Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-qxdb6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T16:50:50.461Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The moral obligations of conflict and resistance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 April 2020

Melanie Killen
Affiliation:
Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD20742. mkillen@umd.eduwww.killenlab.umd.edu
Audun Dahl
Affiliation:
Psychology Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA95064. dahl@ucsc.eduhttps://esil.ucsc.edu/people/audun-dahl/

Abstract

Morality has two key features: (1) moral judgments are not solely determined by what your group thinks, and (2) moral judgments are often applied to members of other groups as well as your own group. Cooperative motives do not explain how young children reject unfairness, and assert moral obligations, both inside and outside their groups. Resistance and experience with conflicts, alongside cooperation, is key to the emergence and development of moral obligation.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Dahl, A. (2014) Definitions and developmental processes in research on infant morality. Human Development 57(4):241–49. doi:10.1159/000364919.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dahl, A. & Killen, M. (2018) Moral reasoning: Theory and research in developmental science. In: The Steven's handbook of experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience, Vol. 4: Developmental and social psychology (Ghetti, S., Vol. Ed.), 4th edition, ed. Wixted, J., pp. 131. Wiley. doi:10.1002/9781119170174.epcn410.Google Scholar
Elenbaas, L. (2019) Interwealth contact and young children's concern for equity. Child Development 90:108–16. doi:10.1111/cdev.13157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaither, S., Chen, E., Corriveau, K., Harris, P., Ambady, N. & Sommers, S. (2014) Monoracial and biracial children: Effects of racial identity saliency on social learning and social preferences. Child Development 85(6):2299–316. doi:10.1111/cdev.12266.Google ScholarPubMed
Gelfand, M. J., Chiu, C. & Hong, Y. (2016) Handbook of advances in culture and psychology, vol. 6. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goulding, B. W. & Friedman, O. (2018) The development of territory-based inferences of ownership. Cognition 177:142–49. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2018.04.013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Killen, M. (2007) Children's social and moral reasoning about exclusion. Current Directions in Psychological Science 16(1):32–6. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2007.00470.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Killen, M. & Smetana, J. G. (2015) Origins and development of morality. In: vol. 3, Handbook of child psychology and developmental science (7th edition), ed. Lerner, R. M. & Lamb, M., pp. 701–49. Wiley-Blackwell. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2015-15586-017.Google Scholar
Kohlberg, L. (1971) From is to ought: How to commit the naturalistic fallacy and get away with it in the study of moral development. In: Psychology and genetic epistemology, ed. Mischel, T., pp. 347480. Academic Press.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, C. (1996) The sources of normativity. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mulvey, K. L. (2016a) Children's reasoning about social exclusion: Balancing many factors. Child Development Perspectives 10(1):22–7. doi:10.1111/cdep.12157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mulvey, K. L. (2016b) Evaluations of moral and conventional intergroup transgressions. British Journal of Developmental Psychology 34(4):489501. doi:10.1111/bjdp.12145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nesdale, D. (2004) Social identity processes and children's ethnic prejudice. In: The development of the social self, ed. Bennett, M. & Sani, F., pp. 219–45. Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Nucci, L. & Weber, E. K. (1995) Social interactions in the home and the development of young children's conceptions of the personal. Child Development 66(5):1438–52.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Piaget, J. (1932) Moral judgment of the child. Free Press. (1965; original work published in 1932).Google Scholar
Rhodes, M. & Chalik, L. (2013) Social categories as markers of intrinsic interpersonal obligations. Psychological Science 24(6):9991006. doi:10.1177/0956797612466267.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rizzo, M. T., Cooley, S., Elenbaas, L. & Killen, M. (2018) Young children's inclusion decisions in moral and social-conventional group norm contexts. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 165:1936. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2017.05.006.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rochat, P., Robbins, E., Passos-Ferreria, C., Donato Oliva, A., Dias, M. D. G. & Guo, L. (2014) Ownership reasoning in children across cultures. Cognition 132(3):471–84. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2014.04.014.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ross, H. S., Friedman, O. & Field, A. (2014) Toddlers assert and acknowledge ownership rights. Social Development 24(2):341–56. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rutland, A. & Killen, M. (2015) A developmental science approach to reducing prejudice and social exclusion: Intergroup processes, social-cognitive development, and moral reasoning. Social Issues and Policy Review 9(1):121–54. doi:10.1111/sipr.12012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rutland, A., Mulvey, K. L., Hitti, A., Abrams, D. & Killen, M. (2015) When does the in-group like the out-group? Bias among children as a function of group norms. Psychological Science 26(6):834–42. doi:10.1177/0956797615572758.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sen, A. (2009) The idea of justice. Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Song, R., Over, H. & Carpenter, M. (2015) Children draw more affiliative pictures following priming with third-party ostracism. Developmental Psychology 51(6):831–40. doi:10.1037/a0039176.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smetana, J.G., Rote, W., Jambon, M., Tasopoulos-Chan, M., Villalobos, M. & Comer, J. (2012) Developmental changes and individual differences in young children's moral judgments. Child Development 83(2):683–96. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01714.x.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Spivak, A. (2016) Dynamics of young children's socially adaptive resolutions of peer conflict. Social Development 25(1):212–31. doi:10.1111/sode.12135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tajfel, H. & Turner, J. C. (1986) The social identity theory of inter-group behavior. In: Psychology of intergroup relations, ed. Worchel, S. & Austin, W., pp. 724. Nelson-Hall.Google Scholar
Turiel, E. (2002) The culture of morality: Social development, context, and conflict. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Turiel, E. & Dahl, A. (2019) The development of domains of moral and conventional norms, coordination in decision-making, and the implication of social opposition. In: The normative animal: On the anthropological significance of social, moral, and linguistic norms, ed. Bayertz, K. & Roughley, N., pp. 195213. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wainryb, C., Brehl, B. & Matwin, S. (2005) Being hurt and hurting others: Children's narrative accounts and moral judgments of their own interpersonal conflicts. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 70(3):1125. Wiley-Blackwell.Google ScholarPubMed