Nancy Eisenberg’s model of Pro-social Reasoning
Kohlberg’s and Piaget’s theories both have a number of similarities, as already mentioned. One of
these is their emphasis on wrong doing and justice. Social psychologists in the 1970s became more
interested in the reasoning behind people’s actions, as well as the actions themselves, and in moral
development this trend was manifested by Eisenberg’s theory of pro-social reasoning. Crucially, as
implied by the name, her theory also concentrates on positive behaviours and the reasoning behind
them, rather than focusing on negative actions.
However, Kohlberg is still the starting point, and much of Eisenberg’s theory and her methods show
overlap and similarities with her predecessor’s.
Methods
Nancy Eisenberg and her colleagues (e.g. Eisenberg, 1986; Eisenberg et al, 1987) have explored this
type of reasoning by presenting dilemmas to children in which they have to have to take on the role
of someone else and act either out of self-interest or in the interests of others. For example they
take on the role of Mary who is in her way to a birthday party. On her way she comes across a child
who has fallen and suffered an injury. The dilemma being, does Mary stop and help and as a result
miss the party, or does she ignore the injured person and continue on her way?
On the basis of children's responses to dilemmas dealing with such pro-social behaviour, Eisenberg
proposes a series of five levels of pro-social reasoning.
Other factors:
Feeling
Feelings are crucial to her theory. She believes that morality develops through being able to
empathise with others, being able to understand things from their point of view and sharing their
feelings.
Role play
As children develop they take on many different roles, for example, daughter, best friend, pupil and
party animal. They also become aware of the role played by others and are able to play these roles
too. Role playing of this sort, as opposed to the orchestrated role playing of an electron in science,
helps the child to see things from the point of view of others and helps in appreciating their
feelings.
Eisenberg identified five main levels of pro-social reasoning:
Age 0 to about 7 (pre-school and primary school children)
1.
Hedonistic (self-focused) orientation (pre-school children)
Child only cares only for itself. Any apparently altruistic behaviour is motivated by selfishness
for example 'I’ll help them because they’ll help me in future’ (reciprocity), or simply because the
child likes the person they are helping. Again compare to Freud’s id oral stage dominated by the
selfish id.
2.
Needs of others orientation (some pre-school and primary school children)
The needs of others are being recognised but only to a limited extent. The needs of the specific
situation are being addressed rather than a genuine sense of empathy. When asked the child
offers simple explanations for their positive behaviour without referring to guilt or self reflection.
Age about 7 to adolescence (primary to secondary school children)
3.
Stereotyped approval-focused orientation (primary and many high school children)
The child acts in a way that will make them liked. For example lending a helping hand in order to
impress others. When asked to explain their behaviour they tend to use stereotyped portrayals of
good and bad behaviour.
Adolescence onwards
4.
Empathic orientation (a few high school children and most secondary school children)
The child now starts to show genuine empathy by putting themselves in the shoes of others and
begins to report feelings of genuine guilt when considering their own actions.
4b. Transitional level (a few secondary school children)
The child’s actions are now explained in terms of wider social values and the need to
Protect the dignity and self-esteem of others.
5.
Internalised orientation (rare in children)
The child now has a full set of values and understands their responsibilities towards
others. They have self-respect that they can only maintain by behaving with a duty of care
towards others. The person’s desire to live up to their own set of principles is also a motivating
factor.
In summary, the child progresses from a level at which reasoning is 'self-focused' or 'self-centred'
('what feels good to me is right’) to a stance in which social approval guides both reasoning about
justice and about doing good. What is right is what other people define as right. Much later, some
young people seem to develop internalised, individualised ideas, which then guide both types of
reasoning. Eisenberg (1983) found that empathy is not a consistent characteristic. Children act
differently towards different people. Clearly they are more likely to help friends and family, but
are also more likely to help people from their own ethnic or religious group.
Interestingly (Eisenberg 2005) comments on the lack of mention of reward and punishment
mentioned by children in explaining their positive actions. This is in marked contrast to Kohlberg’s
findings, when it was common for younger children to cite these as reasons for their negative
behaviours.
Evaluation
Comparisons with Kohlberg
Kohlberg is a truer stage theory since he believes that once a child progresses past a stage it does
not return to earlier stages. However, Eisenberg disagrees, recognising that there are situations in
which we may adopt a lower level of morality, particularly in cases were we decide not to help
someone in a particular situation. She also believes that some of the reasoning of the higher levels
is not always superior to that found in lower levels.
Both Eisenberg and Kohlberg (and Piaget obviously) see cognitive development as crucial in guiding
moral development. A person’s ability to reason or make moral judgements is in part limited by
their ability to think!
Eisenberg believes that ‘primitive empathy’ is to be found in children as young as four. This is
clearly at odds with Kohlberg who only recognises empathy much later.
Eisenberg has more recently recognised the importance of emotion in moral development. On seeing
a person in need of help a child (and an adult) is more likely to help if the distressed person arouses
sympathy (characterised by lower heart rate) rather than distress (higher heart rate). This is
seen as a return more to Piagetian thinking and away from Kohlberg.
This model clearly has some parallels with Kohlberg's, however researchers have typically found
that children’s reasoning about pro-social dilemmas and their reasoning about Kohlberg's justice and
fairness dilemmas, are only moderately correlated. The sequence of stages may be similar, but
children seem to move through these stages at different speeds. Eisenberg has found that
children’s pro-social reasoning is slightly ahead of their Kohlberg reasoning.
Cross cultural comparisons
Boehnke et al 1989 found that children in various Western cultures tend to progress through
Eisenberg’s stages in the order and at the age that she suggests.
However, there do appear to be differences between cultures. In the more collectivist Kibbutzim
of Israel children as young as primary school age show signs of stage 5 reasoning, believing that we
have a duty to help others. This is not surprising given that the collectivist nature of the Kibbutz
system places an emphasis on responsibility for others and not just responsibility for oneself as
preached in more individualistic Western society.
Other variables
According to Eisenberg, it isn’t only cognitive development that determines the level at which the
child reasons:
1. Socilisation
Children worried about their appearance and about the views of others are more likely to operate at
level 3 (approval-focused), whereas a child with a similar cognitive ability who has been bought up to
be more empathetic, will most likely reason at level 4 (empathy-focused).
2. Situational factors
As the costs involved in helping someone increase (e.g. in terms of time taken, expense or physical
harm), the more a child is likely to offer hedonistic explanations of their actions.
Specific situational variables may also be important, e.g. if lots of people are watching we may act in
order to gain the approval of others.