Aggression, Altruism,

and Moral Development

Dr. Lin Dan

1
Aggression

Aggression
Anyform of behavior intended to injure or
harm a living being who is motivated to
avoid such treatment
Hostile aggression goal is to harm a victim
Instrumental aggression harming another is a

means to some other end

THE DEVELOPMENT OF AGGRESSION

Origins of Aggression in Infancy

Instrumental aggression present by end of
first year
Conflicts over possessions
Declines in second year as sharing becomes

more common
THE DEVELOPMENT OF AGGRESSION

Developmental Trends in Aggression

2 to 3 years, physical retaliation begins
3 to 5, physical aggression declines, but is
replaced by verbal aggression
For most children, physical aggression is
normal, but relatively rare by middle
childhood
Decline is in instrumental aggression
Hostile aggression increases slightly
THE DEVELOPMENT OF AGGRESSION

Sex Differences
By 2 - 3, males more physically and verbally
aggressive than females
Due to rougher play with parents
More negative parental reaction to aggressive

behaviors of daughters
Gender-typing of toys

Females are more relationally aggressive

(covert aggression)
THE DEVELOPMENT OF AGGRESSION

From Aggression to Antisocial Conduct

Overt aggression declines from middle
childhood through adolescence
Relational aggression in females increases

Indirect aggression in males increases

THE DEVELOPMENT OF AGGRESSION

Is Aggression a Stable Attribute?

Yes for many individuals
Aggressive toddlers likely to be aggressive 5 year
olds
Aggression between 3 and 10 predicts aggression

and antisocial behavior later in life

 Figure 14.1. Aggression in childhood predicts criminal behavior in adulthood for both males and
females. FROM HUESMANN, ERON, LEFKOWITZ, & WALDER, 1984.
THEORY OF AGGRESSION

DodgesSocial Information-Processing
Theory of Aggression
Encoding social cues
Interpretation of social cues

Formulates a goal to resolve situation

Generates possible strategies

Evaluates strategies for achieving goal

Selects response

Enacts response
 Figure 14.2 Dodges social information-processing model of the steps children take when deciding how to
respond to harmdoing or other social problems. The boy whose creation is destroyed by another boys nudging
the table must first encode and interpret the social cues (i.e., did he mean it or was it accidental?) and then
proceed through the remaining steps to formulate a response to this harmdoing. ADAPTED FROM CRICK &
DODGE, 1994; LEMERISE & ARSENIO, 2000.
 Reactive aggressors are likely to develop a
hostile attribution bias
Proactive aggressors plan an aggressive

response to achieve an instrumental goal

 Figure 14.3 A social-cognitive model of the reactive aggressors biased attributions about ambiguous
harmdoing and their behavioral outcomes. FROM ROBERT S. SIEGLER, 1996.
Methods of Controlling Aggression in Young
Children

Creating Nonaggressive Environments

Remove aggressive toys
Provide enough space for play

Provide enough toys to reduce competition for

scarce resources
 Eliminating the Payoffs for Aggression
Teach that aggression does not result in
desired outcome
Incompatible-response technique
Ignore aggressive behaviors eliminates reward of
attention
Time out technique

Reinforce prosocial actions

 Social-Cognitive Interventions
Use with older children and adolescents
Can teach individuals to
Regulate anger
Increase empathizing with others, taking their
perspectives; reduces hostile attributions
Generate nonaggressive solutions to conflict
ALTRUISM: DEVELOPMENT OF THE
PROSOCIAL SELF

Origins of Altruism concern for the

welfare of others and willingness to act
on that concern
12 to 18 month olds offer toys to peers
Toddlers can express sympathy
Verbally rebuking children and physically
punishing them reduces compassion.
Discipline based on affective explanation

increases compassion.
ALTRUISM: DEVELOPMENT OF THE
PROSOCIAL SELF

Developmental Trends in Altruism

2-3 year olds show sympathy/compassion
Rarely engage in spontaneous acts of self-
sacrifice; but did during pretend play
4-6year olds more real helping acts,
fewer during pretend play
ALTRUISM: DEVELOPMENT OF THE
PROSOCIAL SELF

Sex Differences in Altruism

Girls are more likely to be helpful, generous,
and compassionate than boys (small
difference)
Boys more interested in looking good or
attaining status over others
Social-Cognitive and Affective Contributions to
Altruism

Children with well developed role-taking

skills are more helpful
Prosocial moral reasoning
Preschoolers tend to be self-serving
Older adolescents are much more responsive

to the needs of others.

 Empathy: An Important Affective
Contributor to Altruism
Empathy persons ability to experience the
emotions of other people.
Personal/self-oriented distress can lead to ignoring
others in need
Sympathetic empathetic arousal concern for
distressed others increases altruism
 Socialization of Empathy
Model empathetic concern
Rely on affectively oriented forms of discipline

Use of positive facial expressions when modeling

sympathy
 Age Trends in the Empathy-Altruism
Relationship
Little relationship between empathy and altruism
among preschool and young grade school children
Stronger for older individuals (7-9)

Need to understand why others are distressed

Need to suppress own distress
 The Felt-Responsibility Hypothesis
Sympathetic empathetic arousal causes one to
reflect on altruistic lessons
Result is assuming personal responsibility for aiding

a person in distress
Who Raises Altruistic Children?

Altruistic
parents
Parents who discipline children in ways
that encourage children to accept personal
responsibility for the harm they caused
Urge a helpful response to the victim
Meaning of Morality
Morality
Distinguish right from wrong
Act on that distinction
Experience pride in virtuous conduct; shame
over acts that violate standards
Internalization of standards is vital

25
 Table 14.2 Six Dimensions of Character That Define Moral Maturity for Canadian
Adults. SOURCE: Walker & Pitts, 1998.
Moral development
How Developmentalists Look at Morality
Affective component emotional; stressed by
psychoanalytic theorists
Cognitive component reasoning; stressed
by cognitive-developmental theorists
Behavioral component stressed by social
learning and social information-processing
theorists

27
Development of Moral Reasoning

Piagets theory
3 stages
Pre-moral
Heteronomous
Autonomous
Kohlbergs theory
3 levels 6 stages

28
Piagets theory of moral
development
Whos naughtier?
John is helping his mother set the table for dinner. She asks him
to go get some extra napkins. John pushes open the door to the
kitchen and accidentally breaks 15 cups that were on a cart
behind the kitchen door.
Once there was a little boy named Henry. One day when his
mother was out, he tried to reach for some jam out of the
cupboard. He climbed onto a chair and stretched out his arm. But
the jam was too high up and he couldnt reach it. . . .While he was
trying to get it, he knocked over a cup. The cup fell down and
broke.

John: Positive intention & major negative outcome

Henry: Negative intention & minor negative outcome

29
 Premoral (< 5 years)
No consistent response; cannot explain
answers

30
 Heteronomous (about 5-10 years)
Focuson outcome: Johns naughtier.
Unquestioning respect of authority
Unchangeable rules (moral realism)
Immanent justice
Breaking rule leads to punishment one way or another
Expiatory punishment
Punishment good for its own sake

31
 Autonomous (about 10 years ~)
Intentions are important: Henry is naughtier.
Rules are social constructions (moral relativism)

Convention vs. morality (justice)

Punishment
Fits the transgression
Teaches a lesson

Ideal reciprocity (the golden rule)

32
 Criticisms of Piagets work
Underestimation of young children
Turiel: Preschoolers understanding of
convention vs. morality

33
Kohlbergs theory of moral development
Kohlbergs Heinz Dilemma
In Europe, a woman was near death from a special kind of cancer.
There was one drug that the doctor 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 10 times what the drug cost him to make. He paid $200 for
the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick
womans husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the
money, but he could only get together about $1,000, 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 Im going to make money from it. So Heinz
gets desperate and considers breaking into the mans store to steal
the drug for his wife. (Colby, Kohlberg, Gibbs, & Liberman, 1983, p.
77)
Should Heinz have done that? Why? Why not?

34
 Kohlbergs Level 1: Preconventional Reasoning
Lowest level.
No internalization of moral values.
Controlled by external rewards and punishments.
Stage 1. Heteronomous morality
Moral thinking is often tied to punishment.

Stage 2. Individualism, instrumental purpose, and

exchange
Individuals pursue their own interests but also let others do the
same.

35
 Kohlbergs Level 2: Conventional Reasoning
Internalization is intermediate.
Individuals abide by certain standards (internal), but they
are the standards of others (external), such as parents or
the laws of society.
Stage 3. Mutual interpersonal expectations,
relationships, and interpersonal conformity
Individuals value trust, caring, and loyalty to others.
Children often adopt their parents moral standards.
Stage 4. Social systems morality
Understanding the social order, law, justice, and duty.

36
 Kohlbergs Level 3: Postconventional Reasoning
The highest level.
Morality is completely internalized and is not based on
others standards.
Personal moral code.

Stage 5. Social contract or utility and individual rights

Values, rights, and principles transcend the law.
Stage 6. Universal ethical principles
Highest stage.
The person has developed a moral standard based on
universal human rights.

37
Moral Reasoning at Kohlbergs Stages in Response to the Heinz and the Druggist Story

38
Age and the Percentage of Individuals at Each Kohlberg Stage

39
 Criticisms of Kohlbergs work
Responses difficult to code
Few people reach higher stages
Associated with educational level
Biased conception of morality?

Not reflecting everyday moral behavior

40
 Why Is Kohlbergs Theory Important for Understanding
Moral Development?
It tells the developmental story of people trying to understand
things like society, rules and roles, and institutions and
relationships.

Influences on Kohlbergs Stages

Cognitive development.
Exposure to appropriate social experiences.
Peer interaction.
Parent-child experiences.
In recent years, there has been an increasing emphasis on the role of
parenting in moral development (Thompson, 2009).

41
Contexts of Moral Development

Parenting Moral Children and Adolescents

A recent research view concluded that, in general, moral
children tend to have parents who (Eisenberg & Valiente, 2002, p.
134):
Are warm and supportive rather than punitive.
Use inductive discipline.
Provide opportunities for the children to learn about others perspectives
and feelings.
Involve children in family decision making and in the process of thinking
about moral decisions.
Model moral behaviors and thinking themselves, and provide
opportunities for their children to do so.
Provide information about what behaviors are expected and why.
Foster an internal rather than an external sense of morality.

42
Contexts of Moral Development

Parenting Moral Children and Adolescents (Continued)

Recently, an interest has developed in determining which
parenting strategies work best when adolescents are
confronted with situations in which they are exposed to values
outside the home that conflict with parents values (Grusec,
2006).
Two strategies that parents often use:
Cocooning
When parents protect adolescents from exposure to deviant
behavior, and thus the temptation to engage in negative moral
behavior.
Pre-arming
Anticipating conflicting values and preparing adolescents to
handle them.
43
Contexts of Moral Development

Schools
The Hidden Curriculum
Conveyed by the moral atmosphere that is a part of every
school.
Character Education
Teaching students a basic moral literacy to prevent them
from engaging in immoral behavior and doing harm to
themselves or others (Arthur, 2008; Carr, 2008).
Values Clarification
Helping people to clarify what is important to them, what is
worth working for, and what purpose their lives are to serve.

44
Contexts of Moral Development

Schools
Cognitive Moral Education
A concept based on the belief that students should
learn to value things like democracy and justice as
their moral reasoning develops.
Service Learning
A form of education that promotes social responsibility
and service to the community.

45