道德判断的分级现象

Blair(1996)发现即使没有心理理论的孤独症儿童,也具备道德判断能力。而Kahn(2004)认为没有心理理论就不可能完成道德判断。已有研究表明,道德判断可能需要一定程度的心理理论。孤独症儿童心理理论存在困难,影响他们理解道德情景并进行正确的道德判断,但这是否与任务的要求道德判断能力的程度不同有关呢?研究增加道德情景的复杂程度,进一步考察儿童道德判断规律。结果发现,道德判断有分级现象,第一级是直接对道德行为进行判断,孤独症和正常儿童都能完成该任务,可能是以原始情绪为基础的;第二级道德判断是对简单道德情景进行判断,需要以心理理论为基础,只有正常儿童才能完成;而对行为与意图不一致的复杂道德判断则需要以更加丰富的经历或者经验为基础,但其属于三级道德判断还是二级道德判断的高级形式还需要进一步的研究。

Hierarchical Moral Judgment and Theory of Mind

Blair(1996) found that the autistic children without theory of mind(ToM) can finish the moral judgment but conventional judgment.However,Kahn(2004) thought it was impossible to have moral judgment without ToM.In the present study,more complicated moral situation tasks were used to assess normal and autistic children's moral judgment ability.The results indicated that any children could finish the simple moral behavioral judgment which depended on primary feeling,but only normal children could finish the complicated moral judgment which depended on ToM.Moreover,children even with ToM could not finish complicated moral judgment in which behavior and intention were inconsistent,and they might need more social experiences.It suggested that there were hierarchies in moral judgment,and there is still much room for us to explore further the characteristics of moral judgment in different hierarchy.