Conference on Infant and Toddler Mental Health, August 12, 2011

Landmarks of Moral Formation in Early Childhood

Daniel LapsleyUniversity of Notre Dame

Dan

Darcia

www.nd.edu/~dlapsle1/Lab

Morality is “declarative” knowledge

It is deliberative, explicit, propositional

It is wrestling with dilemmas

It is “knowing that”

Infant Morality and the “Received View”

But self and morality develop before onset of reflective self-awareness

By age 3 the child’s self is a moral self

The child has internalized “rules” of what to doand not to do

Displays moral affect

Engages in prosocial sharing

Regulates conflict between personal needsand social obligations

Is governed by internal standards

Landmarks

• Moral Self of Infancy• Empathy and Prosocial Behavior• Toddlers Norms, Standards Concepts• Conscience• Social-Cognitive (“Narrative”) Approach

(1) Biologically prepared “motives”

(2) Procedural knowledge

Origins of the Moral Self?

Robert Emde

“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 2Non-conscious Conscious Implicit-tacit Explicit

Intuitive Analytical Associative Rule-Based

Acquired by:Biology, exposure,

personal experience

Acquired by:Formal instruction

Procedural Knowledge(knowing how)

Declarative Knowledge(knowing that)

Emde (1991)

The early self develops procedurally

“Existential self” is the first self of infancy(independent existence and agency)

Infants’ behavior is coherent, organized, rule-governed, but not always based on acquisition of

explicit rules

But acquired piecemeal via day-to-day interactions with caregivers

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”

Source: Emde et al (1991)

?

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 pleasurableInfant 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

Emde et al. (1991)

Early Caregiver Interactions as …. Theorist

Affective “dialogues” Spitz

“good-enough mothering” Winnicott

Sensitivity and attunement to infant’s emotional signals and needs

Bowlby

Contextual Model

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

ReciprocityNorm ViolationsEmpathy-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

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 itselfi.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

When young children heard infants cry:

Children as young as 4-5 displayed signs of emotional arousal

Made empathic statementsOffered to help

(especially when cries were not too intense and baby’s mother was present)

Zahn-Waxler

Observed sympathetic concern and prosocial behavior co-occur 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

TomaselloAfter a 3-year old witnessed a puppet destroy another puppet’s belongings: 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!

SummaryThe building blocks of the moral self are evident in

infancy

The affective core is organized into procedural moral understanding

ReciprocityNorm-Violations

Empathy and Prosocial Behavior

Fashioned in sensitive, reciprocal exchanges with emotionally-available caregivers

But there is room for improvement!

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?”

W. Arsenio

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

• 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 learninge.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. ThompsonIs the sensitivity to norms specific to “wrong-doing” (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

Thompson (2009)

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

Toddler’s Moral ConceptsToddler’s moral judgments nuanced by their understanding of

different domains of rules

Moral v. Conventional judgmentscan 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. Smetana24 and 36 month old childrenVideotaped in two 45-minute sessions at home(1) With mother alone(2) With mother and peers

Moral transgressions more frequent in peer interactionsConventional 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

• Moral Self of Infancy• Empathy and Prosocial Behavior• Toddler’s Norms, Standards, Concepts• Conscience• Narrative Self

Conscience

Grazyna Kochanska

Inner guiding system responsible for gradual emergence and maintenance of self-regulation

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 differencesDifferent 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 ConscienceRule-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 pre-school 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 conscienceOne 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

Longitudinal assessment: 25 mos., 38mos., 52 mos., 67 mos. & 80 mos.

Two, 2-3 hour laboratory session, one with each parentAt 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

Overview of Methodology

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 engagementPeer relations

Prosocial behaviorProblem behavior

Child Symptom InventoryOpposition 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

Were competent, engaged, prosocial with few antisocial behavioral problems at early school age

Strong history of empathic responding at toddlers/preschool

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 highaccessibility of moral schemas

“In the end is my beginning” ---T.S. Eliot (East Coker)

Moral Self of Infancy Conscience

“In my beginning is my end.” ---T. S. Eliot (East Coker)

Dan & Darcia

Social-Cognitive Approach

“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, action-guiding 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