parents through the creation of the superego, which produced feelings of guilt, ... parenting practices (e.g., discipline) and negative emotions (e.g., guilt) lead .... By 7 to 8 years of age, however, children attribute negative and mixed emotions to.
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Morality: Development, Identity, Intuition, Reasoning
Marc Jambon & Judith G. Smetana University of Rochester
To appear in: M. Bornstein’s (Ed.) SAGE Encyclopedia of Lifespan Human Development, 2 nd Edition
2 Navigating the rules and values of society and learning to cooperate with others are fundamental tasks of social development. As such, the nature and development of morality has been of longstanding concern to psychologists. This entry describes the major concepts, themes, and findings regarding moral development from infancy to adulthood, with an emphasis on how specific topics and methods vary across developmental periods. Classic Theories of Moral Development For much of the 20th century, two theoretical approaches dominated the study of morality. Socialization perspectives drew on the ideas of Sigmund Freud and B.F. Skinner to explain how children learned societal norms. Freud believed that young children adopted the values of their parents through the creation of the superego, which produced feelings of guilt, shame, and anxiety when internalized standards were broken. Skinner, however, downplayed the importance of internal psychological processes such as the super-ego. He believed that children learned to follow rules through behavioral reinforcement, whereby “good” actions were rewarded and “bad” actions punished. Integrating these ideas, more recent socialization researchers focus on understanding how parenting practices (e.g., discipline) and negative emotions (e.g., guilt) lead children to internalize societal expectations. In contrast, cognitive-developmental approaches, as exemplified by the work of Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg, concentrated on the development of children’s reasoning about right and wrong, rather than emotions or behavior. Much of this work focused on the development of qualitatively different stages of moral reasoning. This approach also differs from socialization perspectives in proposing that at the most mature levels, individuals make judgments based on moral principles of justice that are independent of–and distinguished from–a morality based on adherence to family or societal rules, laws, and social conventions.
3 In the 1970’s, researchers also began to study more “positive” aspects of morality, including children’s prosocial (helping) behavior and emotions such as empathy and sympathy. Although many of the ideas and methods of these early approaches remain influential, contemporary researchers now stress the interconnected nature of thinking (reasoning), feeling (emotions), and acting (behavior). Modern approaches also acknowledge both negative and positive aspects of morality and take into account universal processes and individual differences. Infancy and Toddlerhood While classic approaches assumed that young children were mostly self-centered and lacked a moral sense, researchers now view the first few years of life as important for moral development. Advances in research methods have led to findings that infants and toddlers possess strong tendencies towards attending to others in need. Even day-old newborns respond to the distress of other babies, and infants as young 5 months–assessed by looking time and reaching– prefer prosocial characters to those who behave antisocially. Complex prosocial behaviors and empathic emotions begin to emerge during the second year of life, as children begin to walk and better understand others’ goals. Studies have found that 14month-olds readily help adults in need, and 24-month olds cooperate with peers to accomplish tasks. Using experiments in which an actor (e.g., the researcher) fakes an injury, studies have also found increases between 14 and 24 months of age in how often child will help others in distress. This change is directly related to children’s growing ability to recognize others as different from themselves. While the ability to recognize and share others’ emotions is necessary to feel concern, empathy does not always promote moral development. If children have problems regulating their emotions and their feelings become too intense, they may experience personal distress. This is a
4 highly arousing, negative response to others’ distress leading children to focus on themselves rather than others’ needs. If properly regulated and focused outward, however, empathy may lead to the experience of sympathy (feeling concern for others). Sympathy, not personal distress, is seen as contributing to moral development and is associated with prosocial behavior across the lifespan. Socialization researchers have also identified the toddler years as important for conscience development. Conscience reflects the ability to regulate behavior and comply with expectations. It is most commonly measured in laboratory studies by looking at whether children willingly conform to adults’ request, and whether they experience guilt and remorse after rule-breaking. These negative emotions help children learn to follow and adopt adult standards. Individual differences in conscience development are evident by 2 years of age and remain stable across childhood. Two important factors help to explain early differences in conscience development: the parent–child relationship and biologically based differences in temperament. In general, experiencing secure parent–child attachment relationships—characterized by cooperation and positive feelings and interactions —aids conscience development by providing children with the confidence and trust to readily adopt their parents’ requests. The temperamental traits of effortful control and fearfulness are also important. Effortful control reflects the ability to regulate behavior and control impulses. Children higher in effortful control are therefore better at following instructions and complying with rules. Additionally, children who are temperamentally fearful and shy are more prone to negative emotions and exhibit greater guilt after wrongdoing. Thus, the ability to control behavior and experience guilt provide different pathways to conscience development. Indeed, preschoolers possessing at least one of these temperamental
5 traits (compared to those who are low on both) are less likely to evidence conduct problems in later childhood. While parenting and temperament directly contribute to conscience development, they also interact in interesting ways. For example, children who are temperamentally fearful benefit most from parenting practices that entail gentle, non-punitive discipline strategies. In contrast, relatively fearless children are not driven by feelings of guilt. Warm relationships and secure attachments, rather than discipline, are most effective at getting them to “buy into” parents’ requests. Early to Late Childhood As children’s verbal and cognitive abilities improve, researchers are better able to assess their moral judgments. During the preschool years, interactions involving harm, injustice, and unfairness (which are ubiquitous during this period) contribute to the development of moral concepts. In contrast, experiences with arbitrary social norms and expectations (e.g., regarding manners or how to speak to adults) lead to an understanding of society and social conventions. As a result of these experiences, children begin to think about moral rules differently from other types of social norms. While children believe that it is wrong to violate both moral and conventional expectations, only moral violations are judged to also be wrong even in the absence of rules and prohibitions (because they have negative consequences for others). Additionally, social interactions also allow children to understand themselves and others as psychological agents, including the notion that some behaviors and preferences are personal and do not involves issues of right and wrong (e.g., privacy; personal opinion). The ability to differentiate morality from matters of convention and personal choice represents a milestone in young children’s socio-moral development that persists across the lifespan.
6 While basic moral concepts emerge during the preschool years, children’s understanding of different types of moral events and complex situations continue to develop. Age-related increases in the ability to consider others’ mental states (e.g., beliefs, emotions, intentions) allows for a greater understanding of less concrete, more abstract moral concepts involving psychological distress, exclusion, and resource distribution. Cognitive sophistication also enhances children’s ability to balance and coordinate different concerns in complex moral events. For instance, between 5 and 10 years of age, children are increasingly able to consider mitigating circumstances and balance information about others’ intentions with the consequences of their actions. Thus, children begin to understand that moral transgressions may sometimes be justified (e.g., in self-defense). Children also shift from understanding that fairness entails strict equality to appreciating that fair and just treatment must consider others’ varying needs and characteristics (equity). Moral emotions and behaviors also change in both nature and frequency across childhood. Feelings of sympathy and prosocial behavior continue to increase with age, while better emotion regulation abilities lead to decreases in personal distress. In general, however, individual differences in empathic concern and prosociality are relatively stable during this period. Interestingly, empathy is not closely related to levels of aggression in early childhood; some studies have shown that young children who are more empathic and prosocial are also more aggressive. This may be because young aggressive children are highly assertive and are therefore more attentive to others in distress. As social skills continue to develop, however, empathy is linked to decreases in aggression with age. Despite their ability to care for others and their belief that victims will feel negative emotions, preschoolers often expect themselves and others to feel good after committing moral
7 transgressions. This happy victimizer phenomenon is tied to young children’s limited psychological knowledge and inability to consider nuanced connections between different events. By 7 to 8 years of age, however, children attribute negative and mixed emotions to transgressors (i.e., getting what you want feels good, but hurting others makes you feel bad). Across childhood, youth who expect to feel happy following a moral transgression are more likely to behave aggressively (and less likely to behave prosocially) towards others. Adolescence The second decade of life is marked by developmental changes that have important implications for moral development. These newfound abilities include an increased capacity for abstract thought, the emergence of nuanced notions of self and identity, and the transition to larger and more complex peer networks. Much of the research during period has focused on adolescents’ attempts to balance and struggle with complex moral issues regarding social relationships, group identity, and their role within the larger society. For instance, children and adolescents in both Western and non-Western cultures treat rights to free speech and religion as moral issues. However, adolescents are increasingly likely to believe that it is acceptable to limit civil liberties in some situations, such as when allowing free speech may cause harm to others. They also become more likely to uphold and support civil liberties in the face of unjust laws. Similarly, research on social exclusion has shown that both young children and teens typically think it is wrong to exclude others from activities on the basis of race or gender. In adolescence, however, youth may de-emphasize the moral aspects of exclusion as they become able to consider other factors that may influence these decisions; they may give priority to issues such as shared common interests, special abilities, group functioning, legitimate personal concerns, and social relationships. At the same time, adolescents are also
8 better able to consider the negative effects of exclusion on others’ psychological wellbeing. Thus, judgments and reasoning do not show a clear progression towards a mature moral orientation. Rather, adolescents become increasingly likely to notice and struggle with the complexities of social and moral life. Notions of self and identity become centrally important during adolescence. Teens are increasingly able to incorporate moral themes and traits into their self-conceptions (e.g., “honesty is important to me”), leading to the development of moral identity. Youth who view morality as more central to their self-concepts are more prosocial, actively engaged in their communities, and exhibit personality traits such as optimism, agreeableness, and sensitivity. Further, involvement in community service activities that allow for the opportunity to discuss and reflect on complex social issues (e.g., homelessness) bolster the extent to which adolescents view themselves as moral agents. Although further research is needed to establish this assertion, moral identity is thought to be rooted in early relationships and conscience development and to serve as the basis for moral personality in adulthood. Researchers have also looked at different factors that may influence adolescents’ societal values and civic engagement. While a popular view is that adolescents reject their parents’ values and beliefs, there is little scientific support for this claim. Adolescents’ attitudes regarding morality, religion, and politics are largely similar to their parents’. Generational gaps are evident, however, in issues involving personal taste and preferences (e.g., music, dress), and these everyday issues tend to produce disagreements between teens and their parents. However, socialization experiences may be important for certain types of values like social trust. Social trust refers to the extent to which others are seen as generally fair, trustworthy, and part of one’s moral community. Overall, social trust declines from early to middle adolescence,
9 with individual differences stabilizing during late adolescence. Adolescents’ social trust is bolstered by experiences in family and school contexts that provide them with a sense of solidarity and purpose, and through interactions with authority figures who encourage them to voice their opinions and respect others. In turn, greater social trust is linked to more tolerant and accepting attitudes towards those with diverse opinions and beliefs and with greater prosocial behavior and civic engagement (e.g. volunteering). However, social trust varies greatly by race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status; compared to minorities or members of lower social and economic status groups, White, middle-class adolescents and adults are generally more trusting of others. Adulthood Processes associated with moral development during adulthood have received considerably less attention than at earlier periods. However, many of the salient themes of adolescence persist throughout the lifespan. One commonly studied topic is how moral concepts are applied in different social and cultural contexts. For instance, studies have examined how individuals occupying different positions of power understand their roles in society. Research conducted in non-Western, hierarchical societies (e.g. in India, Benin, West Africa, and among the Druze – a small, isolated religious sect in Israel) have shown that individuals occupying different social positions have discrepant, often conflicting views. Those in more subordinate positions (such as females) are typically far less approving of cultural practices that limit their personal autonomy and rights than those in positions of power (such as males). However, those with less power often acquiesce to cultural expectations out of respect for tradition and concerns for their own safety and wellbeing, not because they fully agree with inequalities. These findings demonstrate
10 the complexity of moral life and suggest that individuals actively attempt to balance their own needs with the expectations and beliefs of the broader social group. While contemporary developmental research on morality in adulthood is limited, researchers across diverse fields–including neuroscience, anthropology, and social psychology–have devoted significant attention to understanding the unconscious mechanisms believed to underlie adults’ moral judgments and behavior (an area referred to as moral psychology). One prominent assumption is that irrational, emotion-based “intuitions” are responsible for individuals’ attitudes and behaviors. That is, it is assumed that for most moral issues (which are vaguely defined as issues of right and wrong), people experience automatic “gut reactions” that lead to decisions about the acceptability of an act. Thinking and reasoning are described as occurring after (rather than before) decisions are made and thus are seen as rationalizations for their initial, unconscious reactions. This research has primarily relied on evocative hypothetical dilemmas aimed at eliciting disgust (e.g. eating a dead chicken after having intercourse with it), or on complex hypothetical situations that ask individuals to choose whether to kill innocent others in order to save a large group (referred to as “trolley-car” dilemmas). Support for the “intuition” hypothesis comes from findings showing that adults generally cannot offer logical reasons for evaluations. Neuroimaging data also suggests that areas of the brain associated with emotional processing are activated during these tasks. Although interesting, it is difficult to generalize from these findings to everyday experiences because the studies rely on complicated, unusual, and extreme situations. Additionally, there is consensus among neuroscientists that most brain structures are associated with both affective and cognitive processes. Moral psychology research in adulthood needs to be integrated with the
11 extensive body of developmental research showing that judgments and reasoning are crucial to understanding moral development. Authors Marc Jambon Judith G. Smetana
Headwords Civic Engagement Conscience Empathy Prosocial Behavior Prosocial Reasoning Socialization Social Cognition Values
Further Readings Eisenberg, N., Spinrad, T., & Morris, A. (2014). Empathy-related responding in children. In M. Killen & J. Smetana (Eds.), Handbook of Moral Development, 2nd Edition (pp. 184-207). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Hamlin, K. (2015). Does the infant possess a moral concept? In E. Margolis & S. Laurence (Eds.), The Conceptual Mind: New Directions in the Study of Concepts (pp. 477-518). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hardy, S. & Carlo, G. (2011). Moral identity: What is it, how does it develop, and is it linked to moral action? Child Development Perspectives, 5, 212-218.
12 Kochanska, G., & Aksan, N. (2006). Children's conscience and self-regulation. Journal of Personality, 74, 1587-1617. Smetana, J., Jambon, M., & Ball, C. (2014). The social domain approach to children’s moral and social judgments. In M. Killen & J. Smetana (Eds.), Handbook of Moral Development, 2nd Edition (pp. 23-45). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Thompson, R. (2012). Wither the preconventional child? Toward a life-span moral development theory. Child Development Perspectives, 6, 423-429. Turiel, E. (2010). The development of morality: Reasoning, emotions, and resistance. In W. F. Overton & R. M. Lerner (Eds.) Handbook of Life-Span Development, Vol. 1: Cognition, Biology, and Methods (pp. 554-583). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Wainryb, C. & Recchia, H. (2014). Moral lives across cultures: Heterogeneity and conflict. In M. Killen & J. Smetana (Eds.), Handbook of Moral Development, 2nd Edition (pp. 259-278). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
