Social cognitive theory of morality

About: Social cognitive theory of morality is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 5842 publications have been published within this topic receiving 250337 citations.

The effect of stimulus familiarity on the use of criteria and justifications in children's social reasoning.

Abstract: Early studies of moral judgement described young children's thought as undifferentiated and oriented toward external features of transgressions. However, more recent evidence suggests that young children distinguish between domains of social transgression and justify moral judgements with reference to the transgression itself, rather than to external features such as rules, authority directives, or sanctions. The present study hypothesized a possible explanation for this discrepancy: that undifferentiated reasoning occurs with the use of unfamiliar stimulus events or stimulus events not clearly differentiated with respect to social domain. Sixty-one 6-, 8-, and 10-year-olds were interviewed about four types of social transgression: familiar moral, unfamiliar moral, familiar conventional, and unfamiliar conventional. Assessments were made of several dimensions of judgement hypothesized to be criterial for the differentiation of social domains; responses were also analysed for types of justification used. For familiar stimuli all age groups showed a differentiated understanding of moral and conventional issues, both in judgement and in justification. Younger subjects showed less differentiation in judgement than older subjects when stimuli were unfamiliar. Age differences were also found in the types of justification given, both for familiar and for unfamiliar moral issues. The findings indicate that stimulus familiarity is a more significant factor in the moral reasoning of younger than of older children.

Sex Differences in Interaction Style as a Product of Perceived Sex Differences in Competence.

Abstract: Males' and females' interaction styles were observed while they worked in four-person, mixed-sex groups on a discussion task. In some groups, members were only given information about each others' names and gender. In this circumstance, men were perceived by themselves and other group members to be higher in competence than women. Further, men engaged in a greater amount of active task behavior than women (e.g., giving information, giving opinions), and women exhibited a greater amount of positive social behavior than men (e.g., agreeing, acting friendly). In other groups, members' competency-based status was manipulated by providing false feedback that they were high or low relative to their group in intellectual and moral aptitude. High status members were then perceived to be more competent than low status ones and, further, high status individuals engaged in more active task and less positive social behavior than low status ones. In this condition, no sex differences were obtained on perceived competence or on active task or positive social behavior. Overall, these findings support the idea that the gender differences obtained in interaction when status was not specified were partially a function of group members' belief that the sexes differ in competence. Direct information concerning members' intellectual and moral competence apparently blocked the perceived gender-to-competence link, and status alone affected perceived competence and interaction style.

Cyberbullying and traditional bullying in adolescence: Differential roles of moral disengagement, moral emotions, and moral values

Abstract: The aim of this study was to investigate whether different aspects of morality predict traditional bullying and cyberbullying behaviour in a similar way. Students between 12 and 19 years participated in an online study. They reported on the frequency of different traditional and cyberbullying behaviours andcompleted self-report measures on moral emotions and moral values. A scenario approach with open questions was used to assess morally disengaged justifications. Tobit regressions indicated that a lack of moral values and a lack of remorse predicted both traditional and cyberbullying behaviour. Traditional bullying was strongly predictive for cyberbullying. A lack of moral emotions and moral values predicted cyberbullying behaviour even when controlling for traditional bullying. Morally disengaged justifications were only predictive for traditional, but not for cyberbullying behaviour. The findings show that moral standards and moral affect are important to understand individual differences in engagement...