Times are displayed in (UTC-05:00) Central Time (US & Canada) Change
About this paper symposium
| Panel information |
|---|
| Panel 13. Moral Development |
| Paper #1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Early Relational Origins of Young Children’s Moral Selves: Two Longitudinal Studies | |||
| Author information | Role | ||
| Juyoung Kim, The University of Iowa, United States | Presenting author | ||
| Grazyna Kochanska, The University of Iowa, United States | Non-presenting author | ||
| Abstract | |||
|
How do children become moral beings? Why do some embark on positive paths toward a mature conscience and prosocial, rule-abiding conduct, whereas others enter maladaptive paths toward callousness, disregard for rules, and antisocial behavior? Numerous theoretical traditions have offered widely divergent answers to those fundamental questions in developmental psychology and psychopathology. Recently, interest in moral self, self-concept, or identity, a key component of morality, has resurged (Hardy & Carlo, 2011; Heiphetz, 2020; Krettenauer et al., 2013), and extended to childhood (Thompson, 2006), facilitated by the availability of a puppet interview measure, feasible as early as age 4 (Kochanska, 2002), adapted from Eder’s (1990) research on self-concept. Yet, our understanding of early origins of moral self remains incomplete. Influenced by the science of early relationships and attachment theory, we view children's future moral self as originating in their stance toward parental socialization at toddler age. At that time, the rapid onset of parental control engenders in the child both receptive and adversarial stances toward the parent. This is due to the complex dynamics of competing developmental forces – child fledgling self-regulation and resulting compliance, but at the same time, emerging autonomy and resulting noncompliance. Although those intriguing developmental dialectics are well recognized, their importance for emerging morality has been under-appreciated. We propose a developmental cascade from child receptive and adversarial stance toward the parents at the beginning of the second year, to the stance at toddler age, to moral self at preschool age, expecting a positive path from the receptive stance and a negative one from the adversarial one. Early receptive stance promotes child future rule-compatible conduct, and adversarial stance promotes rule-disregarding conduct; children then gradually distill those experiences into their views of moral selves (Harter, 2006). Additionally, we propose that (in)secure attachment in infancy serves as a precursor of the receptive or adversarial stance. We present data from two studies of community children, mothers, and fathers from the U.S. Midwest (Children and Parents Study, CAPS, n=200, 96 girls, 104 boys; Family Study, FS, n=102, 51 girls, 51 boys), demographically diverse, with 20% families including one or both non-White parents. Both studies employed exclusively behavioral data, parallel for mother- and father-child dyads, measured using comparable methodologies to allow replication. In CAPS, we tested the path from child receptive and adversarial stance toward the parent at 16 months, to their analogous stance at toddler age, to moral self at preschool age. In FS, we explored the path from child attachment security at 15 months (observer-rated Attachment Q-Set), to child receptive and adversarial stance toward the parent at toddler age, to moral self at kindergarten age. Both studies operationalized receptive and adversarial stance as positive, responsive, or defiant, rejecting behaviors toward the parent, respectively; both assessed moral self in the puppet interview. Generally, structural equation analyses supported our model in both studies, although the results varied in mother- versus father-child relationships (Figure 1 – CAPS; Figure 2 – FS). We discuss early parent-child relationships as a significant context for emerging moral self. |
|||
| Paper #2 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Morality and Self-Continuity: Further Evidence Supporting the Early-Onset View of Moral Identity Development | |||
| Author information | Role | ||
| Tobias Krettenauer, Ph.D., Wilfred Laurier University, Canada | Presenting author | ||
| Hailey Goddeeris, Wilfred Laurier University, Canada | Non-presenting author | ||
| Jean-Paul Lefebvre, Wilfred Laurier University, Canada | Non-presenting author | ||
| Abstract | |||
|
Since the 1980s, moral identity development has been considered the hallmark of adolescence and emerging adulthood. Yet, more recent research called this view into question (Kingsford et al. 2018; Tomasello, 2019). Engelmann and colleagues (2012, 2018) demonstrated that 5-year-old children engage more in prosocial actions (sharing) and less in antisocial behaviour (stealing) when an uninvolved observer is present. Children want to be seen as good, helpful, and cooperative by others and want to maintain their identity as a moral agent. While this research suggests that moral identity emerges in middle childhood, it is far from being conclusive. Children's moral behavior in the presence of a third-party observer may be an act of strategic impression management and not involve any concerns about the rightness or goodness of their actions. Alternatively, children may primarily act out of prudential or conventional but not moral concerns in such situations. Establishing the early-onset view of moral identity development requires studying children's behaviors, judgments, and emotions in a multi-pronged approach. In the present study, we take up one specific line of research that potentially could bolster the early-onset view of moral identity development: children's understanding of self-continuity as it relates to matters of morality. Strohminger and Nichols (2014) reported that adults consider changes in moral beliefs as most disruptive to people's self-continuity, far more than changes in any other psychological faculty. The same tendency is present in adolescence (Lefebvre & Krettenauer, 2020) but evidence for childhood is mixed (Heiphetz, 2019). In the present study, we modified the procedure established in Lefebvre and Krettenauer (2020) for studying children's understanding of self-continuity in relation to matters of morality. 115 children (52% male) from two different age groups (4-5 and 7-8 years) were presented with scenarios describing people undergoing change and asked to gauge the impact of that change on their identity. The nature of the change varied for domain (moral, social-conventional or personal) and direction (positive vs. negative). Similar to research with adolescents and adults, there were significant domain differences, F(2, 112)=13.08, p<.01. This main effect was qualified by an interaction of domain with age, F(2, 112)=3.56, p<.05. Younger children evidenced less differentiation between all three domains. The moral domain was more important for establishing self-continuity in 7- to 8-year-olds than in the younger age group, p=0.015. For the social-conventional and the personal domains no differences between groups were found, ps=.088 and .632 respectively (see Figure 1). Overall, these findings demonstrate the importance of morality for children's sense of self-continuity even though this importance is less clearly differentiated from the social conventional domain as compared to adolescents or adults. While intuitions about self-continuity should not be confused with moral identity, they may form an important foundation for establishing the sense that morality matters to the self. This foundation gradually emerges in middle childhood and appears to be sufficiently established around the age of 7 to 8 years, thus, supporting the early-onset view of moral identity development. |
|||
| Paper #3 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Children Perceive Moral Identities as More Changeable for the Better than do Adults | |||
| Author information | Role | ||
| Larisa Heiphetz Solomon, Ph.D., Columbia University, United States | Presenting author | ||
| James P. Dunlea, Columbia University, United States | Non-presenting author | ||
| Aaron Cohen, Columbia University, United States | Non-presenting author | ||
| Abstract | |||
|
People often transgress, yet they also learn from mistakes and improve over time. How do children, and adults, think about moral identity given that morality is not static? Past work (Dunlea & Heiphetz, 2020) suggested that 6- to 8-year-olds are more likely than adults to perceive individuals who had experienced severe forms of punishment - e.g., incarceration - as being "bad people" and lacking morally positive identities. Two studies built on this result to investigate whether participants think that moral transformation is possible. In Study 1, 6- to 8-year-olds (n=94) and adults (n=94) learned about "nice" or "mean" characters. Within each condition, the experimenter described one character who went to prison for one year (punishment condition) and another character who went on a business trip for one year (control condition; the absence lasted for the same amount of time but did not indicate punishment). Participants indicated how morally good the character was at the beginning and end of the year, and we calculated difference scores such that positive values indicated that characters would be better at the end, versus beginning, of the year. ANOVAs revealed a Participant Age x Condition interaction for both nice characters (F(1, 183)=14.70, p<.001) and mean characters (F(1, 180)=11.27, p=.01). Children were more likely than adults to report increases in moral goodness for both nice and mean characters who received punishment (ps<.001); age-related differences did not emerge in perceptions of characters who did not receive punishment (ps>.055; Figure 1). That is, children - but not adults - expected punishment to make nice people nicer and mean people less mean. Study 2 asked how specific activities undertaken by punished individuals shape perceptions of moral improvement. Here, 6- to 8-year-olds (n=50) and adults (n=53) learned about incarcerated people who took classes about one of three topics: (a) secular classes about ethics, (b) religious education classes (based on work showing that children and adults associate religiosity with moral goodness; Gervais, 2014; Heiphetz et al., 2014); and (c) art classes (non-moral control condition). Participants then indicated how effective each type of class would be at eliciting moral improvement. An ANOVA revealed a main effect of Class Type (F(1.85, 84.28)=30.13, p<.001): across age, participants viewed art classes as less effective than either of the morally-linked classes (ps<.001), while the secular ethics and religion classes did not differ from each other (p=.099). We also observed a main effect of Participant Age (F(1, 101)=94.11, p<.001): children perceived the classes as more effectively facilitating moral improvement than did adults. The Class Type x Participant Age interaction did not reach significance (p=.238; Figure 2). These studies indicate that children perceive others as more capable of moral improvement than do adults. Further, children reported that some forms of social experience (e.g., taking religious classes or secular ethics classes) were particularly effective at facilitating such improvement. Whereas adults held a relatively constant view of others' moral identities, children perceived individuals who had undergone punishment as capable of moral transformation. |
|||
⇦ Back to session
The Emergence of Moral Identity: Integrating Perspectives from Social, Emotional, and Cognitive Development
Submission Type
Paper Symposium
Description
| Session Title | The Emergence of Moral Identity: Integrating Perspectives from Social, Emotional, and Cognitive Development |