Social and Moral development

Dr Alexandra HooperClinical Psychologist

Conceptual frameworks

• Nature versus nurture– Genetics vs environment and interaction

• Stage theories– Specific stages of development exist for different abilities

• Maturational tasks– Achievement is necessary for further development to

proceed

– Normal Development handout

methodologies

• Cross sectional– Snapshot a certain time

• Cohort– Child of our time

• Individual– In depth but lacks generalisability

Gene – environment interaction

• Twin studies…..intelligence and personality• 50% -80% heritability• Not simply genotype + environment =

Phenotype• Childs phenotype then influences environment;

short person not likely to play basketball• Certain physical characteristics (genetics)

influence other factors e.g. attractive children get more stimulation

Parenting practices

• Two dimensions:– Restrictive –permissive– Loving – hostile

• 3 parenting styles:– Permissive – warm and caring, while accepting unorthodox behaviour– Authoritarian –restrictive – less emotionally close and highly

controlling– Authoritative – enforce rules demand achievement, yet warm and

loving

• Consistency also very important (control predictability)

Family functioning

• Distorted patterns of communication– Misinterpretation of positive / neutral comments– Apologies seen as admission of defeat

• Overprotection– Unwillingness to allow a member of the family to display

individuality • Rejection– No strong sense of collective identity. Sense of isolation

• Enmeshment– Individualisation is lost to family status and role

Family life cycle

• handout

Influences on problem behaviour

• Parental Problems– Mental health – depression, alcohol / drug abuse or

criminality leave children vulnerable to psychological difficulties

– 1. Compromise parents’ capacity to provide secure attachments with their children (e.g. depressed mothers find it difficult to interpret their infants distress signals)

– 2. Process of modelling and inadvertent shaping and reinforcement – children learn belief systems, defence mechanisms, coping strategies.

Divorce

• Often follows marital conflict• Focus on child following divorce; parenting becomes

more permissive, communication deteriorates

• Effect of the divorce dependent:– Age of child– Degree of hostility resulting from the divorce– The use of the child by conflicting parents to achieve their

own aims– Adjustment of the parent who remains caring for the child

Bereavement

• Age of loss• Centrality of relationship• Cumulative loss• Available support• Adjustment and availability of surviving parent• Stages of grief:– Disbelief /denial– Emotional blunting / numbness– Excessive rumination over the lost object / individual

Child abuse

Physical, sexual, emotional abuse in early years may make youngsters vulnerable to later emotional and conduct problems.

Also at risk of being involved in relationships in which they are repeatedly abused.

Circular – Pattern changing course.

Social Disadvantage

• Poverty in early life is a risk factor for later psychological problems.– An inadequate physical environment and inadequate

nutrition may adversely affect children's health and this in turn affect child’s psychological well-being.

– Parents coping with multiple stresses associated with social disadvantage may have few personal resources available for meeting their children's needs for safety, care, control and intellectual stimulation.

Temperament• 25 year long study of 133 children – classified children into three sub-groups.

• Easy-temperament children – 40%– Established regular patterns for feeding, toileting & sleeping. Adapted easily to

environment changes.• Difficult – temperament children – 10%

– Difficulty establishing routine. Avoided new situations & responded to change with negative emotion.

• Slow to warm children – 15%– Showed mild negative emotional response to change, but with repeated contact,

adaption occurred.

– Types predicted later events, i.e. difficult children more likely to have problems at school.

Erikson’s Psychosocial stage model

• handout

Peer relationships and Friendships

• Early and middle childhood formation of groups and friendships essential for adequate development of cognitive and social skills

• Also important for emotional and identity development

• As child matures importance of peer group increases whilst influence of family decreases.

• Adolescence –individual recognises that development is within one’s own control

• Model/ best friend is sought

Development of peer relationships

• Shared activity - focus on shared activity rather than self identity.

• Shared identity - emotional and intellectual features of others become important

• Individuality- different and unique abilities begin to be appreciated

Isolation and rejection

• Low self esteem closely relates to a lack of social skills and awkwardness around others

• Lack of initiatives in making friends and joining in groups

• Those unable to make and retain friendships at risk of future psychological difficulty

• 10-15% children rejected by peer group– Aggressive youngster– victim

Peer relationships

• Victims– Sensitive, anxious, have low self esteem and lack skills to

defend themselves and establish dominance within the peer group hierarchy. Often targets for bullies

• Aggressive impulsive children– Disruptive, hyperactive, impulsive and unable to follow

rules in games. Aggression used less for dominance in hierarchy and more for achieving instrumental aims. Hostile attribution bias.

– Both may be less sensitive to social cues

Popularity

• Any given group there will be individuals who stand out and others who do not feature strongly

– Good-looking– Athletic (males)– Friendly – Extraverted– Socially competent– Intelligent

– Strong relationship between popularity and Leadership….

Social Development

• Influenced by attachment style and attachment behaviour as a starting point– Parenting styles– Family problems– Formation of rules and scripts – Formation of social group / identity

Moral development

• Piaget• Kohlberg• Gilligan

Piaget

• Interested in reasons for moral decisions• Argued that morality develops gradually during

childhood and adolescence. • Two types of moral orientation:– Heteronomous – young children, 5-10yrs - rules

represent an eternal law; unilateral respect (parental authority)

– Autonomous – older children 10 years and above. Subject to ones own laws and rules. Mutual respect (peer negotiation and cooperation)

Kholberg

• Influenced by Piaget – interested in reasons for a persons moral judgements

• Series of ‘dilemmas’• 72 10-16 year olds. Followed up over 30 years• Developed a stage theory of moral

development

• Heinz dilemma

Heinz & the drugstore

In Europe, a woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the 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 ten times what it cost him to make. He paid $400 for the radium but charged $4000 for a small dose. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, asked everyone he knew and managed to raise $2000. 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, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it’ So Heinz got desperate and considered breaking into the mans store to steal the drug for his wife.

1. Should Heinz steal the drug?2. If Heinz doesn’t love his wife, should he steal the drug for her? 3. Suppose the person dying isn’t his wife but a stranger. Should Heinz

steal the drug for the stranger? 4. (If you favour stealing the drug for a stranger) Suppose it’s a pet

animal he loves. Should Heinz steal to same to save the pet animal?5. Is it important for people to do everything they can to save

another's life?6. Is it against the law for Heinz to steal? Does that make it morally

wrong?7. Should people try to do everything they can to obey the law?8. How does this apply to what Heinz should do?

Kohlberg’s 3 stage Moral Development

Kholberg evaluation

• Children’s morality may be more sophisticated than Kohlberg's model

• Ecological validity – not real life concerns for young children

• Gender bias- based on all male sample and constitutes a gender bias. (Gilligan)

• Men's morality based on abstract principles of law and justice – justice orientated

• Women's morality based on principles of compassion and care – relationally orientated

Gilligans theory

• Carol Gilligan's Stages of Moral Development

• Pre-conventional -Goal is individual survival – Self needs and needs of self

• Conventional -Self sacrifice is goodness – Thinking about the needs of others

• Post-conventional -Principle of nonviolence: do not hurt others or self– Truth – a developed morality balancing the above

– Women hold back from moral decision making due to their awareness of complexity within relationships.

Evaluation

• Justice orientation vs. caring orientation evidence for both types of moral reasoning, however not necessarily split on gender terms.

• More than one type of moral voice• Depends on the types of dilemmas being

studied

Social perspective taking

• Ability to form a detached opinion from another persons perspective

• Need a sense of personal identity and an understanding of the independence of the thoughts and actions of others (Cognitive development)

• Social perspective taking and empathy develop with Piaget’s concrete operation stage of cognitive development (Logical thought)

1. Sensorimotor Stage

• From birth – 2 yrs.• Children experience the world through

movement and senses. • Children are egocentric – cannot perceive the

world from another's viewpoint.

2. Preoperational stage

• From 2 – 7 years• Magical thinking • Acquisition of motor skills• Egocentrism begins strongly then weakness• Children cannot use logical thinking

3. Concrete operational stage

• From 7 – 12 years• Children begin to think logically but are very

concrete in their thinking• Children can now conceive and think logically

but only with practical aids• They are no longer egocentric.

4. Formal Operational stage

• From age 12 >• Development of abstract thinking• Can develop abstract thought• Easily think logically in their mind

Empathy

• Development of empathy essential for development of morality

• Empathy different from emotional sensitivity• Important for moral decision making and also

social skills• More abstract moral dilemmas require the

ability to take up others perspectives

Moral standards• Moral behaviour appears to be based on internalisation

of standards of good conduct• Optimal conditions:– Secure attachment, parental warmth and communication– Clears rules regarding moral standards– Consistent use of sanctions– Withdrawal of approval to provoke anxiety rather than

physical punishment to provoke anger– Use of reasoning and explanation– Give age appropriate responsibility– Tolerance of self expression

In contrast:

• Factors associated with aggression:– Aggressive parents– Use of physical punishments– Young parents– Low socio-economic status– Large family size– Lack of positive emotional expression in family– Inconsistent parenting styles

Aggression and anti-social behavior

Dr Alexandra HooperClinical Psychologist

Defining aggression

• Behaviour designed to harm another – Self defence vs unprovoked attack– Same level of aggression, but motive important

• Any behaviour who’s proximate intention is to harm another person (Fiske, 2004)

• Behaviour either physical or symbolic performed with the intention of harm– Passive aggressive– Attacking– Sarcasm

Importance of intention• Widely different motives for aggressive acts

– Proximate intention – closest and most immediate– Primary intention – ultimate motive

• Primary motives:– Revenge, fame, recognition (boxing, school shootings)– Political and moral (terrorism, religious wars)– Control, threat, self enhancement (domestic violence)

• Hostile aggression – aim just to harm or hurt someone Angry / impulsive / automatic

• Instrumental aggression – means to an end – includes self defence – controlled and premeditated.

Theories of aggression

• Lorenz – Ethological approach• Freud – psychoanalytic approach• Frustration-aggression hypothesis• Aggressive cue theory• Social learning theory • Media influence

Lorenz - Ethological Approach

• Lorenz theory is based on animal studies• Aggression is instinctive in all species • “the fighting instinct in beast and man that is

directed against members of the same species”

• Important in the evolution of the species• Allows adaption survival – scarce resources,

defend territory

Freudian theory – Instinct Theory

• Death instinct – thanatos – an inborn self destructiveness, aim to reduce or destroy tension with the aim of achieving a blissful state

• Conflicts with the life instinct, and must therefore be displaced into others or more positively sublimated into other activity (e.g. sport)

• Aggressive energy builds until it needs to be released in some way

• Megergee (1966) - Brutally aggressive crime often committed by over controlled individuals.

• "The sombre fact is that we are the cruellest and most ruthless species that has ever walked the earth . . . And that although we may recoil in horror when we read in newspapers and history books of the atrocities committed by man upon man, we know in our hearts that each one of us harbours within himself the same savage impulses which lead to murder, torture and war… since he [man] now possesses weapons of unparalleled destructiveness . . . it is not beyond possibility that he may yet encompass the total elimination of homo sapiens.“ (Storr 1968)

Frustration-aggression hypothesis

• Dollard (1939) -Aggression is always as a result of frustration and contrariwise the presence of frustration always leads to some form of aggression

• Agreed with Freud that aggression is an instinct, he argued that it would be triggered only by frustrating situations and events.

• Support from the displacement of aggression – scapegoating, retaliation against an innocent third party when retaliation against the provocation is not possible. Kicking the cat

Criticisms of FAH

• Miller (1941) - Frustration might be an instigator of aggression, but situational factors mitigate it; learned inhibition, fear of retaliation

• Bandura (1973) - Frustration leads to arousal, but aggression might be one of many responses, whether it occurs depends on learnt patterns of behavior

• Frustration produces different responses in different situations. Aggression more likely if– frustration occurs close to achieving goal– Frustrating event seen as arbitrary or illegitimate

Aggressive Cue Theory (ACT) – Berkowitz ‘66

• Frustration leads to anger rather than aggression• Anger only converted to aggression when certain cues are

present

• Cues are environmental stimuli associated with aggressive behaviour or frustrating object or person

• Specific features of the situation ‘pull out’ an aggressive response:– Environmental cues associated with aggressive response – And /or associated with previous unpleasant experience

Evaluation of ACT

• Stooge experiment on physiological reactions to stress.

• Evaluate the other person’s solution to a written problem with electric shock

• Half Ps given 1 shock (favourable) other half given 7 shocks (unfavourable)

• See either violent film (Champion with Kirk Douglas) or non violent film

• Ps then shocked the stooge

• More shocks from those that had received more shocks

• more shocks again from those that had viewed the violent film

• and more again when the stooge’s name contained either ‘kirk’ or the character ‘kelly’ he played who lost the fight.

Weapons effect…

• More shocks when there are apparently unrelated weapons present as opposed to sports gear…

• Reliable effect across situations and societies..

• Guns have an effect in their own right on promoting aggression, simply by being there:

‘guns not only permit violence, they can stimulate it as well. The finger pulls the trigger, but the trigger may also be pulling the finger’ Berkowitz (1968)

Social learning theory - Bandura

• Aggressive behavior is learnt through reinforcement and imitation of aggressive ‘models’

• Imitation is reproduction of learning through observation

• Bobo doll experiment-children observed adult model with an inflatable doll. After witnessing violence, more likely to replicate. No violence, no replication.

Video – bobo dolls

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zerCK0lRjp8

Media and violence

• SLT influenced research into effects of watching violence and consequently the effect of watching media with portrayals of violence

• Violence is perceived as more emotional:– When realistic settings– When it is depicted as justified or rewarded– When viewers identify with the characters– When pain and suffering are shown graphically

Psychological processes underlying media exposure

Underlying process

Short term effects 1. Priming of pr-existing cognitions or scripts for behaviour

2. Immediate mimicking of observed behaviour3. Changes in emotional arousal and the misattribution of that arousal

Long term effects 1. Observational learning of behavioural scripts, world schemas and normative beliefs

2. Activation and desensitisation of emotional processes (emotionally blunting)

London Riots

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed0QJJL9sYQ

Deindividualisation

• Developed from concept of losing identity in crowds

• The individual gets lost in the group, they feel more a part of something bigger and become more anonymous.

• This can lead to greater antisocial and aggressive behaviour

• Diener 1976 – trick or treaters• Zimbado – The power of anonymity

Deindividualisation

• Function of uniforms are to deindividualise

• Prison uniforms; holocaust; effect of deindividualisation was also to depersonalise them to allow abuse torture etc.

Altruism and pro-social behavior

Altruism

• Help performed for the benefit of others with no expectation of

personal gain

Pro-Social Behaviors

• Schroeder 1995 – Includes behavior intended to benefit others, such as helping, comforting, sharing, co-operating, re-assuring, defending, donating to charity and showing concern.

• Acts that unintentionally help others not altruism, those that intended to help, but actually fail do count as altruism

Batson (2000)

“We want to know whether anyone ever, in any degree, transcends the bounds of self-interest and helps out of genuine concern for the welfare of another. We want to know whether altruism – motivation with the ultimate goal of increasing another's welfare – exists”

What do you think?

Does Altruism exist?• Dovidio (1995) theory of universal egoism people are

fundamentally selfish and therefore altruism is an impossibility

• Socio-biologists argue that altruism is an act of selfishness in disguise

• McDougall (1908) - sympathetic instincts are responsible for altruism

• All acts motivated by self benefit, however subtle?

Kitty Genovese

• Murder of Kitty Genovese open the floodgates to research into altruism and bystander intervention…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdpdUbW8vbw

Bystander apathy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSsPfbup0ac

• Diffusion of responsibility:• More people around the assumption is

someone else will do something• Don’t want to stand out /go against the crowd

Decision model of bystander intervention

• Latene and Darley (1968)

• Steps or decisions to helping others:– Notice that something is wrong– Define it as a situation requiring help– Decide whether to take personal responsibility– Decide what help to give– Implement the decision to help

Latane and Darley

Factors affecting bystander intervention

• Pluralistic Ignorance – We look to others for signs of anxiety – but since everyone was

trying to remain calm, these signs weren’t there and each person defined the situation as ‘safe’.

– Diffusion of responsibility – Someone else will do what is necessary. The more people present, the lower probability that any one of them will accept responsibility.

• Role of Competence– In the presence of people you believe to be more competent

there is an increase of diffusion of responsibility,– Eg lifeguard

Arousal cost reward model (ACR)(also social exchange theory)

Pilliavin (1969)• Two conceptually distinct but functionally interdependent

influences on helping:

– Arousal – in response to the need or distress of others is an emotional response. When arousal is attributed to the distress of the victim, its experienced as unpleasant, and the bystander is motivated to reduce it.

– Cost reward – cognitive component where bystanders assess the anticipated costs and rewards associated with both helping or not helping

Cost reward analysis

• Costs of helping– Lost time, effort, physical danger, embarrassment,

disruption of activity, psychological aversion (e.g. victim who is bleeding or drunk)

• Rewards of helping– Fame, gratitude of victim and relatives, pleasure

and self satisfaction, avoidance of guilt, money!• Costs of not helping– Guilt and blame from others, internal shame and

guilt, cognitive emotional consequences of leaving someone suffering

Cost analysis

Costs of helping lowCosts of not helping high

Likelihood of intervention: Very high and direct

Costs of helping highCosts of not helping high

Likelihood of intervention: fairly high but indirect or redefine the situation

Costs of helping highCosts of not helping low

Likelihood of intervention: Very low

Costs of helping lowCosts of not helping low

Likelihood of intervention: fairly high

Victim influences

• More likely to help those similar to ourselves

• Racists who would be exposed as such don’t discriminate, but where their decision not to help can be blamed on another factor they then discriminate

• Attributions important: is the person responsible for their predicament? (Drunk vs blind person)

Empathy–Altruism Hypothesis

• Some altruism not egotistically motivated• Some altruism is empathetic with the genuine

motivation to help others

• More empathic emotion: sympathy, concern, tenderness more the altruistic desire to relieve victims suffering

• Self orientated emotions: discomfort, anxiety, upset egotistic desire to reduce own distress

Paradox of altruism

• Some behaviour which is altruistic exposes self to greater risk: goes against survival of the fittest – – rabbit thumping foot to warn of predator