Children's Moral Reasoning Research Articles

Children's moral reasoning and their perceptions of television violence

Children's moral reasoning and their perceptions of television violence

Children's Moral Reasoning and Their Perceptions of Television Violence

This experiment examined the effect of a child's age on his or her interpretation of an act of interpersonal violence on television. One hundred eighty-four children in 2 age groups were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 viewing conditions in which they watched a violent video clip. The clips depicted identical violent acts; however, punishment (yes/no) of the violent act and provocation (yes/no) for the violent act were manipulated to create the 4 conditions. Following the video clip, children were asked to judge whether the act was right or wrong and why. They then engaged in a test of their willingness to choose aggression as a solution to a hypothetical interpersonal conflict. As predicted, younger children thought that unpunished violence was more right than punished violence. Older children thought that provoked violence was more right than unprovoked violence, although this result only approached significance. Children's willingness to choose a violent story ending to a hypothetical interpersonal conflict was related to their experimental condition for older children but not for younger children.

Beliefs about truth and beliefs about rightness.

Children's developing conceptions of what is right or proper are commonly studied without reference to concomitant changes in their understanding of beliefs, just as studies of young people's maturing grasp of the belief entitlement process ordinarily proceed separately from any examination of the value considerations that invest beliefs with meaning. In an effort to reverse these isolationist practices, a case is made for rereading the fact-value dichotomy that currently works to divide the contemporaneous literatures dealing with children's moral reasoning development and their evolving theories of mind. Findings from two research programs, in which children's beliefs about truth and rightness are combined, serve to illustrate the natural interdependence of these moral and epistemic matters.

Representations of authority and children's moral reasoning

This study examines the relationship between alternative sources of authority which might influence a child's moral reasoning. It returns to Piaget's (1932) work to explore features of a child's social relations which may act either to promote or constrain the communication and acceptance of moral knowledge. Children were asked to judge which of two boys was naughtier in one of Piaget's moral ‘stories’. Those who had independently given different responses were placed in a pair and asked to agree a response together. An authority of status was introduced into some pairs by varying the gender composition of the dyad and contrasted with epistemic authority derived from the arguments more closely associated with moral autonomy. In the absence of an authority of status (in same-sex pairs) influence through epistemic authority occurred with relative ease. When status and epistemic authority conflicted subjects took far longer to accept the legitimacy of the epistemic authority. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Children's Moral Reasoning about Family and Peer Violence: The Role of Provocation and Retribution

Several theories assume that the approval of violence is related to deficits in moral reasoning. However, this assumption has rarely been empirically tested. This inquiry examined violent and nonviolent children's moral reasoning about violence in family and peer situations. 108 subjects (54 violent and 54 nonviolent, aged 8–1, 10–2, 12–2) selected from 2 inner city schools were asked to evaluate unprovoked and provoked violent situations. All the children condemned unprovoked violence using moral reasoning. With provoked situations, the violent group focused more on the immorality of the provocation and perceived “hitting back” as a form of reciprocal justice. The nonviolent group perceived “hitting” worse than the psychological harm of the provocation and condemned the violence. The results suggest that both the approval and disapproval of violence were justified by moral reasoning. It was proposed that the violent children's greater focus on psychological provocations may be due to experiences and self-perceptions of victimization.

Children's Moral Reasoning about Family and Peer Violence: The Role of Provocation and Retribution

Children's Moral Reasoning about Family and Peer Violence: The Role of Provocation and Retribution

Children's Moral Reasoning and Their Assertive, Aggressive, and Submissive Tendencies in Sport and Daily Life

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between children's moral reasoning and their assertive, aggressive, and submissive action tendencies in sport and daily life contexts. The 106 fourth- through seventh-grade children were asked to reason about hypothetical sport and daily life moral dilemmas and to respond to two behaviorally validated, self-report instruments designed to assess action tendencies in sport and daily life conflict situations. Multiple regression analyses indicated that moral reasoning scores were predictive of action tendencies, with reasoning positively related to assertion and negatively related to aggression. Results were interpreted in light of a congruence between Haan's (1978) descriptions of moral levels and the moral implications of the action tendencies under consideration. Gender and school-level differences in action tendencies were also noted; no gender or school-level differences in moral reasoning were found.

Family Interactions and the Development of Moral Reasoning

The study examined parents' role in their children's moral reasoning development. Parents' level of moral reasoning and interaction styles used in discussion of moral issues with their child were used to predict the child's moral development over a subsequent 2-year interval. Participants were 63 family triads (mother, father, and child) with children drawn from grades 1, 4, 7, and 10. They individually responded to a moral reasoning interview and then, as a family, discussed both a hypothetical and real-life moral dilemma. Children were reinterviewed 2 years later. Results indicated that parents did accommodate to their child's level of moral reasoning when in actual dialogue. Distinct differences in interaction styles were found between the 2 contexts (hypothetical vs. real-life dilemma discussion) and between parents and children. Children's moral development was best predicted by a parental discussion style that involved Socratic questioning and supportive interactions, combined with the presentation of higher-level moral reasoning. Implications of these findings for the understanding of parents' role in children's moral development are discussed.

Perceptions of social responsibilities in India and in the United States: Moral imperatives or personal decisions?

Indian and American adults' and children's (N = 400) moral reasoning about hypothetical situations in which an agent failed to help someone experiencing either life-threatening, moderately serious, or minor need was compared. For 1/3 of Ss, the agent's relationship to the needy other was portrayed as that of parent; for another 1/3, as that of best friend; for the rest, as that of stranger. Indians tended to regard the failure to aid another in moral terms in all conditions. In contrast, Americans tended to view it in moral terms only in life-threatening cases or in cases of parents responding to the moderately serious needs of their children. The results imply that Indian culture forwards a broader and more stringent view of social responsibilities than does American culture. Discussion centers on theoretical implications of the various cultural, need, role, and developmental effects observed.

Behavioral and sociocognitive correlates of ratings of prosocial behavior and sociometric status.

Although peers' and teachers' evaluations of children's prosocial behavior and peers' sociometric ratings frequently have been used in studies of social development, the validity of young children's ratings of others has been questioned, as has that for teachers' ratings of prosocial behavior. In this study, preschoolers' ratings of peers' sociometric status and prosocial behavior, as well as teachers' ratings of children's prosocial dispositions, were obtained. These were correlated with children's naturally occurring prosocial or social behavior; ratings of prosocial behavior also were correlated with children's prosocial moral reasoning and prosocial self-attributions. Peers' sociometric ratings were positively related to children's sociability whereas prosocial ratings were related to helping (but not sharing) behavior. Teachers' ratings of prosocial behavior were not related to frequency of prosocial behaviors, but were positively related to developmentally mature moral judgments and self-reported motives.

Promoting Preschoolers’ Moral Reasoning

Young children's moral development and socialization have been of increasing interest to parents, teachers, and researchers as children's social experiences in the preschool years have expanded to include many nonfamilial adults and peers. A Piagetian or structural approach to understanding heteronomous and autonomous moral reasoning in young children is discussed. The roles of cognitive maturation and social interaction with peers and adults are considered. Implications from theory and research are offered to early childhood educators for facilitating preschool children's moral reasoning and development through curriculum activities, classroom policies, and behavior management strategies.

A guide to the literature on aggressive behavior

A guide to the literature on aggressive behavior

The Relationship of Sport Involvement with Children's Moral Reasoning and Aggression Tendencies

The relationships between sport involvement variables (participation and interest) and facets of children's morality (reasoning maturity and aggression tendencies) were investigated for 106 girls and boys in grades 4 through 7. Children responded to a sport involvement questionnaire, participated in a moral interview, and completed two self-report instruments designed to assess aggression tendencies in sport-specific and daily life contexts. Analyses revealed that boys' participation and interest in high contact sports and girls' participation in medium contact sports (the highest level of contact sport experience they reported) were positively correlated with less mature moral reasoning and greater tendencies to aggress. Regression analyses demonstrated that sport interest predicted reasoning maturity and aggression tendencies better than sport participation. Results and implications are discussed from a structural developmental perspective.

The Development of Prosocial Behavior and Cognitions in German Children

The development of German children's moral reasoning about prosocial conflicts, and the interrelations of moral reasoning and prosocial behavior were examined. Hedonistic reasoning decreased in usage from the preschool years to fourth grade; direct reciprocity, needs-oriented, approval/ interpersonal, and reasoning involving references to others' humanness increased with age. The pattern of development was strikingly similar to that of an American sample of the same age. However, German children used more direct reciprocity and less stereotypic reasoning than did American children. As has been found for American children, sharing behavior but not helping was related to level of moral judgment. The results are discussed in relation to theory and the existing research concerning prosocial development in America.

Children's Perceptions of Procedural Justice

GOLD, LAURA J.; DARLEY, JOHN M.; HILTON, JAMES L.; and ZANNA, MARK P. Children's Perceptions of Procedural Justice. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1984, 55, 1752-1759. This investigation concerns children's judgments about procedural justice. Firstand fifth-grade subjects were presented with a hypothetical case involving a child accused and punished by her mother for breaking a vase. 2 components of the story were manipulated to vary the justness of the procedures followed in arriving at punishment. Half of the subjects heard a version of the story in which a witness to the event was present but not consulted by the mother. For the other half of the subjects no witness was present. Orthogonal to this manipulation, half of the subjects heard a version of the story containing an alternative explanation for how the vase could have been broken. For the other half of the subjects the alternative explanation was absent. The results indicate that both first and fifth graders are sensitive to manipulations of procedural justice. Particularly, when an alternative possible perpetrator is present, punishment is judged more unfair. Although age differences emerged, these differences appear to be in the comprehension of the event rather than the application of different processing rules to the information given. The relevance of these findings to developmental accounts of children's moral reasoning and to the general issue of procedural justice is discussed.

Moral Reasoning in Early Childhood: Lying and Stealing

Summary First graders' responses to questions designed to elicit their reasons for not lying and stealing were analyzed in terms of Kohlberg's stage theory. Contrary to expectations, only about 20% of the responses fell into Stage 1. Very few of the responses were in Stage 2. Approximately three-quarters of the responses were in Stage 3. A distinction was made between stereotypic and nonstereotypic Stage 3 responses. Approximately 40% of Stage 3 responses were nonstereotypic: i.e., manifesting concern with social approval, not harming others, and preservation of social relations. Questions are raised concerning the appropriateness of using a cognitive developmental theory to understand young children's moral reasoning.

Children's Moral Reasoning about Self and Others

In two studies, we examined children's reasoning about prosocial moral dilemmas in which the cost of helping and/or the identity of the story protagonist (self versus a third-person other) were varied. In Experiment 1, preschool children who responded to stories in which they themselves were characters verbalized more hedonistic reasoning, used less reasoning in which they were oriented toward the other's needs, and were less likely to say that they should help the needy other than were children who reasoned about third-person others. In Experiment 2, identity of the protagonist, cost of helping for the protagonist (a low cost condition was added), and age of the subject (preschool versus first grade) were varied. For children in the high cost condition (but not the low cost condition), the pattern of results was similar to that in Experiment 1. Age differences in judgments were somewhat greater when the cost of helping was low.

Children's moral reasoning about their own spontaneous prosocial behavior.

Children's moral reasoning about their own spontaneous prosocial behavior.

Children's moral reasoning about their own spontaneous prosocial behavior.

Children's moral reasoning about their own spontaneous prosocial behavior.

Children's moral reasoning.

Children's moral reasoning.