Aggression, Altruism, & Moral Development PDF

§ Physical Development: It helps children develop their gross motor skills, coordination, balance, and strength. § Social Development: It teaches cooperation, negotiation, and communication. They learn to take turns, establish rules, and understand boundaries. § Emotional Regulation: Children learn...

§ Physical Development: It helps children develop their gross motor skills, coordination, balance, and strength. § Social Development: It teaches cooperation, negotiation, and communication. They learn to take turns, establish rules, and understand boundaries. § Emotional Regulation: Children learn to manage their emotions such as excitement, frustration, and anger in a safe environment. They learn how to express themselves appropriately and handle conflicts without resorting to aggression. § Cognitive Development: Rough and tumble play often involves imaginative scenarios and problem-solving. § Bonding and Relationships: Playful interactions foster strong bonds with peers, siblings, or caregivers. It creates opportunities for positive social experiences through shared laughter, trust, and mutual understanding. § Hostile: aggressive acts for which the perpetrator’s major goal is to harm or injure a victim § Instrumental: aggressive acts for which the perpetrator’s major goal is gain access to objects, space or privileges § Developmental trajectory of aggression § Middle childhood: decline in instrumental, increase in hostile aggression § Physical aggression § behaviors that cause bodily harm or injury to others, § traditionally, males seen as more physically aggressive § biological, social, and cultural underpinnings § effects can include physical injury, emotional trauma, social withdrawal, decreases in academic performance and the onset of aggressive behavior in victims as a coping strategy § often results in immediate visible harm, making it more easily identifiable and potentially more alarming to witnesses § Relational aggression § behaviors aimed at damaging social relationships, such as spreading rumors, social exclusion, gossiping, or manipulation. § Traditionally, females seen as more relationally aggressive § Crick & Grotpeter (1995) posit that girls’ aggression would be consistent with their social goals (i.e., undermine one another’s social standing § effects can be more damaging in terms of psychological and emotional well-being (e.g. social rejection, loneliness, anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem). § Physical aggression often results in immediate visible harm, making it more easily identifiable. § Physical: § Younger children (3-5) are more likely to use hitting, biting, kicking, and pushing as common expressions of frustration, anger, or a lack of impulse control § During middle childhood (6-12) we see a decrease in physical aggression as children increase regulatory abilities § Adolescents may exhibit a resurgence of physical aggression § may become more instrumental and strategic, serving goals such as establishing dominance, defending status, or seeking social approval. § Relational: § Younger children are more likely to use direct forms of relational aggression, e.g., "You can't come to my birthday party." § Older children are more likely to use more subtle methods of harm, e.g., by making up demeaning stories about the victim and spreading them around asked to identify the overtly (eg. physical) & relationally aggressive children in school % children classified as aggressive § 3-6th graders 16 14 12 10 Boys 8 Girls 6 4 2 0 Relational Overt § Aggression is a fairly stable trait: § 8 yr old aggression predicts aggression at age 30 § Children who are aggressive are more likely to go on to: § batter spouse § engage in criminal behaviors § Proactive aggressor § find aggressive acts easy to perform § rely on aggression to achieve goals § Reactive aggressor § are hostile because they overattribute hostile intent to others § high impulsivity Aggressive Child holds expectation that others are hostile Expectation results in biased scanning of social cues Infers that accidents had hostile intentions Retaliates against other Results in hostile counter attacks & consequent rejection of child Expectation that others are hostile is confirmed (& cycle repeats) § Family members annoy each other & use aggressive or antisocial tactics as a method of coping with these aversive experiences § Eg. Mom and her 5 year old daughter Angie are grocery shopping. In the cookie aisle Angie begins to beg. § Angie: “Mommy can I have some Oreos?” § Mom: “No Angie, we have cookies at home.” § Angie: (whining at the top of her voice) “I want Oreos, I want Oreos, I want Oreos!” § Mom: (irritated but tries to keep her voice down): “Angie, you’ve already had ice cream today and I don’t want you to spoil your dinner.” § Angie: (bursting into tears, screaming repeatedly at the top of her lungs), “Mommy I want some Oreos! I want some Oreos! I want some Oreos!” § Mom: “Fine, but this is the last time I take you shopping with me.” § Mom puts Oreos in the basket. Angie immediately quiets down and stops begging. § Negative reinforcement Early Childhood Middle Childhood Early Adolescence Rejection by normal peers Poor parental discipline & monitoring; coercive household Conduct Disorders; hostile attributional bias; lack of self-restraint Commitment to a deviant group Academic Failure Delinquency § Selfless concern for the welfare of others that is expressed through prosocial acts § One-year-olds will offer toys to companions and toddlers often will try to comfort another who is distressed § Spontaneous acts (w/o adult nearby) are very rare § The origins of altruistic prosocial behavior are rooted in the capacity to feel empathy and sympathy § Empathy is an emotional reaction to another’s emotional state or condition that is similar to that person’s state or condition § Sympathy is the feeling of concern for another person (or animal) in reaction to the other’s emotional state or condition; often an outcome of empathizing with another’s negative emotion or situation Victim Distress Empathic distress or sympathy either or Reflections on altruistic principles Responsibility to help No reaction or self-focused distress Ignoring victim, little help unless victim specifically requests But if Responsibility Ignored Prosocial Behavior Which could trigger Observer feels guilty § Infants respond to others’distress, but may not differentiate between others’emotional reactions and their own § At about age 2, children start to more clearly differentiate between another’s emotional distress and their own; more prosocial behaviors § Children’s prosocial behaviors increase from the preschool years to adolescence § Affective explanations from caregiver: § Forces child to see relationship between his/her acts & consequences § Role-taking ability (i.e. empathic responses) § Prosocial moral reasoning § thinking that is done when deciding whether to help (when these actions could be costly to self) § Strongly influenced § Assessed by Piaget moral judgment by presenting children with hypothetical moral dilemmas and then questioning them about the issues involved in their moral judgments § 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 $400 for the radium and charged $4,000 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 $2,000, 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 if." So, having tried every legal means, Heinz gets desperate and considers breaking into the man's store to steal the drug for his wife.1. Should Heinz steal the drug? Proposed three levels of moral judgment: § Preconventional § Moral reasoning is self-centered, focusing on getting rewards and avoiding punishment § Conventional § Moral reasoning is centered on social relationships § Postconventional § Moral reasoning is involved with ideals, focusing on moral principles § Interested in the thought structures, not the answers § Moral reasoning proceeds through the following steps in an invariant sequence Preconventional Morality (children) § Punishment is avoided and rewards are sought. § Eg. “The man shouldn’t steal the drug because he may get caught and go to jail.” Conventional Morality (older children, adolescents & some adults) § Care about how situational outcomes impact others and want to please and be accepted. § Eg. “He should not steal the drug because everyone will see him as a thief, and his wife, who needs the drug, wouldn’t want to be cured because of thievery.” *Most active members of society remain at conventional morality, where morality is still predominantly dictated by an outside force. Postconventional Morality (some adults) § Moral behavior is based on self-chosen ethical principles that are generally comprehensive and universal, such as justice, dignity, and equality. § Eg. “The man should steal the drug to cure his wife and then tell the authorities that he has done so. He may have to pay a penalty, but at least he has saved a human life.” § Argued that people all over the world go though these stages in the same order, although they differ with regard to the final stage they attain § Also contended that levels of social-cognitive development, especially individuals’skills in perspective taking (empathy), determined their progress through the stages