Chapter 7 Social Harmony and Social Conflict

1. Chapter 7Social Harmony and Social Conflict Victoria Junkin and Teresa Welch June 22, 2013 The Culture of Morality: Social Development, Context, and Conflict by Elliot Turiel

2. Altruism • Is considered a hallmark of the human species’ success, and it’s a well-documented developmental milestone. • Homo sapiens civilization, it seems, was predicated on the notion that life must be more than just survival, and that working together to survive allowed room for higher pursuit. Conversely, there is no evidence of this intellectual “artsy” undertaking among Neanderthals, who seem to have clung to a strictly utilitarian life for survival, which, ironically, led to their extinction when Europe became encased in 13 feet of ice. http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/ were-only-human/unshakable-humanity-altruism-and-disaster.html

3. Social life encompasses many things with areas of cooperation, and harmony, as well as, areas of conflict, disagreement and struggle. There are variations that exist within individuals’ social thinking and in their actions involving the application of different domains of judgment to different types of social situations. (page 152)

4. Culture… What is shared? • Behaviors • Cognitive systems • Symbolic systems • Competencies (p. 153)

5. Comparison Durkhiem Freud Diametrically opposed to Durkheim’s view Involvement in society inevitably brings conflict and struggle. Given their biological makeup, the restrictions placed by society on individuals gratification of needs and instincts produces conflict, ambivalence and a measure of unhappiness. Life’s great compromise as the exchange of accepted the happiness society exacts for the security it provides. • Social life involves accommodation to collective or cultural patterns • Social life is usually not a struggle for individuals. • There is no conflict in accommodating to its norms and practices • People hang together in cohesive ways • Participation in one’s society is willingly accepted by the individuals

6. Conflict • Shantzand Hartup (1992) asserted that disagreements and oppositions are inevitable when people interact, that conflict is part and parcel of everyday living and intrinsic to the human condition (page166). • Individualism • Cultural Diversity

7. Conflict occurs when… • When people judge restrictions on their activities from a moral perspective. • When people differ as to whether actions should be regulated by convention. • When children want to assert their independence and resist authority.

8. Comparison Individualism Collectivism Social relationships serve as an overarching framework by which we must adapt and fit self Duty-based morality Oriented to tradition, duty, and obedience Interdependence and social harmony “Take care of one’s own” i.e. Eastern YOU • Self, epi-center of causation • Right-based morality • Self-reliance, independence, resistance to authority • Resist social conformity • “Survival of the fittest” • i.e. Western • ME

9. Comparison Female Male Dominate position in society Morality of justice – concept of self as autonomous and detached from social networks Duty-based – concerned with rights and maintaining autonomy • Subordinate position in society • Morality of care – concept of self linked to attachment and interdependence • Rights-based – concerned with relationships and caring for others.

10. It appears that just as individualism is not a general orientation of Americans, care, interdependence, or autonomy and rights are not general orientations that apply to females and males (page 178). Conflicts, tensions, and contested meanings are as much part of social life as social harmony, social acceptance, and shared understandings (page 180).