Dan
Landmarks of Moral Formation in
Early Childhood
Daniel Lapsley
University of Notre Dame
www.nd.edu/~dlapsle1/Lab
Darcia
Conference on Infant and Toddler Mental
Health, August 12, 2011
Infant Morality and the “Received View”
Morality is “declarative” knowledge
It is deliberative, explicit, propositional
It is wrestling with dilemmas
It is “knowing that”
By age 3 the child’s self is a moral self
The child has internalized “rules” of what to do
and not to do
Displays moral affect
Engages in prosocial sharing
Regulates conflict between personal needs
and social obligations
Is governed by internal standards
But self and morality develop before onset
of reflective self-awareness
Landmarks
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Moral Self of Infancy
Empathy and Prosocial Behavior
Toddlers Norms, Standards Concepts
Conscience
Social-Cognitive (“Narrative”) Approach
Robert Emde
Origins of the Moral Self?
(1) Biologically prepared “motives”
(2) Procedural knowledge
“In my beginning is my end.”
---T. S. Eliot (East Coker)
Procedural Knowledge
Information that underlies skills that need not be
represented consciously
It is knowing how---but we know more than we can say
Intelligent systems can manifest rule-governed
behavior without any explicit representation of the
rule
System 1 vs. System 2
System 1
System 2
Non-conscious
Implicit-tacit
Intuitive
Conscious
Explicit
Analytical
Associative
Rule-Based
Acquired by:
Biology, exposure,
personal experience
Procedural Knowledge
(knowing how)
Acquired by:
Formal instruction
Declarative Knowledge
(knowing that)
The early self develops procedurally
“Existential self” is the first self of infancy
(independent existence and agency)
Infants’ behavior is coherent, organized, rulegoverned, but not always based on acquisition of
explicit rules
But acquired piecemeal via day-to-day interactions
with caregivers
Emde (1991)
Early moral development is based on
knowledge that is organized procedurally
Infants act in accordance with moral rules ----but
need not recall them to follow them
What is source of this procedural knowledge?
Infants are biologically prepared for it!
Five “motives” built into our species by evolution
And consolidated into an “affective core”
Five Motives and the “Affective Core” of the Moral Self
Motives
Description
Activity
Basic tendencies for exploration, mastery
Self-Regulation
Propensity to regulate physiology and behavior
“built-in” developmental goals
Social Fittedness
Infants pre-adapted for initiating, maintaining &
terminating interactions
(e.g, regulating caregivers, behavioral synchrony, joint
visual attention)
Affective Monitoring
?
Monitor experiences
according to what is pleasurable
Infant affect guides parental care
Emotional communication increasingly salient by 6 mo.
“Social referencing”
Cognitive assimilation
Infant seeks out the novel to make it familiar
“basic fact of life” (Piaget)
But operation, activation and consolidation of basic motives
requires a sensitive, responsive infant- care-giver relationship
i.e., the affective core requires a context
Source: Emde et al (1991)
Contextual Model
Early Caregiver Interactions as ….
Theorist
Affective “dialogues”
Spitz
“good-enough mothering”
Winnicott
Sensitivity and attunement to infant’s
emotional signals and needs
Bowlby
Caregivers regulatory role in structuring
the continuity of early experience….
Theorist
“holding” or “facilitating” environment
Winnicott
Emotional “re-fueling”
Mahler
“mirroring” support
Kohut
Emde et al. (1991)
An Early Moral Self
Infant rule-learning originates in inborn propensity
and in
expectable caregiver relationship experiences
Reciprocity
Norm Violations
Empathy-Sharing
Emde et al (1991)
Reciprocity
Develops from basic motive of social fittedness
Early face-to-face turn-taking with mother an example of
internalized rules about reciprocity
Rules about how to communicate---engage, maintain and
terminate social interactions are operative before language
Are internalized as result of pleasurable caregiver experiences
and come to form early motives and procedures for social
turn-taking
Emde et al (1991)
Is this morality?
Reciprocity is the “foundation stone” of moral
systems
Do unto others…
Norm Violations
Another feature of basic morality becomes differentiated by
end of second year…..
Anxiety when internal standards are violated
New affective way for “cognitive assimilation” to show itself
i.e., for “getting it right”
Is this morality?
All systems of morality require internalized standards,
and “unease” when violated
Child’s early moral self has emotional procedures that guide the
process by age 3
Empathy
Empathy: affective response that stems from apprehension of another’s
emotional state & is similar to what the other is feeling or would be expected to
feel in given situation;
Rules for turn-taking and social communication cultivate
empathy
Has strong maturational basis
Empathy and helping influenced by quality of caregiving
Infants produce and comprehend emotional gestures and
signal in play episodes;
Can use emotional expressions of others to regulate own
emotions
Empathy
By the first birthday:
Is aware that self and others are independent
and that
minds can be interfaced
Inter-subjectivity can be generated
by emotional signalling
By 20 months: Infants can label some emotional states
By 24 months: can make causal statements
(“You sad, Mommy……what daddy do?”)
By 24 months children have internalized rules for “do’s” and
“don’ts” ---(at least in presence of caregiver)
Toddlers are empathically responsive to mood states of others
and can reproduce or share in emotion states of others
Pre-schoolers can correctly identify emotional reactions of others
and its causes
Social referencing
Searching for emotional signals during prohibitions
Repeated looking before or after prohibited act
Or for permitted acts
Is this morality?
People who experience another’s emotions
and feel concern are expected to help, be
altruistic and prosocial;
Only prosocial behaviors motivated by
empathy-sympathy have moral significance
Empathy and Prosocial Behavior
Eisenberg
Children under 2 often share toys and give things away
By age 2, can verbalize understanding of another’s needs,
wants, intentions
And comfort a younger sibling, will attempt to alleviate distress
by sympathy, offering help
These prosocial inclinations are observed throughout early
childhood
1983, Child Development
Zahn-Waxler
When young children heard infants cry:
Children as young as 4-5 displayed signs of
emotional arousal
Made empathic statements
Offered to help
(especially when cries were not too intense and
baby’s mother was present)
Observed sympathetic concern and prosocial behavior cooccur even at age 2
And co-occur in early childhood
When 4-5 year olds witnessed someone in distress, children in all
risk groups (low-moderate-hi) showed similar empathic concern
and prosocial behavior
Moderate and high risk children were less able to remain
positively engaged with distress victims
After a 3-year old witnessed a puppet destroy
another puppet’s belongings:
Tomasello
Intervened on behalf of absent victim (verbally
protested)
Tattled on transgressors
Acted pro-socially on behalf of victims of
transgression
Children as young as 3 years of age actively intervene in third-party moral
transgressions….and in defense of moral norms!
Summary
The building blocks of the moral self are evident in
infancy
The affective core is organized into procedural moral
understanding
Reciprocity
Norm-Violations
Empathy and Prosocial Behavior
Fashioned in sensitive, reciprocal exchanges with
emotionally-available caregivers
But there is room for improvement!
W. Arsenio
Present 4-, 6- and 8 year olds a situation where
a child commits a moral transgression
e.g., steals another’s candy, pushes a child off a
swing
Then ask: “How would the victimizer feel?”
Nearly all 4- and 6-year olds and most 8-year olds predicted
that the victimizer –who gets what he or she wants--would be happy
“Happy Victimizer”
The young child has difficulty coordinating material gain of the victimizer with
negative consequences to the victim
Landmarks
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Moral Self of Infancy
Empathy and Prosocial Behavior
Toddler’s Norms, Standards, Concepts
Conscience
Narrative Self
Sensitivity to Norms and Standards
“Ought”
Young children develop early normative expectations
Towards end of the second year
Toddlers become concerned with how things ought to be
e.g., names of things they are learning
e.g., behavioral routines (inflexible about bedtime rituals)
e.g., violations of appearance
Children are constructing representations of how things are done
and are sensitive to violations of normative expectations
J. Kagan
19-month olds respond negatively and with
concern when faced with objects that have
been marred, damaged or disfigured
Missing buttons, torn pages, broken toys---react with interest,
attention and negative evaluation (“It’s yukky!”)
--touching the flaw
--concern about who was responsible
Interpreted as emerging moral sense
These damaged objects violate implicit norms of wholeness that
parents enforce through sanctions on breaking or damaging objects
But perhaps not an emerging moral sense
R. Thompson
Is the sensitivity to norms specific to “wrongdoing” (i.e., broken or damaged)
Or whether children respond to anything that is
simply atypical (e.g., being the wrong color)
Compared toddlers response to toy different from the norm in several
ways:
Some were broken or damaged (teddy bear with one eye missing)
Others were functionally impaired without being broken (e.g., teddy
bear without stuffing)
Some functional and intact but abnormal (e.g., teddy bear with
psychedelic colors with wings)
Courtesy of Ross Thompson
Toddlers 14 to 23 months
Regardless of age---young children showed no differential
responding to the objects implying wrong-doing
Instead, they responded with interest, affect and attention to
all forms of atypicality –damaged, functionally impaired or
abnormal
Rather than an emerging moral sense---toddlers’ reaction to
broken toys and disfigured objects a more general sensitivity to
events different from conventional norms
This sensitivity becomes enlisted into an early moral sensibility
as children come to learn that broken and marred objects are
also disapproved
Here---what is atypical is interesting not only because it violates
a norm, but is also forbidden
Thompson (2009)
Toddler’s Moral Concepts
Toddler’s moral judgments nuanced by their understanding of
different domains of rules
Moral v. Conventional judgments
can be distinguished along several criteria
(alterability, contingency, generality, seriousness)
3.5 year olds distinguish moral and conventional rules on all
criteria;
3 year olds distinguish only generality
2 year olds did not distinguish on any criteria
J. Smetana
24 and 36 month old children
Videotaped in two 45-minute sessions at home
(1) With mother alone
(2) With mother and peers
Moral transgressions more frequent in peer interactions
Conventional transgressions more frequent with mother alone
Mothers response to conventional violations focuses on social order or social
regulation
Response to moral transgressions focuses transgressor on consequences of
actions on rights or welfare of victim
Landmarks
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•
•
•
•
Moral Self of Infancy
Empathy and Prosocial Behavior
Toddler’s Norms, Standards, Concepts
Conscience
Narrative Self
Conscience
Inner guiding system responsible for
gradual emergence and maintenance of
self-regulation
Grazyna Kochanska
Inner self-regulatory system consisting
of moral emotions, conduct, cognitions
Conscience influence how children construct and act
consistently with generalizable internal standards of conduct
Range of individual differences
Different pathways to conscience
Two sources of individual differences:
(1) Biologically-based temperament
(2) Socialization experiences with early caregivers
Kochanska’s Model
Emerging morality begins with quality of parent-child attachment
Strong mutually responsive relationship to caregivers orients child to
be receptive to parental influence
“Mutually-Responsive Orientation” (MRO)
MRO characterized by
“shared positive affect”
Mutually coordinated enjoyable routines (“good times”)
“cooperative interpersonal set”
Joint willingness of parent and child to initiate and reciprocate
relational overtures
Within MRO, and the secure attachment it denotes, that the
child is eager to comply with parental expectations and
standards
“committed compliance”
to norms and values of caregivers
Which motivates moral internalization and “conscience”
Two Main Components of Early Conscience
Rule-compatible, internalized conduct (rule compliance
without surveillance)
Moral emotion (empathy)
Children who comply with rules
even without supervision
Who feel empathic concern
towards others’ distress
Who feel discomfort when they
commit transgressions
Psychosocial
competence
Positive
development
Children who experience a highly responsive
relationship with mothers over first 24 months
strongly embraced maternal prohibitions
And gave evidence of strong self-regulation at preschool age
Security of Attachment
(MRO)
Committed
Compliance
Moral
Internalization
“Children with a strong history of committed compliance with the
parent are likely gradually to come to view themselves as
embracing the parent’s values and rules.
Such a moral self, in turn, comes to serve as the regulator of
future moral conduct and, more generally, of early morality” (p.
340)
But children bring something to the interaction….their
temperament
Multiple pathways to conscience
One parenting style not uniformly more effective irrespective of
child’s temperament
Children who are “fearful” would profit from gentle, low
power-assertive discipline
“silken glove”
But “fearless” children would require not the “iron
hand” but discipline that capitalizes on positive
emotions
Overview of Methodology
Longitudinal assessment: 25 mos., 38mos., 52 mos., 67 mos. & 80 mos.
Two, 2-3 hour laboratory session, one with each parent
At 38 months, one home and one lab (with each parent)
Child’s internalization of each parent’s rules and empathy towards parents’
distress observed in scripted paradigms at 25mo., 38mo. & 52 mos.
Moral self assessed with “puppet interview”
Adaptive, competent, prosocial and antisocial behavior rated by parents &
teachers
Moral Self
Two puppets anchor opposite ends of 31 items
The items pertain to dimensions of early conscience (e.g.,
internalization of rules, empathy, apology, etc)
Each item presented with brief scenario, with one puppet
endorsing one option and the second puppet the other option
(“with equally self-righteous voices”)
Puppet 1:
“When I break something, I try to hide it so no one finds out.”
Puppet 2:
“When I break something, I tell someone right away.”
Then the child is asked: “What about you? Do you try to hide
something that you broke or do you tell someone right away?”
Other Assessments
(at 80 mos.)
MacArthur Health Behavior Questionnaire
(parents & teachers)
School engagement
Peer relations
Prosocial behavior
Problem behavior
Child Symptom Inventory
Opposition defiant items
Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits (parents)
Absences of guilt & empathy
Disregard for rules & standards
Children who as toddlers &
preschoolers had strong history of
internalized “out-of-sight”
compliance with parents’ rules
Strong history of empathic
responding at toddlers/preschool
Were competent, engaged,
prosocial with few
antisocial behavioral
problems at early school
age
Psychosocial competence
at early school age
What mechanism accounts for this beneficial effect?
The Moral Self
Children’s moral self robustly predicted future competent behavior
Children at 67 mos. who were “highly moral” were rated at 80 mos. as highly
competent, prosocial and having few antisocial problems
Fig. 2 Kochanska et al (2010)
Fig. 3 Kochanska et al. (2010)
How does the moral self execute its inner guidance role?
Mechanisms not completely clear
Kochanka suggests
avoidance of cognitive dissonance
anticipation of guilty feelings,
automatic regulation due to high
accessibility of moral schemas
“In the
end is my beginning”
---T.S. Eliot (East Coker)
Moral Self of Infancy
“In my beginning is my end.”
---T. S. Eliot (East Coker)
Conscience
Social-Cognitive Approach
Dan & Darcia
“Moral “chronicity” built on foundation of
generalized “event representations”
Event representations as “basic building blocks” of cognitive development
Are elaborated in dialogues with caregivers who help children review and
consolidate memories in script-like fashion
At some point specific episodic memories must be integrated into a
narrative form that references a self whose story it is,
Episodic memory transformed into autobiographical memory
Parental interrogatories
“What happened when you pushed your sister?”
“What should you do next?”
Are a scaffold that helps children structure events in a
narrative fashion
And provides, as part of the self-narrative, actionguiding scripts
“I apologize”
That become over-learned, routine, habitual, automatic.
Parents help children identify morally relevant features of their experience
and encourage formation of social cognitive schemas that are chronically
accessible.
Landmarks
•
•
•
•
•
Moral Self of Infancy
Empathy and Prosocial Behavior
Toddlers Norms, Standards Concepts
Conscience
Social-Cognitive (“Narrative”) Approach