Moral Development in Children - Research Paper Example

Psychology: Moral Development This is a review and analysis of previous research that was done. The research was conducted in a sample population of children between the ages of five to thirteen. Their responses were recorded through means of interviews and questionnaires. The data for the analysis already exists hence, no need for collecting new data. This is, therefore, a secondary source of data with more analysis and recommendations from the findings. Moral development is concerned with processes of thinking about moral decisions in dilemma situations. It focuses on emergence and understanding of ethics and morality from childhood to adulthood. Here, morality is the principle of how people should treat others with respect, other’s rights and welfare. To measure individual’s moral development, it is prudent to measure issues that influence moral development (Weller, & Lagattuta, 2014). Introduction The area of study is the development of prosocial and prohibitive moral characters in judging gender based issues. The study identifies gender as a social group to be tested. The area of study as well is moral judgment and the intergroup relation considering gender and age. Gender as a social group has been considered as one salient groups that are affected by stereotypes since infancy (Berkowitch, & Grych, 1998). Even while still young at the age of six, children are able to differentiate the male versus female faces. Young children hold gender stereotypes from kindergarten on; children make observation on peer’s abilities, traits and interpreted situations based on the gender. They also attribute more positive traits on their own gender and negative traits on other genders (Weller, & Lagattuta, 2014). Moral development of children has also been considered in this study. Children’s prosocial and prohibitive moral judgments in situations where the potential recipient of help varies by gender have been discussed. Moral dilemma traits and prosocial dilemma trial have also been studied in the book. Prosocial trials is where a focal character needs to perform a fun activity but faces intervening situations that require sacrifice while in prohibitive trials, it requires refrain from doing any harm (Weller, & Lagattuta, 2014). Moral development study is concerned with the role of peers and parents. It emphasizes on the question of origin and change in ethical behavior and morality during individual’s lifespan. Moral development can proceed when individual’s selfish desires are suppressed and replaced by positive social values (Killen, & Coplan, 2011). The interaction of children to caregivers and peers has been found to have an influence on various aspects such as ethics and behavior. Socialization and social domain theory have been shown to influence the interpersonal development on children’s moral development. In social theory, it shows how children distinguish moral ethics from convection behaviors based on parent’s influence, while socialization research perspective emphasizes on the methods in which elder people pass down moral behaviors to children by parenting techniques and why never internalize such behaviors (Killen, & Coplan, 2011). Prejudices stereotypes and discrimination in young children and adolescence have been found to occur due to different theoretical perspectives. These include social identity theory, social domain theory and cognitive domain theory. These theories, however, conclude that these characters are based on gender and age. Young children tend to love fellows of the same gender, for example, ladies would prefer to do better things to fellow girls than to boys while at adolescence, boys prefer doing good to girls are compared to fellow boys (Kostelnik, 2006). This particular topic is very important in helping parents on better parenting manner that ensure children’s moral development. It presents to parents the different theories of instilling character into children and teaching them on how to manage children’s psychology. The research topic is important as it helps children to understand the reasons behind rules relating to moral issues like justice, fairness and human welfare (Kostelnik, 2006). The research finding and recommendation in this field of study would help parents in matching the response to conflict issues to children’s level of social and cognitive development. This is helpful as the children are given chance to express their feeling about certain moral behaviors as they receive guidelines from their parents and other peers. The research also defines, encourage and reward acts of caring in children. Young children should see other people engage in activities of care and kindness practices that teachers should do every day in helping nature the children to good moral development (Kostelnik, 2006). The research also defines the scope of life moral development that are addressed in the analysis with a goal to investigate the means on which parents can be taught to nature the growth and moral development of children and reflect the important human morality. It also addresses those aspects of morality that are most susceptible to parental influence on moral development (Kostelnik, 2006). Method/Procedure Participants Three children were selected to participate in the research; they were Jennifer, Kim and Brianna. They were made up of two boys aged 4 and 9 and one girl aged 7 participated in the experimental research. The three children were presented with a situation where they had a choice to help another child or to go try out a new ride at an amusement park. After hearing the story, they were presented with a series of questions about whether they would help the other child or not and their feelings towards their decision.  The children participating were individually interviewed in a quiet room by a female researcher and after successfully finishing training on the rating scales, they responded to two simple desire trials, followed by the eight moral dilemma trials. For each moral dilemma trial, they were assigned one gender in-group and one gender out-group trial per dilemma type and need level The following method and procedure was used. 1. Children were first asked to predict the focal character’s likely action decision: help versus not help (prosocial trials); steal versus not steal (prohibitive trials). 2. The action decision that children selected was placed in the illustration sequence, and children were asked to predict the character’s emotion. The participants were then asked if the focal character could be feeling a secondary emotion 3. The experimenter then replaced the ending decision picture with the alternative choice. The participants were asked to predict the focal character’s emotion following that alternative action decision. The participants were asked if the focal character could be feeling a secondary emotion 4. The experimenter displayed the selfless picture card ending (help or not steal) and asked children to judge the character’s level of obligation to help (prosocial trials) or not steal (prohibitive trials). 5. The experimenter displayed the selfish picture card ending (not help or steal) and asked children to evaluate the level of permissibility to pursue personal desires on a 1–5 scale. Materials A Likert scale was used in the original experiment but was later taken out to accommodate the four year old participant who could not quantify the intensity of his emotions. In the original experiment, the children were also presented with the question of whether or not they would try to steal anything from the child they were helping. This was also taken out because the 4 year old did not understand. There was use of interview verbal method to obtain the data as well as use of the questionnaire. Questionnaires were used material for data collection. Children were given questionnaire questions to answer about whether they would offer help to another person of the same gender or of a different gender. The researcher also used journals, books and research articles to find out the literature review. Results Emotion intensity scale (6-point rating scale): 1=very bad,2=medium bad,3=little bad,4=little good,5=medium good,6=very good. The emotion intensity scale featured six cartoon faces of varying degrees of smiling and frowning. The experimenter told children that this scale would be used to“make guesses about how kids in my stories are feeling.” In an interview with the 7 year old female, result were as follows; according to her perspective, they should stop and assist the lady because it is a nice thing to do because it makes someone feels happy although she may also feel like missing out on enjoying the ride. When Jennifer does not get help, she would feel bad. In the out-group ladies prefer focusing on their business rather than helping boys although it is not the right thing. In any case a lady stops to assist a boy, they both feel good but she doesn’t offer the help, it may seem good the lady but not better to the boy. Here, ladies prefer helping fellow ladies than boys. For the nine year old boy in out-group made of boy and girl, most boys may not offer help to fellow boys but the participant would. The boy assisted would feel happy after assistance although the one assisting would feel bad after missing the ride. If a boy ignores assisting a lady to go for the ride, it may feel the fun for the ride but will also feel guilty by refusing to help the lady. In this case, boys feel guilty when they don’t offer help to ladies but feel a little different if they don’t offer help to fellow boys. In the in-group that comprised of boys alone, most boys would help boys and feel good but they would later feel bad after missing the fun in riding. Whenever a boy does not offer help to another boy, they both feel bad and guilty and therefore they prefer helping one another due to gender. The 4 year out group indicated that he never help the lady and would never feel bad for not helping her but would never leave her behind because he would feel bad. However, in the in-group, he thought about it and said he would help a fellow boy and feel happy about it because fellow boy is like a friend. In this case, the children develop favoritism as character while still young. Discussion From the results, the children have already developed moral reasoning and can demonstrate the ability to distinguish what is right and wrong. Although they may hesitate to take the right decision, they are aware of what should be given much attention. Whenever, they fail to do the right thing, they feel guilty of ignoring the right option. Age and gender as well affect children’s prosocial development process. The female gender is much willing to help fellow females than men although they also feel that male too need should be helped whenever necessary. Young children are also not responsive to moral development. A seven year old boy response to the questions demonstrates low moral development than the nine year old boy. Across age, all groups displayed gender in-group favouritism. Only females exhibited a gender bias in emotion attributions for pro-social dilemmas, judging that females would be happier helping girls versus boys and happier ignoring the needs of boys versus girls. The differences in results were that older children showed signs of wanting to go on the ride, there was also a gender bias for own gender among the older male participant as well. Female participant never showed as much of an out-group bias as the original results suggested. In regards to this replication study, age limits should have been followed strictly, as from a development point of view, even a difference of 6 months or a year in age will affect the procedures and results The limitations included Sample Size, non-randomized sample, and unstandardized test materials, modification of original test material, self preservation and researcher bias. Although these limitations were encountered in the research, the children understood the reasons for the study and the right result was achieved. References Berkowitch, M.W., & Grych, J.H. (1998). Fostering goodness: teaching parents to facilitate children’s moral development. Journal of Moral Education, 27(3), 371-391. Killen, M., & Coplan, R. J. (2011). Social development in childhood and adolescence: A contemporary reader. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. Kostelnik, M. J. (2006). Guiding childrens social development: Theory to practice. Clifton Park, NY: Thomson Delmar Learning. Weller, D., & Lagattuta, K. H. (January 01, 2014). Childrens Judgments about Prosocial Decisions and Emotions: Gender of the Helper and Recipient Matters. Child Development, 85, 5, 2011-28. Read More