Neuroscience
Teenagers' propensity for antisocial behaviour is not related to their ability to think about the right and wrongs of a situation – their powers of moral reasoning. That's according to Hammond Tarry and Nicholas Emler who say their results have implications for interventions intended to reform young offenders.
The researchers tested the ability of 789 boys aged between 12 and 15 years to think about the rights and wrongs of different situations (based on Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development). They also asked the boys about their moral values, their attitudes to authority and their record of antisocial behaviour over the last twelve months.
Teenagers with a negative attitude towards authority, including their teachers and the police, tended to report committing more antisocial behaviours such as stealing or fighting. Their moral values, such as promise keeping and truth, were also related to their levels of delinquent behaviour, but crucially, their powers of moral reasoning were not.
“This puts in doubt the likely efficacy of interventions intended to reform young offenders by raising their moral reasoning level,” the researchers said. Targeting youths' attitudes to authority might be more effective, but the researchers cautioned that such attitudes “appear to possess considerable stability over time, indicating they are strongly held, deeply embedded in the individual's identity and resistant to change.”
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Tarry, H. & Emler, N. (2007). Attitudes, values and moral reasoning. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 25, 169-183.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
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Neuroscience
Teenagers' delinquency is associated with their attitudes to authority, not their moral development
Teenagers' propensity for antisocial behaviour is not related to their ability to think about the right and wrongs of a situation – their powers of moral reasoning. That's according to Hammond Tarry and Nicholas Emler who say their results have implications for interventions intended to reform young offenders.The researchers tested the ability of 789 boys aged between 12 and 15 years to think about the rights and wrongs of different situations (based on Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development). They also asked the boys about their moral values, their attitudes to authority and their record of antisocial behaviour over the last twelve months.
Teenagers with a negative attitude towards authority, including their teachers and the police, tended to report committing more antisocial behaviours such as stealing or fighting. Their moral values, such as promise keeping and truth, were also related to their levels of delinquent behaviour, but crucially, their powers of moral reasoning were not.
“This puts in doubt the likely efficacy of interventions intended to reform young offenders by raising their moral reasoning level,” the researchers said. Targeting youths' attitudes to authority might be more effective, but the researchers cautioned that such attitudes “appear to possess considerable stability over time, indicating they are strongly held, deeply embedded in the individual's identity and resistant to change.”
__________________________________
Tarry, H. & Emler, N. (2007). Attitudes, values and moral reasoning. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 25, 169-183.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- How Much Thought Do We Put Into Our Moral Judgements?
I doubt Prime Minister Gordon Brown is the first public figure to have boasted about his moral compass. Implicit in these claims is the idea that to follow a moral code is a good thing. But this may betray a certain psychological naivete, for a growing...
- A Nation Of Shoppers Who Feel Empty Inside...
Bloggingheads.tv have filmed another illuminating psychology-related discussion (see player below), this time featuring moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt and libertarian political analyst Will Wilkinson. Haidt believes that our moral response to a situation...
- Would You Kill One Person To Save The Lives Of Others?
Are morals based on facts and knowledge, or are they grounded in emotions? In other words, if you programmed a computer with the right information, would it make the same moral judgements as a person? 'No', is the answer suggested by new research...
- A Moral Grammar?
Interesting podcast from Australia’s All in the Mind about the evolution of morality. See their description below: “Moral Minds: The Evolution of Human Morality “Incest, infanticide, honour killings - different cultures have different rules of...
- Who Cares About The Ill? The Moral Grounds Of Mental Health
Philosophers like to argue about our values. We can't simply stop at empathizing with different belief and conditions of other people. We must know where those values come from in order to address the thorny ethical dilemmas that plague our lives....