory of mind can be used for “bad” ends as bullies and liars often prove adept at “mind reading.”
• F. Trait Perception
  • 1. Children younger than seven to eight
  • 2. Can describe people primarily in physical terms
  • 3. Tend to perceive others in terms of physical appearance, possessions, and activities
  • 4. When using “psychological” terms to describe others, tend to make global versus specific statements (i.e., “bad person” or “good person”)
  • 5. Do not view traits as enduring (i.e., predictive of future behavior)
  • 6. Children at seven to eight begin to infer enduring traits in others.
  • 7. Children age 11 or 12
  • 8. More use of personality traits to explain why people behave the way they do
  • 9. Become more psychologically minded
  • 10.Adolescents more advanced
  • 11.Offer personality profiles that are more psychological
  • 12.See others as having unique personalities
  • 13.Able to analyze how diverse and often inconsistent traits in others fit together
  • 14.Basic progression in perceptions of others
  • 15.Physical and global description in preschool
  • 16.More differentiated and psychologically orientated at seven to eight
  • 17.More integrated personalities; see how seemingly inconsistent traits fit together
• G. Perspective-Taking
  • 1. Social perspective-taking (role-taking) skills—ability to adopt other people’s perspectives and understand their thoughts and feelings in relations to one’s own
  • 2. Social perspectivetaking skills example of theory of mind in action
  • 3. Essential in the ability to think about moral issues, to predict the consequences of one’s actions, and to empathize with others
  • 4. Selman contributed greatly to understanding of role-taking using interpersonal dilemmas (e.g., story of Holly, her father to whom she promises to not climb trees, and a kitten in a tree)
  • 5. Selman’s findings indicate that social perspective-taking abilities develop in a stagelike manner (consistent with Piaget’s theory)
  • 6. 3- to 6-year-old children highly egocentric
  • 7. 8- to 10-year-olds’ ability to appreciate that two people can have different ideas emerge with concrete operations (due to reduction in egocentrism)
  • 8. Adolescents at formal operations stage of thought can juggle multiple perspectives, including perspectives of “generalized other” or the broader social group.
  • 9. Advances in social cognition more likely if parents good models of social perspective taking, consider thoughts of children, and rely on explanations
  • 10.Role-taking advancement has important implications on relationship skills.
  • 11.Interacting with peers sharpens role-taking, and role-taking advancements make child more sensitive to peers.
• H. Social Cognition in Adulthood
• 1. Involves both gains and losses
• 2. Adults better able to integrate multiple and discrepant perspectives (i.e., see both sides of an issue)
• 3. Older adults may be better able to infer traits like honesty in others.
• 4. Performance is enhanced by accumulated expertise about the world of people.
• 5. Losses in older adults may be result of declines in basic cognitive functioning (e.g., working memory, processing speed)
• 6. For the most part, social cognitive abilities hold up in later life.
• 7. Area of the brain associated with these skills ages slowly.
• 8. Older adults come to rely on simple rules of thumb about people.
• 9. Skills may hold up well because they are exercised every day.
• 10.Older adults vary greatly in social cognitive abilities.
• 11.Sharpest social cognitive skills are seen in those who remain socially active.
• 12.Poorer social cognitive skills in isolated or inactive adults

II. Perspectives on Moral Development (p. 379)

• A. Defining Morality
  • 1. Morality—ability to distinguish right from wrong, act on this distinction, and experience pride when doing right and shame when doing wrong
  • 2. Three basic developmental components of morality
    • a.Affective (feelings concerning self and others)
    • b.Cognitive (thoughts of right and wrong)
    • c.Behavioral (our actions)
• B. Moral Reasoning: Cognitive Developmental Theory
  • 1. Cognitive-developmental theorists focus on the development of moral reasoning.
  • 2. Moral reasoning is the thinking process in deciding whether an act is right or wrong.
• C. Kohlberg's view—universal, invariant sequences (inspired by Piagetian ideas)
  • 1. Presented 10- to 16-year-old males with dilemmas
  • 2. Analyzed and created model with three levels and two stages within each level
  • 3. Stages of moral reasoning
  • 4. One example of dilemma involves Dr. Jefferson and the issue of mercy killing.
  • 5. Level 1: preconventional morality—focus on personal satisfaction
  • 6. Punishment and obedience orientation (Stage 1)—focus on possible consequence to self
  • 7. Instrumental hedonism (Stage 2)—focus on gaining rewards
  • 8. Level 2: conventional morality—focus on internalized values set by others
  • 9. “Good boy” or “good girl” morality (Stage 3)—focus on following approved social roles set by others
  • 10.Authority and social-order-maintaining morality (Stage 4)—focus on adherence to rules of legitimate authority (e.g., laws)
  • 11.Level 3: postconventional morality—focus on personal set of broadly defined principles that are not set by some other authority
  • 12.Morality of contract, individual rights, and democratically accepted law (Stage 5)—focus on “social contract”
  • 13.Morality of individual principles of conscience (Stage 6)—focus on respect for all
  • 14.Progression through stages based, in part, on development of perspective-taking abilities
• D. Influences on moral development
  • 1. Kohlberg saw two main influences on moral development: cognitive growth and social interactions with equals
  • 2. Required cognitive growth
  • 3. To reach conventional level of moral reasoning, must be able to take other people’s perspectives
  • 4. To gain the capacity for postconventional thinking, must have solid command of formal-operational thinking
  • 5. Required social interactions
  • 6. Working out differences with peers or equals contributes more to moral development than one-sided interactions with authority figures (e.g., parents).
  • 7. Advanced schooling (i.e., college) contributes to general cognitive growth and exposes students to more diverse perspectives.
• E. Moral Emotion: Psychoanalytic Theory and Beyond
  • 1. Moral affect—emotions felt when one does wrong (e.g., shame, guilt) or right (e.g., pride)
  • 2. Empathy—vicariously experiencing others’ feelings
  • 3. Empathy can motivate prosocial behavior.
  • 4. Prosocial behavior—positive acts of helping or sharing, reflecting concern for others
  • 5. Freud sees formation of superego (conscience) during phallic stage as critical.
  • 6. Superego forms in order to resolve conflict over love for same-sex parent and one result is taking on the moral standards of one’s parents as one’s own.
  • 7. Superego like having parent “inside of head”
  • 8. Many Freudian ideas unsupported
  • 9. Cold and punishing parents who make children anxious about losing their parents’ love do not raise more morally mature children.
  • 10.Males do not have stronger superegos.
  • 11.Freud predicted this difference because males have stronger fear of castration and are more motivated to internalize parental values.
  • 12.Moral development occurs long before phallic stage and extends long after age 6 or 7
  • 13.Despite lack of support, Freud’s main themes still taken seriously
  • 14.Moral emotions part of morality and motivate moral behavior
  • 15.Early relationships with parents contribute to moral development.
  • 16.Children must internalize moral standards in order to behave morally when no authority figure present
• F. Moral Behavior: Social Learning Theory
  • 1. Primary interest of social cognitive theory is the behavior exhibited (what we actually do) when facing temptation or opportunity to act in a prosocial manner.
  • 2. Social learning theorists like Bandura suggest that moral behavior is learning (i.e., acquired through experience) through observational learning and reinforcement/punishment and is strongly influenced by situational factors.
  • 3. Moral thinking is linked to moral action through cognitive self-regulatory mechanism—those monitoring and evaluating own actions
  • 4. Apply consequences to ourselves and become able to exert self-control (i.e., gain ability to inhibit urges to misbehave)
  • 5. Moral disengagement—in order to avoid condemning ourselves, may engage in immoral behavior (e.g., underpaid employee pilfers from company)
  • 6. People who have perfected techniques of moral disengagement tend to engage in the most antisocial and unethical behavior.
• G. Roots of Morality: Evolutionary Theory
  • 1. Evolutionary theories like Krebs’ have contributed to our understanding of moral development.
  • 2. Focus on aspects of morality that helped with adaptation (e.g., living in groups and socializing to increase corporation changes if obtaining food or protecting from harm)
  • 3. Social animals like dogs and wolves may have a “moral code” that governs fairness; those not “playing by the rules” become outcasts.
  • 4. “Survival of fittest” implies raw selfishness.
  • 5. Evolutionary theorists argue that we have a genetic self-interest to act altruistically toward kin because they will pass on family genes to the next generations.
  • 6. Cooperation with others to obtain resources that we could not get on our own makes genetic sense as does abiding by rules to avoid punishment.
  • 7. Unlike the dark portrayal of humans by Freud, evolutionary theory views humans as predisposed to empathy and prosocial behavior (humans may be uniquely altruistic species).
  • 8. Theoretical approaches to why a teenager named Bart will cheat on exam
  • 9. Freud focus on strength of superego and sense of guilt
  • 10.Kohlberg interested in Bart’s current stage of moral thinking
  • 11.Bandura interested in reinforced moral behavior, observed models, and if Bart has well-developed self-regulatory mechanisms that cause him to take responsibility for his actions
  • 12.Evolutionary perspective focuses on adaptive functions of cheating

III. The Infant (p. 384)

• A. We view infants as amoral-lacking any sense of morality.
• B. Empathy, Prosocial Behavior, and Morality
  • 1. At birth, infants show primitive empathetic response by becoming distressed when they hear other babies cry.
  • 2. Between ages 1 and 2, truer form of empathy emerges.
  • 3. React to distress in friend by providing comfort (e.g., giving them a teddy bear)
  • 4. 18-month-olds help adults pick up objects that they have dropped.
  • 5. With age, empathy becomes less egocentric and more sophisticated.
• C. Antisocial Behavior
  • 1. Richard Tremblay proposes that humans:
    • a.Do not need to learn to be aggressive
    • b.Need to learn how not to be aggressive
  • 2. Frequency of aggression normally rises from infancy to a peak around age 4 or 5 and then decreases.
• D. Early Moral Training
  • 1. Infants amoral—lack sense of morality (right and wrong) and are not expected to be “good”
  • 2. Infants must learn to:
    • a.Experience negative emotions when they violate rules
    • b.Exert self-control
    • c.Inhibit impulses when tempted to violate rules
  • 3. 18- to 24-month-olds begin to show visible signs of distress when they violate standards of behavior.
  • 4. Even younger infants seem capable of judging moral actions (Exploration Box on infants judgment)
  • 5. Mutually responsive orientation—close, affectively positive, and cooperative relationship between child and parent best situation for moral development
  • 6. Mutually responsive relationships make children want to comply with adult rules and adopt their values, learn moral emotions like guilt and empathy, and develop the capacity for advanced moral reasoning, to help them resist temptation when no one is around to catch them.
  • 7. Parents should discuss toddlers’ behavior in an open way, with focus on emotion-centered discussions.
  • 8. Parents who have close mutual relationship and discuss emotional consequences with their children assist those children in developing a conscience.

Grandma cannot make it: A two-year-old knows that grandma is coming to see her on the next day. But, it turns out, she cannot visit as planned. When so informed, the child nearly immediately changes her pleasant mood and begins to cry. She is demostrating her lack of self-control.

IV. The Child (p. 388)

• A. Moral Understandings
  • 1. Piaget believed that children did not understand the importance of assessing intent of wrongdoers until age 10 or 11.
  • 2. Kohlberg did not have much to say about children other than they are mostly preconventional reasoners taking egocentric perspectives on morality.
  • 3. Both underestimated children’s moral understanding
  • 4. Weighing Intentions
  • 5. Piaget suggests that young children (heteronomous thinkers) judge moral behavior on basis of consequences, and older children (autonomous thinkers) judge on basis of intention.
  • 6. Flaw in that issues of intention and amount of damage confounded
  • 7. Nelson conducted study on intention (good, bad) and consequence of action (positive, negative).
  • 8. 3-year-olds’ positive consequences more favorable
  • 9. Piaget correct that young children assigned more weight to consequences, but wrong to conclude that young incapable of considering intention
  • 10.Understanding Rules
  • 11.Piaget stated that 6- to 10-year-old heteronomous children view rules as sacred, laid down by respected authority figures.
  • 12.Turiel found that children distinguish between moral rules and social-conventional rules.
  • 13.Moral rules—focus on welfare and rights of others
  • 14.Social-conventional rules—standards determined by social consensus
  • 15.Preschool children distinguish between types of rules, viewing moral rules as more compelling and unalterable (e.g., wrong to hit = a moral rule, but OK to leave seat at preschool = a social-conventional rule).
  • 16.6- to 10-year-olds can understand that rules are not sacred (something Piaget did not expect in children at this age), and they do not blindly accept any dictate offered by an authority figure as legitimate.
• B. Upholding Norms
  • 1. Fairness
  • 2. Infants seem to have a sense of fairness, expecting goods to be shared equally between two people.
  • 3. 5-year-olds often use an equality rule regardless of the context.
  • 4. Children ages 9 through 13 develop more elaborations on ideas of fairness and justice.
  • 5. Self Control—crucial for the development of a conscience
  • 6. Only about 30% of 4-year-olds are able to delay gratification.
  • 7. As adolescents those who delayed gratification as children were judged by their parents to be academically and socially competent, and scored higher on SAT exams.
  • 8. Effects on environment regarding delay of gratification and self-control are evident, rooted in both temperament and culture.
• C. Moral Socialization
  • 1. Social learning theory suggestions to parents
  • 2. Reinforce moral behavior, punish immoral behavior, avoid being overly harsh (side effect of anxiety or teaching aggression), and model moral behavior
  • 3. Hoffman compared three approaches to discipline.
  • 4. Love withdrawal—withhold affection after misbehavior (create anxiety by threatening loss of reinforcement by parent)
  • 5. Power assertion—use power (e.g., administer spanking, take privileges)
  • 6. Induction—explain why behavior is wrong and emphasize how behavior affects others
  • 7. Best approach to foster moral development?
  • 8. Induction superior to love withdrawal or power assertion because it breeds empathy
  • 9. Love withdrawal tends to not be that effective.
  • 10.Power assertion often more associated with moral immaturity than moral maturity
  • 11.Children of abusive parents feel less guilt and engage in more immoral behavior.
  • 12.Even at mild levels, power tactics are generally ineffective.
  • 13.Power assertion interferes with internalization of rules and undermines ability to exert self-control.
  • 14.Power assertion works best in loving and mutually responsive parent–child relationship.
  • 15.Effective parenting use of proactive parenting strategies—tactics designed to prevent misbehavior and reduce the need for correction or discipline—to prevent misbehavior (e.g., distracting from temptation)
  • 16.No one best method of discipline with impact dependent on child, parent, situation, and culture
  • 17.Parent needs to maintain high-quality relationship with child and to know which approach to use in a given situation.
  • 18.Child’s temperament also impacts degree of moral trainability.
  • 19.Children are easiest to socialize if they are by temperament fearful or inhibited (i.e., become distressed when disciplined and want to avoid such distress in the future), when they are capable of effortful control, and are able to inhibit their urges to engage in wrongdoing.
  • 20.Fearful, inhibited children can be socialized through a gentle touch, capitalizing on their anxiety but not terrorizing them.
  • 21.Fearless children do not respond well to being treated harshly and are most likely learn to comply with rules and requests when parents engage in a mutually responsive orientation.
  • 22.Goodness of fit between child and social environment critical

V. The Adolescent (p. 391)

• A. Moral Identity
• 1. Adolescents who develop a sense of moral identity tend to be:
• a.More capable of advanced moral reasoning
• b.Able to translate moral values into moral action
• 2. Development of moral identity:
• a.Can be fostered by parents
• b.Induction and occasional disappointment
• c.Fostered via involvement in community service
• B. Changes in Moral Reasoning
• 1. Kohlberg stages
• 2. Preconventional (Stages 1 and 2) dominate until the teen years.
• 3. Conventional reasoning dominates (Kohlberg Stages 3, good boy or girl, and 4, authority and social order-maintaining morality) by late teens.
• 4. Older adolescents show broader societal perspective on justice and greater concern over maintaining the social system.
• 5. Basic change, shift from preconventional to conventional
• 6. Express genuine concern over living up to moral standards they have been taught
• 7. Postconventional reasoning does not emerge until adulthood (if at all).
• 8. Attempt to live up to standards (e.g., laws taken more seriously)
• 9. Teens view being moral as important part of identity, and those with strong moral identity are capable of more advanced moral reasoning.

Heinz Story: Kohlberg
A woman was near death from cancer. One drug might save her, a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The druggist was charging $2,000.00, ten times what the drug cost him to make. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said "no." The husband got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug for his wife. Should the husband have done that? .... Why do you think so?

• C. Antisocial Behavior
  • 1. Few adolescents involved in serious antisocial conduct (e.g., rape, assault, robbery), but crime rates peak during adolescence in most societies (especially for “hell-raising” crimes like vandalism)
  • 2. Most severely antisocial adults start antisocial careers in adolescence with early misbehavior cumulating in juvenile delinquency—law breaking by a minor
  • 3. Some individuals qualify for a psychiatric diagnosis of a conduct disorder—a persistent pattern of violating the rights of others or age-appropriate societal norms through such behaviors as fighting, bullying, and cruelty; others may receive a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder
  • 4. Most children and adolescents who engage in antisocial behavior do not grow up to be antisocial adults.
  • 5. Two subgroups of antisocial youth
  • 6. Persistent antisocial behavior across the lifespan
  • 7. Larger group that shows antisocial behavior only during adolescence (perhaps in response to peer pressure)
  • 8. Some relationship between moral reasoning and antisocial behavior but likely involves factors other than immature moral reasoning
  • 9. Aggressive teens or those with conduct disorders are less likely than other teens to show empathy and concern for others in distress and often feel little guilt or remorse about their acts.
  • 10.Dodge’s Social Information-Processing Model
  • 11.Key to understanding aggression behavior is how an individual processes and interprets social information.
  • 12.Six steps to the process
  • 13.Encoding of cues—taking in information
  • 14.Interpretation of cues—making sense of information
  • 15.Clarification of goals—deciding what to achieve
  • 16.Response search—thinking of actions to achieve goals
  • 17.Response decision—weighing pros and cons of actions
  • 18.Behavioral enactment—doing something
  • 19.Do not have to go through steps in a specific order (can cycle among them or work on two or more simultaneously)
  • 20.Skills in each area tend to increase with age.
  • 21.Deficient or biased processing at any step can result in an interpretation of a social situation that leads to aggression (often found in highly aggressive youth).
  • 22.Example of highly aggressive adolescent tripped by classmate, who is likely to:
    • a. Process few cues and hold bias suggesting trip was deliberate
    • b. Make attribution of “hostile intent”
    • c. Set goal of getting even
    • d. Think of only a few responses, mostly aggressive
    • e. Conclude that aggressive response will have positive outcome
    • f. Carry out aggressive act selected
  • 23.Many respond impulsively and aggressively “without thinking.”
  • 24.Severely aggressive youth often have experienced abandonment, neglect, abuse, or other trauma that helps them morally justify negative actions against any threat and feel morally justified in taking antisocial action because they believe that they are only retaliating against students who are “out to get them.”
  • 25.Basic problem with Dodge’s model is that it does not clarify whether aggression is the result of “how one thinks, “what one thinks,” or “whether one thinks.”
  • 26.Patterson’s coercive family environments
  • 27.Coercive family environments—family members locked in power struggle trying to control others through negative and coercive tactics
  • 28.Parents learn that they can stop child’s behavior (at least temporarily) by yelling or hitting (form of negative reinforcement).
  • 29.As coercive tactics become more common, they have less effect on child’s behavior.
  • 30.Antisocial children are rejected by peers, become unpopular, and may become more delinquent and aggressive.
  • 31.No doubt that ineffective parenting in childhood contributes to behavioral problems, peer rejection, involvement with antisocial peers, and antisocial behavior in adolescence
• D. Nature and nurture
  • 1. Males are overall more aggressive.
  • 2. Shows up in many cultures and is evident as early as infancy
  • 3. Aggressive male tendencies may be evolutionarily related to adolescents being more successful at mating, increasing their ability to pass on genes to future generations.
  • 4. Some males and females more genetically predisposed to have difficult temperaments, impulsive tendencies, that contribute to aggression, delinquency, and criminal behavior
  • 5. Behavioral geneticists suggest genetics account for 40% of variation among individual antisocial behavior, with remaining 60% accounted for by environmental influences.
  • 6. Gene–environment interaction—child with genetic predisposition toward aggression in dysfunctional family may result in antisocial behavior
  • 7. MAOA gene on X chromosome may contribute to inability to control temper
  • 8. Children with this gene variant who are provoked are less able to control their anger and show higher levels of antisocial behavior.
  • 9. Gene–environment correlation—child with genetic predisposition toward aggression may evoke coercive parenting
  • 10.Evocative gene–environment correlation—child’s antisocial behavior and negative parenting influence each other reciprocally
  • 11.Prenatal environment (e.g., exposure to alcohol, lead poisoning) may contribute to unhealthy behavioral trajectory in children.
  • 12.Culture can play a role.
  • 13.Collectivist cultures (like Japanese, Hispanic) children often taught to value social harmony; result is less antisocial behavior
  • 14.Exposure to violent media may increase violence.
  • 15.United States is generally violent nation.
  • 16.Aggression and violence two to three times higher in low socioeconomic neighborhoods
  • 17.School environment can play a role.
  • 18.Bullying—repeatedly inflicting harm (through words or actions) on weaker peers who are often unable to defend themselves
  • 19.Bullying somewhat of an epidemic in schools with lower standards of achievement and in which no one attempts to stop the bullying
  • 20.Dodge and Pettit have aggression model that integrates all influences in a biopsychosocial model based on a dynamic cascade model in which aggression results from the interplay between numerous biological, individual, and social factors (e.g., genes, living in violent area, antisocial peers, coercive parents, cognitive factors including a databank of social knowledge about topics related to aggression) more risk factors, greater likelihood of aggression against an adult.
  • 21.Antisocial adults stand a good chance of becoming the kind of negative and coercive parents who raises antisocial children.
  • 22.Prevention of antisocial behavior should be a national priority.
  • 23.Fast Track Program designed by Dodge and members of the Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group to foster social-information processing and social skills
  • 24.Effective in reducing antisocial behavior and preventing the diagnoses of conduct disorder and other psychiatric problems

VI. The Adult (p. 398)

• A. Changes in Moral Reasoning
  • 1. Postconventional moral reasoning (Kohlberg Stage 5) may emerge in young adulthood, but seldom does.
  • 2. No real major changes in complexity of moral thinking in relatively educated individuals
  • 3. Older adults have greater sense of having learned life lessons.
  • 4. Spirituality—ultimate search for meaning of life—may or may not be carried out
  • 5. Spirituality and postconventional thinking both related to wisdom
• B. Culture and Morality
  • 1. Kohlberg’s Theory made tremendous contribution to field of psychology for many years.
  • 2. Weak support for developmental progression in moral thought (e.g., only a minority of people shift from conventional to postconventional perspective in adulthood)
  • 3. Charges of bias
  • 4. Claims of cultural bias—biased against collectivist cultures that emphasize social harmony and place good of group ahead of good for the individual
  • 5. People in collectivist cultures are scored in Stage 3 yet may have sophisticated concepts of justice.
  • 6. Hindu children and adults rate getting a haircut the day after a father dies as a very morally offensive act (Americans often don’t).
  • 7. Americans view beating a wife for being disobedient and going to a movie without permission as a serious moral violation; some Hindus do not.
  • 8. Results challenge the notion of moral development as universal but rather point out the fact that moral judgments are shaped by the social context in which we develop.
  • 9. Political bias—some believe that highest stages only achievable if you have liberal attitude toward issues that are biased against political conservatives (e.g., oppose capital punishment)
  • 10.Gender bias—possible bias against women
  • 11.Carol Gilligan argued that Kohlberg’s stages (initially developed using only male subjects) are biased against women (i.e., women tend to be Stage 3 and males Stage 4).
  • 12.Gilligan suggests socialization leads to morality of justice (focus on laws, rules, individual rights, and fairness) in men and morality of care (focus on obligation to selflessness and welfare of others) in women.
  • 13.Little support that Kohlberg’s model systematically biased against women
  • 14.Few actual sex differences in moral reasoning (i.e., both men and women tend to use care-based reasoning when pondering relationship dilemmas and justice-based reasoning when pondering issue of rights)
  • 15.Gilligan did increase awareness of looking at both morality of care and morality of justice
  • 16.Underemphasizing emotion and behavior
  • 17.Kohlberg’s theory has a primary focus on moral thinking and devotes little attention to moral emotions and moral behavior.
  • 18.Higher rate of moral reasoning found in those who behave more prosocially and less likely to engage in delinquent behavior
  • 19.When relationships between moral reasoning and behavior are found, they tend to be weak.
  • 20.Kohlberg underestimated children’s moral development, and the later stages are not that supported.
• C. Three Different Ethics
  • 1. Inform moral thinking around the world and that the balance of them differs from culture to culture
  • 2. Cultural-developmental perspective on morality
  • 3. Ethic of Autonomy: concern with individual rights and not harming or violating the rights of others
  • 4. Ethic of Community: emphasis on duty, loyalty, and concern for the welfare of family members and larger social group
  • 5. Ethic of Divinity: emphasis on divine law or authority, individual is to follow God’s laws and strive for spiritual purity
• D. Moral Intuition and Emotion
  • 1. New emphasis on role of empathy in motivating moral action
  • 2. Haidt suggests that humans have evolved to have quick moral intuitions based on emotions or disgust; such intuitions more important than deliberate moral reasoning
  • 3. Dual-process models of morality—both deliberate thought and emotion/intuition inform decisions about moral issues and motivate behavior
• E. Predicting Moral Action
  • 1. Kohlberg’s stage theory
  • 2. Underestimates children’s moral sophistication
  • 3. Fails to recognize cultural differences in thinking about morality
  • 4. Neglects intuition/emotion
  • 5. Says too little about the many influences besides moral reasoning on moral behavior
  • F. Religion and Spirituality
  • 1. Kohlberg viewed moral development and religious development as distinct, but others see the two as clearly interrelated.
  • 2. Fowler proposed stages in the development of religious faith from infancy to adulthood, which paralleled Kohlberg’s stages (e.g., concrete images of God in childhood to universal perspective on faith in adulthood).
  • 3. Exploring religious and spiritual issues part of identity formation (children adopt beliefs of parents and then may reject them when they develop their own belief system)
  • 4. Religiosity (religiousness) —sharing the beliefs and participating in the practices of an organized religion
  • 5. Spirituality—a quest for ultimate meaning and a connection with something greater than one’s self
  • 6. Spirituality may be carried out within or outside the context of a religion.
  • 7. Dillon and Wink investigated developmental changes in religiosity and spirituality.
  • 8. Religiosity strong in adolescence, decreased somewhat in middle age and rose again in the late 60s and early 70s
  • 9. Spirituality was judged to be at lower levels than religiosity throughout adulthood but increased significantly from middle age to later adulthood (especially in women).
  • 10.Levels of religiosity and spirituality tend to be highly consistent within individuals.
  • 11.Highly religious individuals tend to be conscientious and agreeable (if women).
  • 12.Highly spiritual individuals tend to be highly open to new experiences.
  • 13.Religiosity in later adulthood correlated with a sense of well-being stemming from positive relationships with others, involvement in social and community activities, and qualities associated with generativity
  • 14.Highly religious individuals are very involved in their religious communities and tend to have good physical health, good mental health, and high levels of prosocial behavior.
  • 15.Highly spiritual individuals have a high sense of well-being that is derived from personal growth.
  • 16.Spiritual adults tend to be highly involved in activities that allow them to express creativity, build their knowledge or skills, and display qualities like wisdom and insightfulness.
  • 17.Religion and spirituality especially important to older adults in certain minority groups
  • 18.African-American and Caribbean blacks report more religious participation, more use of prayer, and more spirituality than non-Hispanic whites.

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