Factors Influencing Young Children's use of Motives ... - School Sites

Factors Influencing Young
Children’s use of Motives
and Outcomes as Moral
Criteria.
Nelson
(1980)

Morality
• It implies the ability to:
– Distinguish from right and wrong
– Act on distinction
– Experience pride in virtuous act and shame
and guilt over acts that violates one’s moral
standards

Bell Ringer
• When did you start to make moral
judgments ‘good’ & ‘bad’? Age 0-1? 1-4? 5-
7? 8-11?
• Have your views of ‘good’ and ‘bad’
changed as you’ve grown older? How?
When? What?
• Where do your views come from?

BACKGROUND
• Jean Piaget
• Morality develops gradually during
childhood
• Under 10 – no consistent evidence for
motive as basis for judgment good/bad,
only outcome
• Above 10 – judgments based on motive
• Stages of Development

• Piaget outlined four stages of cognitive
development, and gave approximate ages
at which children reached those stages. He
stressed, though, that these ages are only
averages; individual children might go
through the stages at a different speed but
they would always go through the stages in
the same order.

Bell Ringer
• You are each going to receive the same two
moral dilemmas. In your group, you will
have ten minutes on each dilemma to
present your final answer and your groups
reasoning for picking the response you
did. As a class we will do our best to come
to a final conclusion of our choice.

Moral Orientation
• heteronomous – ‘subject to another’s
laws/rules’
• autonomous – ‘subject to one’s own
laws/rules’
– Happens at about 7 years old

AIM
• To demonstrate that the children as young
as 3 years old use motives and outcomes
as relevant criteria for moral judgments

Hypothesis
• Children as young as 3 years old use both
motive and outcome in making moral
judgments if the mode of presentation
makes these moral criteria as salient and
keeps them available at the time of
judgment

Study 1
• Sample:
– 60 pre-school children
– 30 boys and 30 girls
– Age range: 3-4 years old
– Mean age: 3.4 years
– 30 second-grade children
– 15 boys and 15 girls
– Age range: 6-8
– Mean age: 7.4
– From White,
Middle Class,
Urban Area
– Participated with
parental consent

Variables
• INDEPENDENT VARIABLES:
– Motive (Good or Bad)
– Outcome (Good or Bad)
– Type of story presentation (Verbal only,
Verbal + implied pictorial, or Verbal + explicit
pictorial)
• DEPENDENT VARIABLES:
– Rating of the character

Method
- 4 stories
- In each story, a boy acting with good
or bad motive throws a ball toward a
friend, resulting in a good or bad outcome

Bell Ringer
• Each group will list and explain Piaget’s
stages of Moral Development. Do your
best to recall each of the stages, the ages
they occur, and a description of what is
occurring at each stage. No looking at
notes, so clear your desk! Winning group
gets 110% on the assignment! You have 10
minutes!

Method
1. Children hear story with good
motive and good outcome
2. Children hear story with good motive and
bad outcome
3. Children hear story with bad motive and
bad outcome
4. Children hear story with bad
motive and good outcome

MOTIVE STATEMENTS:
(1) Good Motive:
This boy was playing with a ball; his friend
did not have anything to play with. He
wanted to give the ball to his friend so they
could play catch together with the ball.
(2) Bad Motive:
This boy was playing with a ball; he was
very mad at his friend that day. He wanted
to throw the ball at his friend so he could hit
him on purpose.

OUTCOME STATEMENTS:
(1)Good Outcome:
The boy threw the ball. His friend
caught the ball and was happy to play
with it.
(2) Bad Outcome:
The boy threw the ball. His friend did not
catch the ball; the ball hit his friend on
the head and made him cry.

STORY EXAMPLE:
THIS BOY WAS PLAYING WITH A
BALL; HIS FRIEND DID NOT HAVE
ANYTHING TO PLAY WITH. HE
WANTED TO THROW THE BALL SO HE
AND HIS FRIEND COULD PLAY CATCH
TOGETHER WITH THE BALL. HE
THREW THE BALL. HIS FRIEND DID
NOT CATCH THE BALL; THE BALL HIT
HIS FRIEND ON THE HEAD AND
MADE HIM CRY.

Pictures:
- 2 sets of black and white line
drawings
- drawings illustrating the motive
- First set: motives are implied by the
facial expressions. (implied pictorial
presentation)
- Second set: motives are conveyed
explicitly by presenting thought bubbles
(explicit pictorial presentation)

Experimental Design

Procedure
• Children were told to listen very carefully to
the stories because later they would have to
tell them aloud.
• In both picture-presentation conditions, the
drawings were introduced one by one the
appropriate points of the story.
• After each story, children were asked
whether the little boy in the story was a good
boy or a bad boy, or “just okay.”
• Pictures were remained there till the child
made his judgment.

Procedure
• Then they were asked to indicate how good
or how bad the little boy was by pointing to
one of the faces on a seven-point rating
scale.
• 1 = very bad, 7 = very good
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
• After the judgment, drawings were removed
• Children were asked to tell the story aloud.

Results
• By condition
– Motive made little difference
– Outcome had a greater effect on moral
judgements in the ‘picture-explicit motive’
condition
– Outcome information was used more (i.e.
made more difference to judgements) in ‘bad
motive’ stories in the two picture conditions
than verbal only

Results
Nelson's results are complex and difficult to understand at times.
Here are a few key overall findings from across both experiments:
• “…making a moral judgment requires understanding of the
evaluative concepts (i.e. ‘good’,
‘bad’) to be applied.”
• “Also required is comprehension of the motives or goals involved
(e.g. ‘sharing,’ ‘helping,’
‘hurting.’ ”
• ‘bad’ is more important to younger children (it has a greater effect
on ratings) than 'good'
• young children make more recall errors on motives than on
outcomes
• children develop the concept of bad before good (initially ‘good’
= no ‘badness’) so use the
first negative cue (whether outcome or motive)

Discussion
• It could be possible that children learn the
concept of bad before the concept of good
(Piaget, 1932)
• It could be possible that young children
define the concept of good as the absence
of bad, e.g. “being good is not lying” (Hill
& Hill, 1977).

STUDY 2: BACKGROUND
• In study 1, one negative cue (motive) was
sufficient to produce negative judgment.
• 3-yrs olds’ judgment in bad motive
stories were affected by motive but not
by outcome
• Was that because motive was presented
first?
• Study 2: reverse the order, i.e. present
outcome first then motive

STUDY 2: METHODOLOGY
• Sample:
– 27 preschool boys and girls
– Mean age: 3.8 years
• Material:
– Same as before
– In all stories, outcome preceded motive
• Procedure:
– Same as before

STUDY 2: RESULTS
• As in study 1:
– When one cue is negative, the other cue has
less effect
– Children made more recall errors when cues
were inconsistent (more likely to give benefit
of doubt when motive was good)
• As predicted:
– Judgements in Verbal condition were less
affected by motive than picture conditions

Big Issue - Use of Children in
Psychological Research
Advantages
• Studying children gives more
of an insight into the
nature/nurture debate, as
young children have had
less environmental
exposure (less nurture).
• Children are likely to be less
affected by some biases (such
as social desirability bias).
Their responses may therefore
be more honest and valid.
Disadvantages
• Children are more likely to
respond to researcher’s cues
because they are more uncertain
of themselves. Risk of demand
characteristics.
• Clear ethical issues as the child
themselves has not
given consentto take part, and
may not understand that they have
a right to withdraw.
• Young children may not
understand or co-operate with the
experiment (e.g. Langlois
removed infants for 'fussing')

Reflective