Moral Development (UNIT 2: LECTURE 3)

Question 1

What was the traditional view of babies? Were they born selfish or good?

Answer 1

Traditional view was that babies are born selfish and need to learn how to be “good”

Question 2

Good is defined as “_______ _______”

Answer 2

Altruistic helping

Question 3

Altruistic helping

Answer 3

Helping others even when the helper receives no immediate benefit and the person being helped is a stranger

Question 4

How do we assess if a baby is born good?

Answer 4

Put young children in a situation where they’re in a situation in which there is a difference between what the other person wanted to happen and what actually happened.

Question 5

Examples of studies used to test if a baby is born “good”

Answer 5

1. Clothespin method
2. Cabinet method
3. Milk can method

Question 6

Clothespin method

Answer 6

1. Experimenter drops a clothespin on the floor
2. Baby is then observed to see if they pick it up to help

Question 7

Clothespin results

Answer 7

65% of babies were found to help!

Question 8

Clothespin results alternative explanations (2)

Answer 8

1. Baby isn’t helping they want the floor to be clean
2. Baby isn’t helping they think it’s a game of catch and wants the person to throw it again

Question 9

How to rule out alternative explanations for the clothespin results?

Answer 9

1. If baby is helping, they would always give the clothespin back to the adult even if the adult isn’t showing the need for help
2. Make a control condition where the adult intentionally throws the clothespin down and doesn’t reach for it (doesn’t show need for help)

Question 10

When using the control condition in the clothespin results (aka: adult doesn’t show need for help) what did they find?

Answer 10

Less than 10% of babies helped pick up the clothespin

Question 11

What is the cabinet method?

Answer 11

1. Experimenter opens cabinet door and leaves room to fetch more books
2. Experimenter holds lots of books and can’t open the cabinet door
3. Infant is observed to see if they open the cabinet door to help

Question 12

Cabinet method experimental results

Answer 12

Babies help around 45% of the time!

Question 13

Cabinet method alternative explanations (2)

Answer 13

1. Baby isn’t helping, their attention was just drawn to the door because of the sound
2. Baby isn’t helping, they were just reminded of how fun it is to open doors

Question 14

How do we rule out alternatives for cabinet method?

Answer 14

1. If babies are good, they would always open the door when it’s being bumped into.
2. Make a control condition where children see adult previously put magazines on top of the cabinet, and still bump into the cabinet a second time back but show no evidence that goal is to get into the cabinet

Question 15

What did they find in the control condition of the Cabinet method?

Answer 15

Babies helped 0% of the time

Question 16

What’s the difference between reactive helping and proactive helping?

Answer 16

1. Reactive helping - individual shows very strong cues about help that is needed
2. Proactive helping - individual doesn’t show strong cues about help needed

Question 17

What is the main way to test for proactive helping?

Answer 17

Milk can method

Question 18

What is the milk can method?

Answer 18

1. Experimenter is on the side of the table, then accidentally knocks over their milk can to the floor
2. Infants are observed to see if they help pick it back up to return to the table/experimenter

Question 19

What is paternalistic helping?

Answer 19

Helping someone by not doing what they ask you to do (the helper knows better than the help-seeking how to achieve their goals)

Question 20

What is the main paternalistic helping experiment? Explains the full study.

Answer 20

1. Children were introduced to pairs of objects: functional or dysfunctional.
2. There were 4 main pairs: Working/toy cellphone, regular cup or one with a hole, real hammer and squishy hammer, working marker and dried marker
3. Adult said “could you give me either the functional or dysfunctional object?”

Question 21

Results of the paternalistic helping study

Answer 21

1. When pointing to functional objects requested, infants/children would always pass that object to them
2. When dysfunctional objects were requested, they passed it to them only 50% of the time.
3. The phone and cup conditions were less than 25%

Question 22

Why do children normally help? There are a few possible explanations (3)

Answer 22

1. Reputation gain
2. Rewarded for helping behavior
3. A natural tendency

Question 23

Why might children help for reputation gain?

Answer 23

1. To impress their parents/experimenter
2. Toddlers even help anonymously! (When there was a curtain blocking the experimenters view of the toddler they still helped)

Question 24

Why might children help for rewards? Is rewarding helping a good thing?

Answer 24

1. Might not be the best to reward helping behavior
2. A study had children in either a no reward for helping condition or a reward for helping condition (given a toy)
3. They found that the no reward for helping condition helped the experimenter again more often than the reward condition

Question 25

So if it’s not for reputation gain or for rewards maybe we are born good and not selfish! :D One potential objection from team selfish however is that:

Answer 25

Research has focused on 18 months and older, where there could be a lot of unlearning of our natural selfish tendencies during this time

Question 26

Since it’s difficult to study the minds of really young babies to see if we’re really good or selfish who else can we look at to see if helping is nature or nurture?

Answer 26

We can look at our closest evolutionary relatives who don’t have the same human/cultural socialization processes. If human socialization is necessary then we wouldn’t find these tendencies in other apes!

Question 27

Do chimpanzees and bonobos help?

Answer 27

Yes! It’s also not driven by rewards! So that means children’s helping could be a natural tendency

Question 28

Why is helping a natural tendency? (2)

Answer 28

1. Early helping could be important cause it affects adults 2. Evolutionarily, children have an important role in societies more representative of traditional life e.g. taking care of siblings

Question 29

Although we’re born with the inclination to help (3) play a role in shaping this tendency later on

Answer 29

1. Learning 2. Experience 3. Culture

Question 30

When do children normally help? (2)

Answer 30

1. For close relationships by at least 3.5 years old - they prefer to share resources with siblings over strangers 2. For reciprocity - children help others who have helped us in the past versus those who don’t

Question 31

Reciprocity helping study. Explain it!

Answer 31

1. Child and partner put golf balls down the ramp but eventually the child runs out of golf balls and the partner still has balls left 2. Partner would either share or not share with he child. 3. They then switched where the partner runs out of balls first and child still has balls left!

Question 32

Reciprocity gold ball study results

Answer 32

1. 2.5 year olds shared regardless of condition 2. Some 3.5 year olds shared depending on partners behavior -> still supports good cause some did share!

Question 33

Children start off being ______ helpful, making them at risk of being ______. They then learn when it is more ______ to help

Answer 33

1. Overly 2. Exploited 3. Appropriate

Question 34

Overall takeaway of the class: New view of helping

Answer 34

Babies are born good! — “naive cooperators” — and then become mature cooperators

Question 35

Candy game dilemma. Explain it!

Answer 35

1. Child is told that 2 kids did a great job cleaning their room and we want to give them prizes but we don’t know how many to give them 2. There is an inequality condition and equality condition (“one left over” or “two left over”) 3. They were then asked if they should either “give one to this person” or “give one to each person”

Question 36

Candy game dilemma results! (4)

Answer 36

1. Almost ALL 6-8 year olds threw the extra reward away in the inequality condition and no one did in the equality condition 2. Findings were found in both the U.S. and South Africa 3. Children threw away the other resource even when they were told that: the other kids won’t find out about the inequality, or when the experimenter said one was their best friend, or when the child was IN the experiment 4. Children have a strong preference for equality!

Question 37

Roots of fairness preferences

Answer 37

Fairness preferences may be similarly rooted in our history of collaboration!

Question 38

When is it ok to give unequally? (4)

Answer 38

1. Merit - for the hardworker 2. Luck 3. When everyone is involved in the decision how allocated unequally 4. When it’s a need - give resources if one kid needs it more

Question 39

Fairness isn’t about always being _______ equal but rather showing equal ______

Answer 39

1. Numerically 2. Respect