Chapter 12

1. Chapter 12 Moral Development, Values, and Religion in Adolescence

2. What is moral development? • Moral development involves thoughts, feelings, and behaviors regarding standards of right and wrong. • Moral development consists of intrapersonal and interpersonal dimensions • What are some of these intrapersonal codes of conduct? Interpersonal?

3. Moral Thought: Piaget • Piaget distinguished between the heteronomous morality of younger children an the autonomous morality of older children. • Heteronomous morality begins about 4 to 7 years of age and is viewed as unchangeable law and not subject to the ambiguities of life. Either/Or.

4. Cognitive Development Theories Moral Development Theories Based on observation of his own children Jean Piaget

5. Moral Thought: Piaget • Autonomous morality: Begins about age 10; Piaget’s 2nd stage of moral development • In Autonomous morality, rules are made by people and one must consider the circumstance, the consequence, and the entire whole when making judgments about moral action.

6. Moral Thought: Piaget • Formal operational thought might undergird changes in adolescent’s moral reasoning. • Dealing with abstracts, hypotheticals, and contradictory issues in ambiguous situations help to sharpen this type of moral development. • What is right? Why is it right? Can right ever be wrong?

7. Moral Thought: Piaget • Hoffman proposed cognitive disequilibrium theory which describes movement from relatively homogenous grade school to the more heterogenous high school and college involvements. • Individuals face contradictions to their moral stance. This causes disequilibrium. Cognitive dissonance.

8. Kohlberg

9. Kohlberg’s theory of moral development • Kohlberg’s theory is provocative. • He argues morality is developed in 3 stages and each stage has 2 levels. • Preconventional, conventional, and postconventional morality as the big 3 stages. Why do you do the right thing? • Increased internalization characterizes the movement from level 2 to 3.

10. Kohlberg: Level 1: Preconventional Level • Children at this level reason in terms of their own needs. • Answers to moral dilemmas are based on what they can get away with. • Right and wrong, are interpreted in terms of punishment, reward, exchange of favors, or the physical power of those who advocate the rules and labels.

11. Kohlberg: Level 1, Stage 1 • Children worry about avoiding punishment by adults or people with superior power and prestige. • They are aware of rules and the consequences of breaking them in a strictly personal and physical sense. • There is no internalized morality.

12. Kohlberg: Level 1, Stage 2 • Children want to satisfy their own needs (and occasionally the needs of others) if they can get away with it. • They are motivated by self-interest and are aware that relationships are dominated by concrete reciprocity (you scratch my back. I’ll scratch yours), not loyalty, gratitude, or justice.

13. Kohlberg: Level 2 Conventional • Moral value resides in performing good and right roles. • Children are concerned with meeting external social expectations. They value meeting the expectations of family, group, or nation by conforming to the expectation of significant people and the social order.

14. Kohlberg: Level 2, Stage 3 • Children earn approval by being “nice.” They are concerned about living up to “good boy” and “good girl” stereotypes. • Good behavior is what pleases or helps others and what is approved of by them. • The Golden Rule

15. Kohlberg: Level 2, Stage 4 • Children are motivated by a sense of duty or obligation to live up to socially defined roles, and to maintain the existing social order for the good of all. • They are aware that there is a larger social system, which regulates the behavior of the people within it.

16. Kohlberg: Level 3: Postconventional • Children make a clear effort to define moral values and principles that have validity and application apart from the authority of groups or individuals and apart form their own identification. • There is a concern for fidelity to self-chosen moral principles.

17. Kohlberg: Level 3, Stage 5 • Right actions tend to be defined in terms of general individual rights and standards that have been critically examined and agreed on by the whole society. • There is an emphasis on procedural rules for reaching consensus because of awareness of the relativism of personal values and opinions.

18. Kohlberg: Level 3, Stage 6 • The person defines right by decisions of conscience in accord with self-chosen ethical principles that appeal to logical comprehensiveness, universality, and consistency. • These principles are abstract and ethical; at heart they are universal principles of justice.

19. Kohlberg’s theory of moral development • Influences on the stages include cognitive development, imitation and cognitive conflict, peer relations, and perspective taking. • Morality as an extended form of empathy. • Morality as an extended form of enlightened self interest.

20. Kohlberg in a nutshell • Level A: Preconventional Level • Punishment and Obedience • Individual Instrumental Purpose and Exchange • Level B: Conventional Level • Mutual Interpersonal Expectations, Relationships and Conformity • Social Systems and Conscience Maintenance

21. Kohlberg in a nutshell • Level C: Postconventional and Principled Level • Prior Rights and Social Contract or Utility • Universal Ethical Principles • Your text provides more discussion; check out the internet as there is a lot of information about Kohlberg on the web.

22. Kohlberg’s critics • Critics feel Kohlberg’s theory directs too little attention to moral behavior, assessment problems, underestimation of culture’s influences on morality, and underestimation of the care perspective (Gilligan’s theory of moral development) • What role does culture have on morality? Care giving? Empathy?

23. Moral Reasoning and social conventional reasoning • Social conventional reasoning involves thoughts about social consensus… what do most people do? Right is define as a function of what is normal which is defined as what most people do. • Moral reasoning stresses ethical issues; what is right and why is it right?

24. Moral Reasoning

25. Teaching morality: Behaviorism • Behaviorists argue that children’s moral behavior is determined by the processes of reinforcement, punishment, and imitation. • Children will do what they are reward for, not do what they are punished for, and will do what they see you do.

26. Teaching morality • Situational variability in moral behavior is stressed by behaviorists • Moral behavior is not internalized and is no different than any other type of behavior. Do you agree? • If moral behavior is internalized, how is this done and why is this done?

27. Social Cognitive Theory of moral development • Moral competence vs. moral performance. • You might know the right thing to do but do the wrong thing. Why? • You might not know the right thing to do but do it anyway. Why? • Is lying wrong? Why? What about white lies?

28. Social Cognitive Theory of moral development • Hartshorne and May’s classic study found considerable situational variation in moral behavior. • What is the criterion for “right” and “wrong”? Is it always this way? Why or why not? • Social cognitive theorists believe Kohlberg’s theory to be inadequate.

29. Moral Feelings: Psychoanalytic • Superego is one of the 3 parts of personality structure • Through identification, children internalize a parent’s standards of right and wrong • Conformity to moral standards to avoid guilt • Ego Ideal, Superego, and conscience.

30. Moral feelings: Child-rearing methods • Methods of controlling children include: • love withdrawal • power assertion • induction • Each of these methods has an effect on moral development • Induction is the best method with middle-SES children.

31. Empathy • Reacting to another’s feelings with a similar emotional response • Empathy involves perspective taking as a cognitive component • Empathy changes developmentally and should expand as the child matures • Empathy is the foundation upon which moral behavior can be built.

32. Contemporary perspective on moral development • Empathy and guilt contribute to children’s moral development • Emotions are interwoven with the cognitive and social dimensions of moral development. • There is a place for guilt; there is a place for empathy; excesses of either can also cause problems.

33. Altruism • Altruism is the unselfish interest in helping another person • Reciprocity and exchange are involved in altruism • Altruism occurs more often in adolescence than childhood • Forgiveness is an aspect of altruism

34. Schools and Morality

35. The Hidden Curriculum • John Dewey, father of American education, proposed the term hidden curriculum referring to the moral atmosphere of a school. • What influence has American education had on moral development in the last 40 years? Good? Bad? • What needs to be different and why?

36. Character education • Moral literacy: a direct educational approach that advocates teaching students basic moral codes • Does school have this responsibility? Do parents have this responsibility? What is the case when these two conflict? Who sets the standards and on what foundation?

37. Values clarification • This process helps students clarify what their lives are for an what is worth working for and why. • Should school be the place where values are clarified? Why or why not? • What values are immutable? Any? Why or why not? • Can improper education affect society?

38. Cognitive Moral Education • This process emphasizes helping students develop such values as democracy and justice as their moral reasoning develops. • Kohlberg’s theory has served as the basis for a number of cognitive moral education programs. • Why be moral?

39. Rest’s Four-component Model • Rest argues moral development can best be understood by considering four components of morality • sensitivity: awareness of effects of behavior • judgment: correct decisions • motivation: prioritizing moral values highly • character: strength of convictions, overcoming obstacles

40. Values • The beliefs and attitudes about the way things should be. • Over the last 2 decades adolescent values have become more self-focused and less other-focused. Good/bad? • Recently a change toward other-focused values have made a return.

41. Values: Service Learning • A form of education that promotes social responsibility and service to the community • Service learning is required in some secondary schools and has a number of positive outcomes • We do service learning projects in here some semesters. BB/BS.

42. Religion

43. Religion • Adolescents show an interest in religion as their intellectual abilities expand • Religious institutions are designed to introduce adolescents to religious beliefs in many ways • Teen years are a special time in religious development. Why are we here? Is there a God? What is right?

44. Cults • Cults have been defined in many ways. • Cults may be dangerous institutions to fringe institutions or just new religious expressions. Is Christianity a cult? Yes or no? Why or why not? • People will join cults who are in a transitional phase in their life; cults promise to fulfill needs

45. Cults • Some cults can be abusive. • Some cults may be physically abusive, mentally abusive, and isolate the teen from normalcy; a form of mind-control. • The Heaven’s Gate Cult • The People’s Temple Cult • The Hari Krishna Cult

46. Questions concerning Ch 12? • Questions?