Moral Development

How can we understand one’s morality? Moreover, how can we name a behavior or belief as a good or bad? Both Piaget and Kohlberg viewed moral development as a result of deliberate attempt to increase the coordination and integration of one’s orientation to the world (Kohlberg, L. 1963)[1]. However, Kohlberg additionally further developed Piaget’s notions. While, Piaget indicated that children aged 2 to 7 years, who are in the Preoperational Period, have difficulty in seeing points of view other than their own, Kohlberg showed that children aged between 2-7 are able to think through social systems perspective.

Kohlberg outlined three broad levels and six more specific stages of moral development. When he was trying to outline this developmental process, he applied a cross-sectional study and investigated an ethical dilemma. He sought answers to a story concerned a man named Heinz. His wife was dying of a disease that could be cured if he could get a certain medicine.  When he asked the pharmacist, he was told that he could get the medicine, but only at a very high price - one that Heinz could not possibly afford.  So the next evening, Heinz broke into the pharmacy and stole the drug to save his wife's life.  Was Heinz right or wrong to steal the drug? By studying the answers from children of different ages to these questions Kohlberg hoped to discover the ways in which moral reasoning changed as people grew. The sample comprised 72 Chicago boys aged 10–16 years, 58 of whom were followed up at three-yearly intervals for 20 years (Kohlberg, 1984)[2].

As a result, he found out individuals generally proceeds from a pre-conventional stage (selfish desires and avoiding punishment, to a conventional stage (social systems perspective) and finally to a post conventional stage (ethical principles, sense of justice, notion of most good to most number of people). Although, his findings were supported by many other researches, it has also been criticized for many reasons.

First of all, we have to consider the case of researching answers to ethical dilemmas. As long as, decisions may vary with the situation and our position in that situation, we would not be able to respond correctly to the questions of ethical problems since they are not authentic situations. It is possible to respond to the Heinz Dilemma through the lens of justice, if we are not experiencing the situation. However, it is highly probable to try everything we can do in order to save the one we love, if we are experiencing the situation. Then, how can we blame someone as displaying bad behavior or immature morality, if he/she just trying to save a human life. Or think about one having an abortion. Can we blame an individual, if it is not possible for her to raise her child because of life conditions, such as, welfare and economical situations?

Others have argued that Kohlberg's stages are culturally biased and it is based on Western philosophical traditions. This criticism may have merit. One wonders how well Kohlberg's stages apply to the great Eastern philosophies. One also wonders if his stages do justice to moral development in many traditional village cultures. Researchers find that villagers stop at stage 3, but perhaps they continue to develop moralities in directions that Kohlberg's stages fail to capture (W.C. Crain. 1985)[3].

Another criticism is that Kohlberg's theory is sex-biased. As a contrary to Kohlberg’s findings that women score lower than men, Gilligan has tried to show that women have their own insights of ethics in the form of care and responsibility rather than conventionally expected beliefs. In fact, women also continue to develop their thinking beyond stage 3, however, morality centers on interpersonal relationships and ethics of care instead of rights and rules for them.

Thus, it is true that there is a common progress in moral development; still we cannot think these stages as upgrading system. Further, we cannot discriminate one’s acts as right and wrong in such an ethical dilemmas like the Heinz’s Story. Therefore, we have to remember that we cannot judge one’s morality from a narrow perspective; we also have to consider social and personal aspects of morality.

References:

[1] Kohlberg, L. (1963).Kohlberg’s study helped researcher’s understand how and why children behave and act in certain ways when dealt with social dilemmas. The development of children's orientations toward a moral order: I. Sequence in the development of moral thought. Vita Humana, 6, 11-33.

[2] Kohlberg, L. (1984). Essays on moral development: Vol. 2. The psychology of moral development: Moral stages, their nature and validity.

[3] W.C. Crain. (1985). Theories of Development. Prentice-Hall. pp. 118-136., Chapter Seven, Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development

Bilingualism Matters

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, more than one in 5 school-aged children (21%) speak a language other than English at home. It has been estimated that half of the world’s population is bilingual. Bilingualism happens due to many different reasons. These reasons can be: immigration, education, intermarriage or other reasons. Many researches have been conducted towards finding the effects of being bilingual. Some researches indicated that being bilingual has some negative effects on children, whereas the other researches have shown that being bilingual has some many positive effects on individual’s mental abilities.

There is a one wrong belief that children who raised bilingual will always mix their languages. However, children can quickly learn what to use where it is needed. If bilingual children interact in both bilingual and monolingual situations, then they learn to mix languages at certain times only (François Grosjean). If we give aside the fears of parents’ thoughts of children will be confused because of being bilingual, we can start to see the importance of it.

Researches have shown that bilingualism is beneficial for children’s development. If a child exposed to different languages, than the child becomes more aware of different cultures, aspects and points of views. Also, bilinguals tend to be better than monolinguals at ‘multitasking’, focusing attention and are more capable to learn a new language.

Many researchers conducted experiments about the relationship between bilinguals and the risk of dementia and some researches have shown significant results. In the article of ‘Bilingualism: Consequences for Mind and Brain’ it is stated that, bilingualism has a somewhat muted effect in adulthood but a larger role in older age, protecting against cognitive decline. In adolescence period, bilinguals can have some difficulties about verbal skills and vocabulary. Overall, at all ages they demonstrate better executive control than monolinguals.  Better executive control leads to becoming better in high-level thinking, multitasking and ability to sustaining attention. As a result, better cognitive performance throughout the lifespan. Therefore, as a contrary to the formers beliefs, bilingualism gives children more than two languages.

Besides, all the benefits of being bilingual, it shouldn’t be considered wrong. Nowadays, some parents are just obsessed with the achievement of their kids. Children spend much more time with their nonnative speaking caretakers than spending time with their parents. It is for sure that learning a new language in early ages is very crucial and has many positive effects on children. However, we also have to think the consequences of some extreme situations. A child who is raised by a caretaker will not be able to set attachment with his/her parents and therefore will have a tendency to develop reckless, avoidant and ambivalent behavior. For this reasons, parenting has a great impact on every aspect of child development. Bilingualism matters, but not forgetting the importance of moderate environmental effects and secure attachment matters more in order to raise well-developed children.

References:

[1] American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, The Advantages of Being Bilingual

[2] François Grosjean’s new book, Bilingual: Life and Reality, Harvard University, 2010

[3] Bilingualism: Consequences for Mind and Brain, Ellen Bialystok, Fergus I.M. Craik and Gigi Luk

Language Development

What make humans different from animals? We can assume that both humans and nonhumans have language skills. However, the distinction is, while humans can use language in an intelligent manner, nonhuman’s use it just to signaling things and not in a sophisticated approach. The evolution of language may have required the evolution of vocal flexibility such as seen in human infants at a very early stage. In a research conducted, it has shown that human fetuses are able to memorize auditory stimuli from the external world. Whereas French newborns preferred to produce rising melody contours, German newborns more often produced falling contours (this patterns are consistent with the intonation patterns in both of these languages). This can be related to their ability to discriminate sounds even from their mother’ womb, such as their ability to separate male to female voice or from happy to neutral vocal. It has also shown in the ‘Werker’s Sound Discrimination Research’, infants are able to discriminate sounds until they are 10 months.  In the 1^st year, differential attention to native versus nonnative accents decreases as infants develop a sense of language constancy for the common native language.

The development of language in infancy and early childhood is one of the most crucial skills that can be accomplished by humans. Infants start to say their first words around 1 year of age and around 3 years they become capable of knowing more than 1500 words. Then they also become capable of putting words together and start to use language grammatically significant. Language development is also a good example for social learning through interaction with individuals and environment. Therefore, parenting is very important in such a period. Promoting child’s language development by using natural everyday activities, adjusting the way you talk to help children, developing more advance language skills, improving interaction are just several things that can be done while children developing their language skills.

Well then, the question stands still. Do our genetics or environment play a greater role in language acquisition? There are mainly three aspects of how a language learning ability develops. First one is: Learning Theory, which indicates that language acquired through reinforcements from environment (which cannot clarify the sophisticated language). Second one is: Interactionist Approach, which indicated that, there should be appropriate conditions of both biological and social in order to learn language. And the third one is: nativist/innatist perspective, which is pioneered by Noam Chomsky. It is believed that children are born with the ability to learn language. He proposed that children are born with a language acquisition device (LAD), an innate ability to understand the principles of language. Once exposed to language, the LAD allows children to learn the language at a remarkable pace. Linguist Eric Lenneberg suggests that like many other human behaviors, the ability to acquire language is subject to what are known as critical periods.

We can dramatically see the proof of the ‘sensitive time in language learning’ from the feral children. In the story of Genie, who has kept in a small room for 13 years without any communication to outside world, she founded with lack of many crucial skills. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) provided funding for scientific research on Genie’s case. She soon began to make rapid progression in specific areas, quickly learning how to use the toilet and dress herself. Over the next few months, she began to experience more developmental progress, but remained poor in areas such as language. She has not only miss the critical period for learning language, she was also horrifically abused. In the end, researchers were left to wonder whether Genie had suffered from cognitive deficits caused by her years of abuse or if she had been born with some degree of mental retardation.

References:

[1] Functional Flexibility of infant vocalization and the emergence of language, D. Kimbrough Oller, Eugene H. Buder, Heather L. Ramsdell, Anne S. Warlaumont, Lesya Chorna, and Roger Bakeman

[2] Newborns’ Cry Melody Is Shaped by Their Native Language, Birgit Mampe, Angela D. Friederici, Anne Christophe, and Kathleen Wermke

[3] The Development of Language Constancy: Attention to Native Versus Nonnative Accents, Christine Kitamura, Catherine T. Best, Robin Panneton

[4] The Hanen Centre, Learning Language and Loving It

[5] Lenneberg, E. (1967), Biological Foundations of Language, New York: Wiley

[6] Rymer, R. (1993), Genie: A scientific tragedy, New York: Harper Collins