Are they good or bad?

Developmental Ψ - Morality When did you start to make moral judgements

‘good’ & ‘bad’? Age 0-1? 1-4? 5-7? 8-11?

Have your views of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ changed as you’ve grown older? How? When?

Where do your views come from?

Nelson, S.A . ( 1980)

Factors influencing young children’s use of motives and outcomes as moral criteria

Child Development, 51, 823-829

Background

Jean Piaget

Morality develops gradually during childhood

Under 10 – no consistent evidence for motive as basis for judgement good/bad, only outcome

Above 10 – judgements based on motive

Background

Moral orientation – heteronomous & autonomous

heteronomous – ‘subject to another’s laws/rules’ autonomous – ‘subject to one’s own laws/rules’

• c. 7 years old

Example – a moral dilemma Frank’s wife is dying Medicine costs €4000 to buy but €400 to make Frank borrows €2000 from friends and asks

for a discount or to pay later Druggist insists on €4000

What should Frank do? Steal? What if Frank doesn’t love his wife? Woman is a stranger?

Design – Study 1

Sample 60 preschool children mean age 3.4 30 primary school children mean age 7.4 ♂:♀ c. 50:50 mostly white middle-class

Parental consent given

Method

4 versions of a story Factorial design:

2 levels of motive 2 levels of outcome

Each child heard all 4 versions of the story

Each child in one condition (=independent measures design)

+ motive + motive+ outcome - outcome

- motive - motive+ outcome - outcome

IV: Story condition One of three

DV: rating out seven Very bad (1), very good (7)

Design – Study 1

IV: story condition Verbal V+pics+implied motive (facial expressions) V+pics+explicit motive (thought bubble)

DV: child’s judgement

Response “Is the actor good or bad?” “How good/bad?” → scale 1 to 7

After the child’s judgement, they were asked to tell the story exactly as they had heard it.

Why? Checking for errors of valence

Does inconsistent (+/- & -/+) → consistent

Results

By motive: Good 5.35; bad 2.27

By outcome: Good 4.70; bad 2.92

What does this indicate? “Motive” is a more decisive factor in moral

judgements than outcome (p<0.001)

Results p826

By age – can you compare the 3-y/o and 7-y/o?

3 y/o (n=60) 7 y/o (n=30)

+ motive - motive + motive - motive

+ outcome 6.55 2.27 6.20 3.46

- outcome 4.17 1.60 4.47 1.56

• Compared to 7-y/o children, 3-y/o children judge the actor worse after one –ve cue (whether motive or outcome)

Results p827

By condition Motive made little difference Outcome had a greater effect on moral

judgements in the ‘explicit motive’ condition (p<0.01)

Outcome information was used more (i.e. made more difference to judgements) in ‘bad motive’ stories in the two picture conditions than verbal only (p<0.01)

Results Recall

• Inter-coder reliability 97% 3-y/o children made more errors (0.41)

than 7-y/o (0.16) More recall errors in motive than outcome Fewer recall errors in picture presentations

Do all children make more valence errors when information is conflicting? 3-y/o 7-y/o

Discussion Do children learn the

concept of bad before the concept of good? (Piaget 1932)

Do young children define good as the absence of bad, e.g. “being good is not lying” (Hill & Hill 1977)?

Study 2 background

In study 1, one –ve cue was sufficient to produce –ve judgement.

3-year-olds’ judgements in bad motive stories were affected by motive but not by outcome.

Was that because motive was presented first?

Study 2: reverse the order, i.e. present outcome first then motive

Study 2 Method

Materials and procedure same as before 27 preschool ♂ and ♀, mean age 3.8 In all stories and conditions, outcome

preceded motive

Study 2 Results p828

As in study 1: When one cue is –ve, the other cue has

less effect Children made more recall errors when

cues were inconsistent

As predicted: Judgements in Verbal condition were less

affected by motive than picture conditions So...?

Discussion …what does it all MEAN?

moral judgement cues verbal/picture & order of presentation children’s use of motive/outcome info

For 3-y/o, one –ve cue → –ve judgement In verbal presentations it’s first cue

encountered Judgements are primed for any of –ve valence,

whether motive or outcome

Evaluation Reliable?

Complicated effects but yes, replicable

Valid? Exp: measured moral judgement? Ext: generalisable? Eco: realistic task? Eth: consent?

Application

Social relationships e.g. helping, sharing, hurting

Social education: primary, PSHE, citizenship

Understanding mental processes & beliefs

Key terms Moral criteria Moral judgement

Independent measures design

Experimental condition Implicit

Explicit Statistical significance

Valence