1 / 27

Psychology 307: Cultural Psychology Lecture 16

Psychology 307: Cultural Psychology Lecture 16. Optional Paper Topic due date : March 20 (Option A or B, 3-5 sentence summary; e-mail to the TA, Ben, for approval). Paper due date : April 3. Option A : Review psychological literature on a topic not discussed in class that interests you.

imogene-ferguson
Download Presentation

Psychology 307: Cultural Psychology Lecture 16

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Psychology 307: Cultural PsychologyLecture 16

  2. Optional Paper Topic due date: March 20 (Option A or B, 3-5 sentence summary; e-mail to the TA, Ben, for approval). Paper due date: April 3. Option A: Review psychological literature on a topic not discussed in class that interests you. Option B: Consider how a universally important activity, issue, or need is addressed in at least two different cultures.

  3. Morality • What are Kohlberg’s stages of moral development? • Are Kohlberg’s stages of moral development universal? • What are Shweder’s codes of ethics?

  4. By the end of today’s class, you should be able to: 1. distinguish between the universalist, relativist, and evolutionist perspectives. 2. describe Kohlberg’s levels and stages of moral development. 3. review evidence for and discuss criticisms of Kohlberg’s theory of moral development. 4. describe Shweder’s codes of ethics.

  5. In 1996 in Maine, USA (State of Maine v. Mohammed Kargar, 679 A. 2d 81), an Afghani immigrant was charged with child molestation after he was seen kissing the genitals of his infant son. Mohammed Kargar provided baby-sitting services to local families. One of these children saw Mohammed Kargar place a kiss on the genitals of his own 18-month-old son. Disturbed by this behavior, the child that Kargar was babysitting reported Kargar’s behavior to her parents, who then reported the incident to the police. Kargarclaimed that his gesture is customary and familiar to members of his family and within the Afghani community, where it is understood as a display of love and affection for baby boys. The Kargar Case Was Kargar’s behavior immoral?

  6. When judging the morality of the behaviours of members of other cultural groups, we are prone to adopt an ethnocentric perspective.

  7. What are Kohlberg’s stages of moral development? • Kohlberg proposed that: • there are three levels of moral development, each characterized by two stages. • individuals progress to higher levels and stages as a consequence of cognitive development.

  8. people progress through the levels and stages in the same order across cultures, provided that the cultural context allows for moral capacities to develop (an evolutionist perspective). • Kohlberg levels and stages are as follows:

  9. Level 1: The Preconventional Level • Moral reasoning is based on internal standards—in particular, the physical or hedonistic consequences of the action. • Stage 1: Obedience and Punishment • Stage 2: Self-Interest and Reciprocity

  10. Level 2: The Conventional Level • Moral reasoning is based on external standards—in particular, the maintenance of social order. • Stage 3: Interpersonal accord and conformity. • Stage 4: Social order and system maintenance.

  11. Level 3: The Postconventional Level • Moral reasoning is based on internalized standards—in particular, abstract ethical principles regarding justice and individual rights. • Stage 5: Individual Rights • Stage 6: Universal Ethical Principles

  12. Kohlberg used moral dilemmas to assess participants’ level of moral development. Example: The Heinz Dilemma

  13. 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 the drug cost him to make. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money and tried every legal means, but he could only get together about $1,000, which is 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, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it." So, having tried every legal means, Heinz gets desperate and considers breaking into the man's store to steal the drug for his wife. Should Heinz break into the drugstore?

  14. Level 1: The Preconventional Level Stage 1: “Heinz shouldn’t steal the drug because it’s illegal and he may go to prison.” Stage 2: “Heinz should steal the drug because the druggist is trying to rip him off.”

  15. Level 2: The Conventional Level Stage 3: “Heinz should steal the medicine because his wife expects it; he wants to be a good husband.” Stage 4: “Heinz should follow the law, because the law is what is right. If everyone did what they wanted to do, there would be chaos.”

  16. Level 3: The Postconventional Level Stage 5: “Heinz should not steal the drug because the druggist has the right to determine the compensation he should receive.” Stage 6: “Heinz should steal the drug because the preservation of life must always take priority over the property rights of an individual.”

  17. Should Louise tell her mom that Judy lied? Judy was a twelve-year-old girl. Her mother promised her that she could go to a special rock concert coming to their town if she saved up from baby-sitting and lunch money to buy a ticket to the concert. She managed to save up the fifteen dollars the ticket cost plus another five dollars. But then her mother changed her mind and told Judy that she had to spend the money on new clothes for school. Judy was disappointed and decided to go to the concert anyway. She bought a ticket and told her mother that she had only been able to save five dollars. That Saturday she went to the performance and told her mother that she was spending the day with a friend. A week passed without her mother finding out. Judy then told her older sister, Louise, that she had gone to the performance and had lied to her mother about it. Louise wonders whether to tell their mother what Judy did.

  18. Are Kohlberg’s stages of moral development universal? • Snarey (1985) conducted a meta-analysis of 27 studies that investigated the universality of Kohlberg’s model. Recruited participants from Alaska, Bahamas, Canada, Finland, Germany, Guatemala, India, Kenya, New Guinea, Turkey, U.S. Found:

  19. Most children: Demonstrated preconventional reasoning. • Most adults: Demonstrated conventional reasoning. • Western urbanized cultures: Some adults demonstrated postconventional reasoning. • Village folk and tribal societies: No adults demonstrated postconventional reasoning.

  20. These findings suggest that Kohlberg’s model does not adequately describe moral reasoning in non-Western cultures.

  21. What are Shweder’s codes of ethics? • Richard Shweder (see Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2007; Shweder et al, 1997) maintains that there are three codes of ethics that guide moral reasoning across cultures:

  22. Ethic of Autonomy Concerned with harm, rights and justice. Moral issues include: Whether or not someone was harmed. Whether or not someone suffered emotionally. Whether or not someone cared for someone weak/vulnerable. Whether or not someone was cruel. Whether or not someone was denied his/her rights. Whether or not someone acted unfairly. Whether or not some people were treated differently than others. Whether or not someone tried to dominate someone else.

  23. Ethic of Community Concerned with duty, loyalty, and hierarchy. Moral issues include: Whether or not someone showed a lack of loyalty. Whether or not someone did something to betray his/her group. Whether or not the action affected your group. Whether or not someone’s action showed love for his/her country. Whether or not someone failed to fulfill the duties of his/her role. Whether or not someone conformed to the traditions of society. Whether or not someone showed a lack of respect for authority. Whether or not an action caused chaos or disorder.

  24. Ethic of Divinity Concerned with sacred order, purity, and sanctity. Moral issues include: Whether or not someone violated standards of purity and decency. Whether or not someone was able to control his or her desires. Whether or not someone acted in a way that God would approve of.

  25. Examples (Haidt, 2007): How much would you have to be paid to …..? • stick a pin into the palm of a child you don't know. • slap your father in the face (with his permission) as part of a comedy skit.

  26. accept a plasma screen TV from a friend who bought it a year ago from a thief who had stolen it from a wealthy family. • say something slightly bad about your nation (which you don't believe to be true) while calling in, anonymously, to a talk-radio show in a foreign nation. • attend a performance art piece in which the actors act like animals for 30 min, including crawling around naked and urinating on stage.

  27. Morality • What are Kohlberg’s stages of moral development? • Are Kohlberg’s stages of moral development universal? • What are Shweder’s codes of ethics?

More Related