Two studies of Piaget's theory of moral judgment

The relationship between conservation skills and subjective responsibility (SR) in moral judgment was examined in two studies. The Kohlberg ontogenetic priority hypothesis stating that conversation is a necessary but not sufficient condition of SR was pitted against the common structural basis hypothesis advanced by Damon. Piaget's notion of heteronomy as a combination of preoperational thought and unilateral respect was studied by using the behavioural independence tasks by Subbotsky as indicators of unilateral respect. A teaching experiment using Galperin's and Obukhova's method to induce conservation indicated significant transfer from conservation to SR. SR was found to be more susceptible to regression over a 3–month period than conservation. Conservers were less likely to regress on SR than nonconservers. Unilateral respect was related to objective responsibility but not to conservation. Taken together the data fail to support Kohlberg's ontogenetic priority hypothesis and only partially support the Piaget and Damon model of a common underlying structure. It is concluded that SR judgments largely reflect individual judgmental strategies and the effect of conservation on SR is intepreted in terms of increasing cross-situational consistency in the use of these strategies.     

Social cognitive theory of gender development and differentiation

Human differentiation on the basis of gender is a fundamental phenomenon that affects virtually every aspect of people's daily lives. This article presents the social cognitive theory of gender role development and functioning. It specifies how gender conceptions are constructed from the complex mix of experiences and how they operate in concert with motivational and self-regulatory mechanisms to guide gender-linked conduct throughout the life course. The theory integrates psychological and sociostructural determinants within a unified conceptual structure. In this theoretical perspective, gender conceptions and roles are the product of a broad network of social influences operating interdependently in a variety of societal subsystems. Human evolution provides bodily structures and biological potentialities that permit a range of possibilities rather than dictate a fixed type of gender differentiation. People contribute to their self-development and bring about social changes that define and structure gender relationships through their agentic actions within the interrelated systems of influence.     

Piaget's stages: the unfinished symphony of cognitive development

After a period during which Piaget's work in developmental psychology went into serious decline as a central force in the field, it has once again gained considerable interest to theorists and researchers. The purpose of the current discussion is to reconsider Piaget's stage construct so that a revised version is viable within the psychological part of the theory. The premise of the discussion is that Piaget fully intended his stages to remain at the heart of his psychology, but had difficulty meeting the objections of critics: that the stages as proposed were too vague, too broad, and too dependent on faith in a “miraculous” transition process. By shifting stage transitions to the midpoint of each stage, by adopting recursive transition processes from neo-Piagetian theories, by embracing decalage as systematic and necessary, and by using Piaget's idea of the taking of consciousness, some of the main problems of his stages can be resolved in a satisfying way. Although still not fully specified, the Piagetian stages can retain their place as general guides to cognitive development and as sources of constraints on what structures and functions are available to the developing mind.     

Social learning theory and cognitive behavioral models of body dysmorphic disorder

Contemporary cognitive behavioral models of body dysmorphic disorder are reviewed, whereby the first by Neziroglu and colleagues emphasizes conditioning processes and relational frame theory and the latter by Veale emphasizes information processing. A brief review of the existing cognitive behavioral therapy research follows the presentation of the models. The majority of publications on BDD continue to deal with phenomenology and epidemiology, and much more research on cognitive behavioral treatment is needed. Treatment research should be geared towards testing elements of the models explicated in this article, and randomized controlled trials are greatly needed.     

Social cognitive theory of self-regulation

In social cognitive theory human behavior is extensively motivated and regulated by the ongoing exercise of self-influence. The major self-regulative mechanism operates through three principal subfunctions. These include self-monitoring of one's behavior, its determinants, and its effects; judgment of one's behavior in relation to personal standards and environmental circumstances; and affective self-reaction. Self-regulation also encompasses the self-efficacy mechanism, which plays a central role in the exercise of personal agency by its strong impact on thought, affect, motivation, and action. The same self-regulative system is involved in moral conduct although compared to the achievement domain, in the moral domain the evaluative standards are more stable, the judgmental factors more varied and complex, and the affective self-reactions more intense. In the interactionist perspective of social cognitive theory, social factors affect the operation of the self-regulative system.     

皮亚杰对当代社会认知研究的影响

1　引言　　皮亚杰是瑞士著名的心理学家 ,他继承西方哲学中康德的传统 ,在消除英国经验主义和德国唯心主义思想水火不相容的对立之后 ,以建构主义的思想回答知识获得的最一般的、最基本的条件这一问题 ,创立了发生认识论。发生认识论就是要解决人是怎样从低级水平的认识过渡到高级水平的认识的。心理学承担着解释这种“过渡”的任务 ,其手段就是对智慧的分析和刻画。从 2 0世纪 2 0年代开始 ,皮亚杰以结构主义为方法论 ,采用临床法对儿童心理进行了长达 5 0多年的研究 ,以验证和丰富其发生认识论。发生认识论的核心是主客体相互作用的儿童…     

A Chinese perspective on Kohlberg's theory of moral development

This essay uses the Chinese culture as an example to underline the culturally specific contextual problems regarding Kohlberg's theory of moral development and to point to a new direction for cross-cultural research in this area. The Western view of man as an autonomous being who makes free and rational choices as a moral agent is clearly reflected in Kohlberg's stages of moral development as well as his methodology. The Confucian view of man as an integral part of an orderly universe with an innate moral sense to maintain harmony is quite different. Further, the preferred mode of resolving human conflict in China is reconciliation and collective decision making rather than individual choice, commitment, and responsibility as in the West. In the light of these fundamental differences in the two cultural traditions, an alternative to Kohlberg's theory is suggested.     

Social interaction and the development of cognitive operations

This paper presents two experiments to support the general hypothesis that the coordination of actions between individuals promotes the acquisition of cognitive coordinations. The first experiment shows that two children, working together, can successfully perform a task involving spatial coordinations; children of the same age, working alone, are not capable of performing the task. The second experiment shows that subjects who did not possess certain cognitive operations involved in Piaget's conservation of liquids task acquire these operations after having actualized them in a social coordination task.     

Piaget's theory of space perception in infancy.

Piaget's theory of space perception in infancy is presented in the format of a hypothetico-deductive system. Eleven hypotheses are defined, regarding the perception of the agent of visual change; shape and size constancy; depth; and the perception of higher-order relationships among spatial elements. The proof Piaget offers for each hypothesis is presented in the following steps: behavioral evidence, interpretation in terms of inner states; inferences and generalizations. Presuppositions underlying the arguments are explicated. Critical notes are inserted whenever appropriate. Some general conclusions are briefly discussed.     

Social cognitive development in resolutions of misunderstandings

Dyads of Ss from six age groups (range 7 to 22 years) were induced to misunderstand each other in each of three conditions: 1. Biased encoding in the speaker. 2. Biased decoding in the listener. J. Biases in both speaker and listener. Young Ss explained faulty behavior and attributed responsibility be reference to listeners, older Ss explained by reference to listeners and attributed responsibility to speakers. An increase of insight into listeners' bias was shown throughout the age span, whereas speakers' bias was not mentioned in Ss' explanations. The results were interpreted in terms of development of differentiation and integration of the social roles of speakers and listeners.     

Comments on the social learning interpretation of moral judgment development

Abstract.— The interpretations of social learning theory on development in moral judgment was contested. From an organismic point of view it was argued that changes demonstrated by learning experiments did not fulfill the requirements of an organismic concept of development. Experiments were quoted which indicated that the measures of maturity employed in social learning studies were on the same formal level as the assumed immature responses. It was argued that the organismic theoretican Piaget had falsely interpreted change as development on the same grounds as social learning theory. A criterion of conservation of subjective responsibility, or interest-crossing, was proposed as an organismic criterion of development in moral judgment.     

Toward ethical cognitive architectures for the development of artificial moral agents

New technologies based on artificial agents promise to change the next generation of autonomous systems and therefore our interaction with them. Systems based on artificial agents such as self-driving cars and social robots are examples of this technology that is seeking to improve the quality of people’s life. Cognitive architectures aim to create some of the most challenging artificial agents commonly known as bio-inspired cognitive agents. This type of artificial agent seeks to embody human-like intelligence in order to operate and solve problems in the real world as humans do. Moreover, some cognitive architectures such as Soar, LIDA, ACT-R, and iCub try to be fundamental architectures for the Artificial General Intelligence model of human cognition. Therefore, researchers in the machine ethics field face ethical questions related to what mechanisms an artificial agent must have for making moral decisions in order to ensure that their actions are always ethically right. This paper aims to identify some challenges that researchers need to solve in order to create ethical cognitive architectures. These cognitive architectures are characterized by the capacity to endow artificial agents with appropriate mechanisms to exhibit explicit ethical behavior. Additionally, we offer some reasons to develop ethical cognitive architectures. We hope that this study can be useful to guide future research on ethical cognitive architectures.