Head Start Children’s Moral Reasoning Predicts Aggressive Forms and Functions

Baker, Erin Ruth; Huang, Rong; Battista, Carmela; Liu, Qingyang

doi:10.1007/s10643-022-01313-6

Cited by 5 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…Studies ( Chiasson et al, 2017 ) have focused on changing socio-moral reasoning from infancy to adolescence, and results show that boys with conduct disorders tend to differ from their healthy counterparts in terms of their level of socio-moral maturity of judgement. The factors of “intelligence” and “maternal support” are known to exert a decisive influence on the level of socio-moral development ( Baker et al, 2022 ). The main goal of Hammond et al (2021) was to show the results of an educational programme on self-control and moral development taught to a sample of abused and abandoned adolescents.…”

Section: Individual Results Of the Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Origin and Development of Moral Sense: A Systematic Review

Limone

Toto

2022

Front. Psychol.

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The literature suggests that the moral sense is based on innate abilities. In fact, it has been shown that children show the capacity for moral discernment, emotions and prosocial motivations from an early age. However, the moral sense is a complex construct of an evolutionary and social nature that evolves under the influence of interpersonal relationships. The emergence and development of moral sense is a challenge that has prompted many research studies with the aim of achieving a clear comprehension of moral development. However, success has been scarce, and studies relevant to this subject are limited. Thus, a systematic review of studies relevant to this topic was conducted to clearly establish how moral sense emerges and develops. An Ovid search was conducted to retrieve relevant items for this systematic review. The databases that were electronically visited are Cross-reference, Google Scholar and PubMed. Strict inclusion and exclusion criteria were imposed on the retrieved items to retain only relevant resources. Twenty-six studies were found valid for inclusion in this systematic review. The results of these studies were presented differently: In order to effectively analyze the selected papers and bring out the results more clearly, a categorization of the approaches adopted in the studies was carried out. The approaches identified were: “Natural Moral Sense,” “Social Relationships and Moral Development,” and “Environmental Factors and Moral Development.” The evidence that emerged from the analysis of the papers was collected to produce a general basic model that explains moral development while also serving as a link between the various studies. First, moral sense is found to be innate in humans; individuals can naturally respond morally to various dilemmas. As seen among children and young infants, moral sense naturally exists. Second, it can be socially nurtured through social interactions and exposure to various environmental factors. Various research studies were reviewed in this systematic review to obtain a consensus on how moral sense emerges and develops. From the systematic review, the moral sense is found to be innate. However, moral development is fostered by social interactions and environmental factors.

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Section: Individual Results Of the Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Origin and Development of Moral Sense: A Systematic Review

Limone

Toto

2022

Front. Psychol.

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“…Four‐ to seven‐year‐olds who struggle to distinguish between moral and conventional events tend to persist in physical aggression (Jambon & Smetana, 2020), meaning that children who have difficulty identifying that moral violations are intrinsically wrong are more likely to engage in physically aggressive behavior. Preschool‐age children who display greater physical aggression, versus relational aggression, tend to evaluate hypothetical, unintentional harm based on resource inequity (a moral concern related to justice) compared with children who evaluate based on conventions (i.e., following rules, Baker & Liu, 2021; Baker, Huang, Battista, et al, 2022).…”

Section: Morally Relevant Behavior and Cognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recognizing and adhering to social norms is crucial for effective social navigation. Preschool‐age children's understanding of conventional and moral events, such as knowing that pushing is against the rules, tends to correspond with their use of aggression and prosocial behaviors (Arsenio & Lemerise, 2004; Baker & Liu, 2021; Baker, Huang, Battista, et al, 2022; Jambon & Smetana, 2018, 2020). For instance, children who use emotional and psychological perspective‐taking about victims' experiences (e.g., “he'll be sad”) behave less aggressively compared to children who evaluate harm based on rules (Baker & Liu, 2021; Baker, Huang, Battista, et al, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Preschool‐age children's understanding of conventional and moral events, such as knowing that pushing is against the rules, tends to correspond with their use of aggression and prosocial behaviors (Arsenio & Lemerise, 2004; Baker & Liu, 2021; Baker, Huang, Battista, et al, 2022; Jambon & Smetana, 2018, 2020). For instance, children who use emotional and psychological perspective‐taking about victims' experiences (e.g., “he'll be sad”) behave less aggressively compared to children who evaluate harm based on rules (Baker & Liu, 2021; Baker, Huang, Battista, et al, 2022). Children's capacity to reason about harm is also impacted by their own experiences with a variety of moral events, and their understanding of the environmental salience of certain moral concerns over others (Baker, Huang, Liu, et al, 2022; Jambon & Smetana, 2019; Malti & Krettenauer, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Multidimensional profiles of Head Start children's social behaviors predict their interpretations of physical aggression

Baker

Gahtan

Salim

et al. 2023

Aggressive Behavior

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Preschool children's reasoning regarding moral events differs according to adversity and relates to aggression. Understanding morality in young children is paramount for understanding their aggressive behaviors. The study aims to identify patterns of aggression and prosocial behavior using Latent Class Analysis (LCA) and investigate how patterns of aggression and prosocial behavior relate to reasoning about prototypic moral events. One hundred six children (Mage = 4.40 years old, SD = 0.55 years old, Range: 3.08–5.33 years old, 51% boys) enrolled in Head Start programs and their caregivers participated. In the fall caregivers completed surveys on forms (i.e., the manifestation of behavior) and functions of aggression (i.e., motivation of behavior), and prosocial behavior. The following spring children completed two moral reasoning tasks that measured children's judgment and reasoning of harm, and their attributions of transgressors' reasoning. The LCA revealed a 3‐class solution: (1) high levels of relational aggression and moderate levels of prosocial behavior (bistrategic controllers), (2) low levels of both aggression and average prosocial behavior (uninvolved), (3) high levels of all types of aggression and low levels of prosocial behavior (high aggression). Subsequent analyses suggest that uninvolved children prioritize adhering to authority over other concerns, and bistrategic controllers focused on goal‐oriented reasoning. Overall, our findings support that recognizing patterns of behavior may be useful in understanding children's moral reasoning.

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“…In 2018, nearly 18 million US children were living in poverty (U.S. Census Bureau, 2018). Poverty has immense impacts on children's aggressive behavior and cognition (Baker, Huang, Battista, et al, 2021; Baker, Huang, Liu, et al, 2021; Baker et al, 2022; DeJoseph et al, 2021; Kao et al, 2018; St. John et al, 2019), especially in early childhood. However, mediating mechanisms between cognition and aggression have not been explored for children in severe poverty.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Head start parents' vocational preparedness indirectly predicts preschoolers' physical and relational aggression

Baker

2022

Aggressive Behavior

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Severe poverty has profound impacts on child outcomes, yet much of the research on poverty fails to consider the psychological experiences of poverty, frames low‐socioeconomic status families as a monolith, and until recently, has not considered the utility of behavior within the poverty context. This short‐term (4 months) longitudinal study was designed to consider children's aggression as predicted by their inhibitory control (IC) and parents' experiences of poverty‐related strain in an urban Head Start sample. At Time 1, parents reported on their family's economic situation (income, family size), education, vocational preparedness, and completed a measure of psychological economic strain; children (N = 90; Mage = 52.78 months) completed two IC tasks (Day/Night Stroop; Whisper). Four months later, parents completed the Preschool Proactive and Reactive Aggression survey, used to assess children's physical and relational aggression. Mediation analyses supported that physical and relational aggression were both fully mediated from parents' vocational preparedness, though through different mechanisms. Physical aggression was mediated by parents' psychological economic strain. Relational aggression was mediated through children's IC. Findings support the proposal that aggression should be viewed within context and that typical assumptions about developmental patterns of physical aggression may not hold for all children.

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Head Start Children’s Moral Reasoning Predicts Aggressive Forms and Functions

Cited by 5 publications

References 47 publications

Origin and Development of Moral Sense: A Systematic Review

Origin and Development of Moral Sense: A Systematic Review

Multidimensional profiles of Head Start children's social behaviors predict their interpretations of physical aggression

Head start parents' vocational preparedness indirectly predicts preschoolers' physical and relational aggression

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