How do social and moral development work throughout the life span? - Chapter 13

What is social cognition?

Social cognition is thinking about the perceptions, thoughts, emotions, motivates, and behaviors of self, other people, groups and even whole social systems. 

The false belief task assesses the understanding that people can hold incorrect beliefs and that these can influence their behavior, and is usually passed by children from age 4. It involves Sally and Anne: Sally places her marble in a basket and then leaves the room. Then Anne transfers Sally's marble to the box. Sally returns and the child is asked: where will Sally look for her marble? This task is used to see if children have theory of mind: understanding that (a) people have mental states like desires and beliefs and (b) these mental states guide their behavior. We need theory of mind to predict and explain human behavior. Children with theory of mind say that Sally will look in the basket, thus guided by Sally's (though incorrect) belief, setting aside their own knowledge. This task is difficult for children with autism, who lack theory of mind. Theory of mind is the foundation for all later social cognitive development.

Theory of mind begins to form in infancy. These are early steps (and lack in children with autism):

• Joint attention. Infants from around 9 months can point to something and look toward their companions, to encourage them to look the same way. Thus, they are aware that other people have different perceptual experiences than them, and that they can share a perceptual experience. 
• Understanding intentions. By 6 months already, infants prefer a "helper" puppet who helps an actor instad of a "hinderer" puppet that disturbs the actor. Thus, they understand good and bad intentions.
• Pretend play. Between 1-2 years, they can engage in pretend play and thus show that they can discriminate pretense and reality. 
• Imitation. This shows they can mentally represent other's actions (and the goals/intentions behind them).
• Emotional understanding. In the second year of life they can already comfort or instead tease a sibling, thus they understand emotions and that they can influence them. 

Wellman said that children's theories of mind unfold in two main phases. First, around age 2, they develop a desire psychology. Toddlers talk about what they want and explain behavior in terms of desires. By 18 months, they can honor someone else's desire even though they disagree with it. By age 3-4 they progress to a belief-desire psychology: they understand that people do what they do because they desire certain things and because they believe that certain actions will help them to fulfill these desires. By now they can pass the false belief task. Theory of mind still keeps developing over time, and new challenges will come like understanding sarcasm.

Theory of mind (TOM) develops both through nature and nurture. It seems an evolutionary trait. Through life it defines when the neurological and cognitive structures mature. Autism comes with atypical brain development thus this may be the reason for their trouble with TOM. It seems social cognition involves mirror neurons: neurons that are activated both by performing an action and by watching someone else performing the same action. They help us understand another one's mental state based on our (earlier) mental states, and are also involved in empathy. Mirror neuron deficits may be a reason for the problems people with autism have with those kinds of things. 

Next to these biological things, interaction with others is critical. Evidence for this comes from:

• Language experience. Deaf children of deaf parents that use sign language develop TOM skills the same way normal children do. But deaf children of hearing parents, who usually do not converse in sign language at first, develop it more slowly.
• Mind-minded parents. Responsive parents that create secure attachments, and parents who show mind-mindedness (thinking and talking in elaborate ways about mental states) have children with better TOM.
• Interactions with siblings and peers. Gives them more opportunity to develop TOM. 
• Cultural differences. In cultures that do not talk much about mental states, children develop TOM more slowly. 

Theory of mind can also be used for bad ends: e.g bullies and liars prove to have good TOM. But well developed TOM mainly has good outcomes.

As their social cognitive abilities develop, children become more psychologically minded: e.g. they describe others more in a psychological sense instead of physical and use psychological traits to explain why people have a certain behavior. Adolescents are even more advanced at this and integrate different traits. 

Another aspect of social development has to do with replacing the earlier egocentrism with perspective-taking skills/role-taking skills: thus to adopt someone else's perspective and understand their feelings and thoughts. It seems these skills develop in a stagelike manner (as children progress through Piaget's cognitive stages):

• 3-6 year olds are still egocentric and think that others will share their views.
• 8-10 year olds understand that two people can have different points of view with the same information. 
• Around age 12, young adolescents can mentally juggle multiple perspectives.

Social skills continue to improve, even after adolescence, and seem to stay quite steady in elder adults. However, sometimes they perform less on social tasks (like understanding sarcasm or false belief tasks): especially if it challenges their cognitive capacities, by requiring fast processing or high executive control. The people with the best social skills also have social lives. 

What are some perspectives on moral development?

Morality has to do with discriminating right from wrong and act and feel accordingly. Three basic components are of interest:

• The emotional component: the feelings that surround right or wrong actions and that motivate moral thoughts and actions.
• The cognitive component: which is about how we think about right and wrong and how we make decisions on how to behave, drawing on social cognitive skills like perspective taking.
• The behavorial component: which is about how we behave when we for instance experience the temptation to cheat or are called to help someone.

Freud's psychoanalytic theory looked at the role of emotions in morality development. He thought children experience an emotional conflict over their love for the other-sex parent, and solve that conflict by identifying with the same-sex parent while taking on their moral standards. He thought the superego was like a parent inside the mind - to tell you what is wrong or right and to arouse emotions like shame or guilt if you think about doing wrong. Research has now shown that (1) moral emotions are an important part of morality and they motivate moral behavior, (2) early relationships with parents are important for moral development, and (3) children must internalize moral standards to behave morally without an authority figure there to watch them. The concept of empathy can foster prosocial behavior and keep us from antisocial behavior. 

Moral reasoning is the thinking process you have to decide if something is right or wrong. This seems to progress through stages in which we have different ways of deciding what to do. A child and adult both may decide not to steal something, but can have different reasons for it. So the following theories are really about how the decision-making goes, not even really the outcome. Piaget paved the way for the cognitive-developmental theory of moral development, and Kohlberg refined it. Piaget concluded that preschool children do not yet understand rules and are premoral. Ages 6-10 emphasize consequences more than intentions in reviewing the wrongness of acts, and tend to believe rules are handed down by authoritative figures and are not alterable. At ages 10 and 11, children are more interested in intentions, and begin to understand that rules are agreements among individuals that can be altered. Kohlberg then went on to form the highly influential cognitive-developmental theory of moral development, that progresses through an universal and invariant sequence of three broad levels, each of which has two distinct stages:

• Level 1: preconventional morality. At this level, rules are conformed to, but are external to the self and not yet internalized. The perspective of the self dominates. It consists of: Stage (1): Punishment-and-obedience orientation. The goodness or wrongness of something depends on the consequences. The chlid will obey rules to avoid punishment, but may not consider something wrong if punishment does not follow. Stage (2): Instrumental hedonism. The person then obeys rules to gain rewards or satisfy personal needs. There is some concern for other perspectives, but it's motivated by the hope of getting something back in return. 
• Level 2: conventional morality. At this level, the individual has internalized many moral values and shows respect for rules, first to win approval and later to maintain social order. The perspectives of others are taken into consideration. It consists of: Stage (3): Good boy or good girl morality. Now, what is right is what pleases, helps or is approved of by others. People are judged by their intentions and other perspectives are taken into account. Stage 3 thinking involves reciprocity, mutually giving and taking. This leads to a golden rule morality of doing to someone else what you would want done to you. Stage (4): Authority and social order-maintaining morality. What is right is now what conforms to the rules of legitimate authorities, and is good for society. It's not much about fear of punishment anymore, but about the belief that rules maintain a worthy social order. Doing your duty and respecting the law are important.
• Level 3: postconventional morality. The individual now defines what is right in terms of broad principles of justice, that have validity apart from the views of authoritative figures. The individual can now discriminate what is morally right and what is legal, and knows some laws are not moral and violate human rights. It consists of: Stage (5): Morality of contract, individual rights, and democratically accepted law. Now, there is an understanding of the underlying purposes served by laws, and a concern that rules should be made by democracy. Stage (6): Morality of individual principles of conscience. Now, the individual defines right and wrong based on broad, universal self-generated principles. The principles are abstract principles of respect for all individuals and their rights and are discovered through reflection. The person can take many perspectives and come to a solution fair for everyone. This is Kohlberg's vision of ideal moral reasoning. 

Progress through these stages is about progressing in perspective-taking skills. Moral reasoning progresses from an egocentric focus on the self at the preconventional level, to a concern with other's perspectives at the conventional level, and then to the ability of coordinating multiple perspectives and determining what is right from all perspectives at the postconventional level.

While Freud emphasized the role of parents, Kohlberg and Piaget believed cognitive growth (developments in perspective-taking skills and formal-operational thinking) and social interactions with peers (disequilibriums that cause growth) are of biggest influence on moral development. Moral growth then is facilitated by:

• Challenging discussions with peers
• Advanced schooling
• Participating in a complex, diverse, democratic society

Social learning theorists are more interested in the behavioral component. They think moral behavior is learned just like other behaviors: through observing and reinforcement or punishment. Also, situational influences are important to them: due to that, what we do is not always consistent with our moral standards. Social learning theorist Bandura thought moral cognition is linked to moral action through self-regulatory mechanisms, that involve monitoring and evaluating our actions, disapproving ourselves when we think about doing wrong, and approving as we do good. So we apply consequences to ourselves and this way exert self-control. This system of moral self-regulation needs to fight the situational influences that can push us to do wrong. Bandura also says we have devised mechanisms of moral disengagement. These allow us to avoid judging ourselves when we do wrong. So with disengaging you find a way to not feel guilty about it. The ones that have perfected these mechanisms engage in more antisocial behavior.

Evolutionary theorists say all three aspects of morality have become part of our human nature, because they helped us to adapt to the environment. So these things have come to us through evolution. Cooperation and collaboration have proved useful for example.  So, prosocial behavior is rooted in humans, but so is antisocial behavior too and so this can come out occasionally.

What do social cognition and morality mean to the infant?

We view infants as amoral: as if they not yet have a sense of morality, since they can not evaluate their behavior yet or hold moral standards. It seems they are less amoral than we believe. Infants do have capacity for selfishness and aggression, but they are also predisposed to be empathic and prosocial. During the first 2 years they learn many moral lessons and develop conscience. 

Even though many view infants as egocentric, it seems they have empathy and prosocial behavior at a very young age, and it develops as they get older. Infants engage in helping and cooperation, and show signs of having altruistic motivations, a sense of fairness and moral judgment. It also seems antisocial behavior is part of human nature, as physical and verbal aggression come quite naturally to children: however they do not really intend to hurt someone. At 1.5 years, some toddlers get more aggresive than others, which can be caused by genetic as well as environmental factors. 

Normally, as they age, prosocial behavior increases and antisocial behavior decreases. This is partly due to moral socialization: they learn from the people around us and are for example punished when they do wrong. The development of conscience involves (1) mastering moral emotions and (2) mastering self-control (often tested with the delay of gratification task: the famous marshmellow task). A secure attachment to the parents is important for good moral development. It's important to establish a mutually responsive orientation - a close, emotionally positive, cooperative and responsive relationship with each other. It also helps when the parents discuss child's behavior and its consequences. Self-control in young children predicts good outcomes in adolescents/adults, and can be trained if a kid doesn't naturally have it.

What do social cognition and morality mean to the child?

Researchers, like Piaget and Kohlberg, really underestimated children's moral thinking, and believed they just focused on consequences: but even 3-year-olds show to think of intentions as well. This gets more sophisticated as they age and as they develop their theory of mind. So, the development of morality and of TOM develop together and influence each other. 

Children distinguish between different kinds of rules (in contrast to what Piaget believed). They discriminate moral rules (focusing on the welfare and basic rights of others, like the rule of not hitting) from social-conventional rules (determined by social consensus and telling us what is appropriate in social settings, like a social etiquette: e.g. saying "thank you"). As preschoolers, children understand that moral rules are more compelling and unchangeable. 

Children's first belief about fairness is that everything should be equal. But even 3 and 4 year olds can also take into account who deserves it more, if you can get past their strong preference for equality. As they get older, their understanding of fairness develops more and they understand that sometimes the equality rule and sometimes the merit-based equity rule is more fair. They can also use the need-based rule: who needs the "reward" more? In different cultures, different fairness beliefs develop. Children still want to give themselves more than others, but they get the basic principles of fairness. 

We saw earlier that parents have influence on children's moral development through their type of attachment, mutually responsive orientation, being good models and reinforcing or punishing behavior. Hoffman believes fostering empathy is also very important in moral socialization. He compared three major approaches to disciplining children:

• Love withdrawal. Thus: when a child misbehaves, parents withold affection or attention. 
• Power assertion. This is about threatening, spankings, taking away privileges: thus using punishment.
• Induction. This is about explaining why the behavior was wrong, its effects on others, and how it should be changed.

Hoffman believed in induction to be the best method to foster moral development because it fosters empathy. Sometimes, mild power assertion tactics in combination with induction and good affection can help. Otherwise, the two other approaches can have bad effects. Effective parents also use proactive parenting strategies: tactics to prevent misbehavior and thus reduce the need for disciplining. When they discipline, it depends on the situation, child, culture, and what happened which approach they use and how effective it is. Children have to be socialized with goodness-of-fit: it has to fit their temperament and strengthen them. 

What do social cognition and morality mean to the adolescent?

Some adolescents are busy developing a moral identity: where moral values are central to their identity. This may be critical when it comes to translating moral values into moral action. Prosocial activities like community service can help this. Moral identity is more predictive of ethical behavior than the stage of moral reasoning. 

In adolescence, conventional thinking is dominant. Postconventional thinking emerges in adulthood.

Antisocial behavior generally changes from childhood to adolescence: while physical aggression decreases, non-aggressive antisocial behavior like vandalism and theft increase. Teens then engage in juvenile delinquency. Some can be diagnosed with e.g. conduct disorder (pattern of violating others' rights or societal norms), which are in adulthood sometimes referred to as psychopaths. But most antisocial adolescents do not turn into antisocial adults, thus there seem to be two subgroups of antisocial youths:

1. A small, early onset, seriously problematic group that is already recognizable in childhood and can last the whole life span.
2. A larger, late onset, less serious antisocial group that begins in adolescence, probably also due to peer influences, and outgrows this behavior in adulthood (probably because of more autonomy, less sensitivity to peers, adult responsibilities, and the maturation of the preferontal cortex that causes better self-control and a greater ability to think through consequences). 

Juvenile delinquents on average rely more on preconventional moral reasoning, and do less good at TOM tasks. But this can not explain all. They seem to have less empathy as well, they have callous-unemotional traits. Their amygdala (center of emotional experience) shows less activity. Furthermore, they process social information differently and often have certain family environments. This becomes clear in two theories:

• Dodge's social information-processing model. He believes an individual that is provoked progresses through six steps: (1) Encoding of cues. (2) Interpretation of cues. (3) Clarification of goals. (4) Response search. (5) Response decision. (6) Behavioral enactment. Through this, our reactions to provocation, anger or frustration are formed. He believes that aggressive/criminal youths show deficient or biased information processing at every step and thus they react in immoral ways more quickly. They often have hostile attribution bias: they believe that other persons mean to harm them instead of accidental causes. They often view the world as a hostile place, possibly through earlier abuse or abandonment. This model is helpful, but leaves unclear if the underlying problem is how someone thinks (if he/she has good social information processing skills), what one thinks (e.g. hostile attribution bias) or whether one thinks (acting too impulsively). 
• Patterson's coercive family environments theory. He states antisocial people have often grown in coercive family environments: environments in which family members have power struggles, and try to control the others through negative and coercive tactics. For example, parents try to discipline their children by hitting or yelling, which they learned by Skinner's negative reinforcement principle. Children in turn learn they can get their parents to lay off them by ignoring, whining and temper tantrums. It all then gets out of control: parents can not get a hold of their child, who develops conduct problems and relies on aggressive tacts to fix conflicts, as he/she has grew up with. The child is aggressive and not nice and thus has problems in school, ending up in a peergroup of other antisocial and low-achieving youths. They then reinforce each other's delinquency. 

These theories do not take genetics into account, while some people are definitely genetically predisposed to develop certain temperaments, impulsive tendencies, disorders or other traits or responses that contribute to aggressive and criminal behavior. Genetics seem to account for 40% of individual differences in antisocial behavior, and environment for the remaining 60%. Certain genes contribute and there are also epigenetic effects of harmful early experiences. Through gene-environment interaction, children with genetic predispositions for antisocial behavior will even more likely become antisocial with poor parenting or abuse. And through gene-environment correlation, children with these predispositions may actually evoke the coercive parenting. So, there is a reciprocal relation.  Other factors like SES and cultures can have influence as well. 

Many approaches to prevent or treat antisocial behavior have been tried, and had some success, but none of it can completely help. It seems prevention is most effective and should start in childhood, involving both the child and the environment. It's good to improve social-information processing and self-regulation skills. Positive youth development is a positive approach that emphasizes developing the strengths of youth. The goals are defined as five C's: competence, confidence, character, connection and caring. 

What do social cognition and morality mean to the adult?

Kohlberg believed postconventional moral reasoning could only appear in adulthood, and it did not emerge in all adults. It seems moral reasoning skills remain quite steady as people turn into older adults.

Though Kohlberg's first stages indeed seem universal, the higher stages do not: they primarily appear in Western, individualistic cultures, though moral thinking advances in other countries too: just in a different way. Our moral judgments are influenced by our sociocultural context and religion/spirituality.

Shweder states three different ethics inform moral thinking around the world, and the balance of them depends on culture:

• Ethic of autonomy: concern about individual rights and fairness or justice
• Ethic of community: emphasis on duty, loyalty and concern for group welfare
• Ethnic of divinity: emphasis on divine law and quest for spiritual purity

This leads to a cultural-developmental perspective on morality. 

Kohlberg focused on moral reasoning, and some scholars think there is a bigger role for the emotional component. We have quick moral intuitions, like "gut feelings". Some scholars believe these quick intuitions are more important than deliberate moral reasoning. Haidt says we decide intuitively when faced with a moral choice, and then think deliberately to rationalize our decision. Greene then proposed a dual-process model of morality in which there are distinct roles for deliberate thought and intuition/emotion, and they are both important and are used in different situations. We even use different parts of the brain for it (the amygdala is linked to emotions and the prefrontal cortex to reasoning) that somehow interact too. Still, much has to be learned about this. 

People in higher stages of moral reasoning are more likely to behave morally. Still, relationships are weak and this is due to different factors influencing behavior - situational factors, gut emotional reactions, culture, and so on.

Concluding, Kohlberg's stage theory has a lot of support, but it (1) underestimates children's moral reasoning, (2) does not appreciate cultural differences, (3) ignores intuition/emotion, and (4) says too little about the other many influences besides reasoning on moral behavior.

Fowler proposed stages in religion development that parallel Kohlberg's moral development stages. Fowler's stages go from concrete images of God in childhood, to internalization of conventional religious beliefs in adolescence, to soul searching in emerging adulthood, and then for some progression to a more abstract perspective on faith in middle age and older. Religious and spiritual beliefs certainly shape moral judgment and action: they affect people a lot. While religiousness is defined as sharing the beliefs and practices of an organized religion, spirituality involves a quest for meaning and a connection with something greater. So, spirituality can happen inside religion and outside. Both are important in adolescence when they are questioned and explored, and they tend to increase in later adulthood. Religiousness and spirituality are both positively associated with health and wellbeing, probably because they give a sense of meaning and give social support.