Age-related changes in cognitive processing of moral and social conventional violations

Moral and conventional violations are usually judged differently: Only moral violations are treated as independent of social rules. To investigate the cognitive processing involved in the development of this distinction, undergraduates (N = 34), adolescents (N = 34), and children (N = 14) read scenarios presented on a computer that had 1 of 3 endings: moral violations, conventional violations, or neutral acts. Participants judged whether the act was acceptable or unacceptable in a condition in which social rules were assumed, or in a condition in which they imagined the absence of rules (rule-removed condition). At all ages reaction times (RTs) were faster for moral than conventional violations when a rule was assumed. RTs in the rule-removed condition were longer than in the rule-assumed condition, only for adults’ moral judgments. In addition to this age difference, adolescents made more normative judgments than children. These findings extend previous work by showing different time courses of processing conventional versus moral violations and revealing age-related differences in the tendency to make normative judgments.     

经济态度和行为的代际传递现象及机制

经济态度和行为存在从父母向孩子的代际传递现象, 经济态度代际传递的研究内容较为广泛, 包括金钱态度、风险态度、互惠态度和消费态度, 经济行为代际传递的研究主要集中在消费行为、捐赠行为和储蓄行为三个方面。除了遗传路径, 其代际传递有两条社会化路径: 孩子对父母的观察学习和亲子互动, 其中亲子互动包含亲子沟通和财务教养两个层面, 亲子沟通强调语言层面的互动, 而财务教养强调行为层面的互动, 但是财务教养的研究仅停留在表面, 缺乏深入的剖析。未来需要加强中国文化和现实背景下的代际传递现象研究, 并深入探讨其机制。     

Religious affiliation and social commitment as determinants of moral attitudes in the prevention of AIDS or the fight against poverty.

The present study is an analysis of the effect of religious affiliation and social commitment on moral attitudes in the fight against acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) or the fight against poverty. French citizens (N = 284) who either belonged to the Roman Catholic church or were without religious affiliation, who were committed to the prevention of AIDS or to the fight against poverty, completed a 9-item scale drawn from R. C. Katz, J. Santman, and P. Lonero's (1994) Morally Debatable Behaviors Scale-Revised. Results indicated that the responses were significantly affected by the religious affiliation and beliefs of respondents: Roman Catholics expressed less moral tolerance than nonreligious respondents. An interaction between commitment and religious belief showed that Roman Catholics committed to the fight against AIDS were less tolerant of illegal conduct than those committed to the fight against poverty, whereas no difference appeared between nonreligious respondents. No gender effect appeared.     

Students' perception of school moral atmosphere: From moral culture to social competence. A generalizability study

The School Moral Atmosphere Questionnaire (SMAQ) was constructed to measure differences in students' perception of school moral atmosphere between schools. The instrument is based upon the constructs defined by the Just Community Approach that focused on students' shared perspective and portrayed ideal types of school moral culture. This study presents reliability estimates of the SMAQ based on a generalizability study. A total of 1280 students from 32 normal secondary schools participated in the study. The design of the study includes the factors: type of school varying in educational level; school; grade level; class; and student. Variance components and reliabilities are estimated for two models. In Model 1 grade level is a fixed effect, in Model 2 grade level is a random effect. The results indicate that moral atmosphere in school can be measured reliably, although in Model 2 a considerable number of observations may be needed. Because score levels for some subscales depend on the school type, reliabilities are higher for the entire population than for populations consisting of one particular school type. It is concluded that students' perception of moral atmosphere in normal secondary schools have a strong individual flavour. Perceived moral atmosphere should not be regarded primarily as a shared perspective among students within a school like a moral school culture, but as an instance of the social competence of the individual student.     

The intergenerational transmission of social exclusion and its detection in early childhood education

In this paper we analyse the relationship between the self-confidence manifested by 3-6 year old in the internal working model (evaluated by interview) and their adaptation to nursery environment observed by their teacher, along with the relationship between these variables and the social-economic disadvantage encountered by the families of the children. The study was carried out with 128 children (64 from families in deprived circumstances and 64 in the contrast group). The results show that children from families with serious problems of exclusion exhibit adaptation deficiencies in all of the assessed factors: competence and empathy, passiveness/isolation and antisocial behavior; in the interview, they also show less frequency of the secure model, and higher frequency in the destructured and avoidant models than in the contrast group. These differences can be interpreted as the origin of the exclusion and destructurisation that characterises the families in question.     

Relation of personality dimensions to social and intellectual factors in children

In the course of the Hungarian adaptation of the JEPQ, using 2185 children, aged 7–15, the relation of the personality dimensions E, N, P, L to academic achievement, school marks for ‘behaviour’ and ‘diligence’, IQ, size of settlement, education and occupation of father and mother was investigated. High academic achievement was found to be associated with E, Emotional Stability, low P and low L scores. High IQ and high marks for ‘behaviour’ and ‘diligence’ were found to correlate with Emotional Stability and low P. Children from smaller settlements and from lower-status background were more introverted, had higher P scores, were more labile, and had higher L score means, than those from larger settlements and high-status families.     

From moral theory to penal attitudes and back: a theoretically integrated modeling approach

From a moral standpoint, we would expect the practice of punishment to reflect a solid and commonly shared legitimizing framework. Several moral legal theories explicitly aim to provide such frameworks. Based on the theories of Retributivism, Utilitarianism, and Restorative Justice, this article first sets out to develop a theoretically integrated model of penal attitudes and then explores the extent to which Dutch judges' attitudes to punishment fit the model. Results indicate that penal attitudes can be measured in a meaningful way that is consistent with an integrated approach to moral theory. The general structure of penal attitudes among Dutch judges suggests a streamlined and pragmatic approach to legal punishment that is identifiably founded on the separate concepts central to moral theories of punishment. While Restorative Justice is frequently presented as an alternative paradigm, results show it to be smoothly incorporated within the streamlined approach.     

Relation of social and academic competence to depressive symptoms in childhood

Relation of depressive symptoms to social and academic competence was examined in 750 4th-grade students. Self-report, peer-nomination, and teacher-rating measures of all three constructs were obtained. The multitrait-multimethod data were examined with confirmatory factor analysis and multivariate analysis of variance. Stronger correlations than have previously been reported were found between depressive symptoms and both kinds of competence. Social and academic incompetence had an additive effect on depressive symptoms. Children who were both socially and academically less competent had more symptoms of depression than children who had only one problem area. Children with only one problem area had more symptoms of depression than did children who were neither socially nor academically less competent. Gender differences in other-rated measures of competence were also evident. Implications for a competency-based model of depression are discussed.     

Moral chronicity and social information processing: Tests of a social cognitive approach to the moral personality

Following Higgins, King, and Mavin (1982) chronicity paradigm, we examined the effects of chronically accessed moral constructs for prototypic moral character using two different research paradigms, spontaneous trait inferencing and lexical decision. Study 1 presented target sentences in a deliberate or spontaneous processing condition. Recall was cued with either a dispositional or semantic cue. Moral chronics made more spontaneous trait inferences with dispositional cues than semantic cues. In Study 2, participants read stories about characters who did or did not help. Moral chronics were faster responding to probes reflecting negative evaluations of story characters who did not help when requested (e.g., “disloyal”). Findings support claims that the moral personality is usefully conceptualized in terms of the chronic accessibility of moral knowledge structures.     

Studying intergenerational transmission of eating attitudes and behaviors: methodological and conceptual questions.

Associations between parent and child attitudes and behaviors related to eating and weight were examined among college-age men and women and their mothers and fathers (ns = 44, 47, 87, and 66, respectively). Parent attitudes and behaviors were assessed from the perspective of the parent and the student, and 2 pathways of influence were examined: modeling and direct criticism. In general, students' attitudes and behaviors were more strongly related to perceptions of their parents rather than to parents' own self-reports. There was more support for perceived direct criticism as a pathway of influence, particularly for daughters. Perceived criticism about eating and appearance had large associations with student attitudes and behaviors. Weight loss behavior was related to perceived criticism among daughters and to perceived paternal eating attitudes among sons. Results highlight important methodological and conceptual questions for intergenerational research.     

Stability and change in adolescents' positive attitudes toward guidance in moral development

A total of 1,913 junior high school and college students tested between 1978 and 1988 responded to a 15-item questionnaire on the extent and type of influence they thought desirable in developing moral judgment in elementary, secondary, and college students. The average response across subjects, year of administration, and age of individuals for whom the item was being tapped was highest for the influence of the individual him/herself (2.52 on a 3-point scale), but also relatively high for the three institutions tapped: family (2.17), school (1.85), and clergy (1.45). Peers' influence was rated at 1.84. Differences on the other dimensions (year of questionnaire, sex, and age of subject) were rarely substantial, and while yielding some significant differences, did not show clear, strong patterns.     

中国人口老龄化和社会转型背景下的社会代际关系

与以血缘及婚姻为基准的家庭代际关系不同,社会代际关系是一种社会秩序,也是一种社会结构,直接反映了社会利益在代际之间的分配状况.在人口老龄化和社会转型背景下,我国的社会代际关系呈现出新的特点,并将对社会经济发展产生重大影响.本文在探究社会代际关系的实质、内容和特征基础上,从法律规则、行政规制和社会规范等方面,探讨了如何构建我国社会代际关系调节机制.