Children’s Early Moral Development An Analysis of 儿童早期道德发展的分析.ppt

Children’s Early Moral Development: An Analysis of Moral Language in Children’s Talk MS Thesis Research Jennifer Cole Wright University of Wyoming Department of Psychology Spring, 2004 Research Questions When do children begin to engage in moral discussion with others? How do children use moral language in these discussions? What kinds of things do they refer to? Do we see change in children’s use of moral language over time? Review of Moral Development Theories Moral knowledge: Innate, Learned/Adopted, or Discovered/Constructed Moral development: Early Sensitivity (Intuitionist/Sentimentalist) or Late Development (Rationalist) Moral engagement: Passive, Active, or Both Moral motivation: Internally Generated or Externally Generated Moral salience: Well-being/Feelings, Social Norms, or Rules/Principles Moral concepts: Context-Specific or Context-General Participants CHILDES (Child Language Data Exchange System, MacWhinney Snow, 1990) on-line language database Archived transcripts of at home adult/child conversations Transcripts used for: Abe (age 2;4.24 – 5;0.11), 1st born, caucasian male, grad school family, MLU at 33-36 mo: 6.0; 45-48 mo: 8.0 Sarah (age 2;3.19-5;1.6), 1ST born, caucasian female, working class family, MLU at 33-36 mo: 2.3; 45-48 mo: 3.2 Target Words The use of 99 words were analyzed across seven children. 33 were chosen as target words: Evaluative: good, bad, right, wrong, nice, mean, kind, poor, friend Deontic: must, should, better, suppose, trouble Emotion/Internal State: angry, sorry, worry, sad, hope, happy, afraid, love, hate Verb/Action: hit, need, help, hurt, cry, give, kiss Virtue: brave, strong, gentle Coding Scheme Used by: mother, father, other adult, child Use form: declarative, interrogative, directive, narrative Speaker order: initiator (of discussion), responder Adult/Child use: to instruct/model (Y/N) to approve/disapprove (Y/N) to give/ask for reasons/explain (Y/N) to motivate obedi