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Multicultural Issues in Moral
Development Assignment

OVERVIEW

You will summarize the assigned readings and devise a lesson plan in the context of higher
education. Teaching skills are essential in academia. Reading for comprehension is one thing,
and reading for the purpose of teaching is another. You will be given opportunities to read for the
purpose of teaching in the context of higher education while thinking about and devising plans
for how to deliver of the content of the readings.

INSTRUCTIONS

Details:

Read Chapter 15-18

1. While completing the assigned readings for the Module: Week, think about which topic
to cover in your lecture for college students. State your topic and come up 3-4 objectives.
The first heading in the paper should be “Topic and Objectives.” When listing objectives,
start with “After this lecture, students will be able to…”

2. The second heading should be “Summary of the Lecture Content.” Citing the assigned
readings (with pages as necessary), summarize the content to be delivered in class. Your
summary should be at least 2 pages, double-spaced. Do not go over 3 pages. The goal is
not to discuss all of the details to be discussed in class but to summarize the lecture
content noting the most important concepts in a coherent manner (showing their
connections to the overall topic and objectives).

3. Provide a 2-page, double-spaced, lesson plan for an hour-long lecture on the chosen
topic. You can be creative here, but provide an outline of the lecture followed by concrete
in-class activity/discussion ideas.

Further instructions:

1. This assignment is for your future teaching opportunities, so think concretely about your
teaching context as a doctoral-level instructor and make it as useful for you as possible.

2. Use current APA format with appropriate citations and headings as well as a reference
page, but do not include the title and abstract.

Please see the Summary and Lesson Plan page under the Summary and Lesson Plan
Resources for a link to Bloom’s Taxonomy information to consider as your write your
objectives.

Note: Your assignment will be checked for originality via the Turnitin plagiarism tool.

CH. 15 Gender, Sexual Orientation, and Discrimination Based on Gender

and Sexual Orientation

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2010, on average, women earned 37% less than
men who were in equivalent jobs with equivalent levels of education.
(U.S. Census Bureau, 2011)

Currently, lesbian and gay couples can obtain a legal, state recognized civil marriage
or civil union (with equal state benefits associated with civil marriage for heterosexual
couples) in only 17 states and the District of Columbia within the U.S. Conversely, as
of 2012, 27 states have passed constitutional amendments banning marriage and/or any
form of relationship recognition for same-sex couples, essentially making any laws that
might protect same-sex couples unconstitutional in those states.
(Movement Advancement Project, 2012)

As evidenced by citations from the U.S. Census Bureau (2011) and Movement Advancement
Project (2012), differential or discriminatory treatment based on gender and sexual
orientation is pervasive in the United States. While gender and sexual orientation are
foundational dimensions of one’s identity, they are also salient social categories used by
individuals to make sense of their social worlds and to make decisions regarding everyday
social situations and interactions (Ruble, Martin, & Berenbaum, 2006). Given the
importance of gender and sexual orientation as social categories, people often base their
attitudes and behaviors toward others on their beliefs, stereotypes, and expectations related

to gender and sexual orientation. In some instances, individuals view differential attitudes
and behaviors as inherently unfair, prejudicial, or discriminatory. In many instances, however,
individuals justify their attitudes or behavior as legitimate based on their perception
of the inherent differences amongst people related to gender or sexual orientation (e.g.,
men and women just like different things) or based on their beliefs about “appropriate”
and “normal” roles and behaviors for men and women in a given culture or society (e.g.,
heterosexuality is the only natural or normal form of sexuality).

Discrimination has been defined as the unjust or prejudicial treatment of others based
on group membership or social category (Oxford, 2012). Despite the fact that discrimination
is inherently a moral issue, individuals’ beliefs and attitudes about differential treatment
of others based on gender and sexual orientation are complex and involve both moral and
nonmoral elements. That is, discrimination related to gender and sexual orientation involves
individuals’ beliefs about what is fair and just. It also includes their beliefs about the fundamental
nature of gender and sexual orientation as inherent and biologically determined properties of
human beings, their historically and culturally mediated attitudes and beliefs about gender roles
and what it means to be a man or woman in a particular society, as well as their stereotypes
associated with these social identities (Horn, 2012).

The formation of individuals’ beliefs and attitudes regarding their own and others’ gender
and sexual orientation begins at a very young age and continues to develop throughout
childhood and adolescence (Horn, 2007a; Martin & Ruble, 2002). Because of this,
stereotypes and prejudice based on gender and sexual orientation and the factors related
to whether individuals view differential treatment based on these social categories as a
moral issue often originate during these developmental periods. Examining how young
people reason about discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation is an important
undertaking in terms of offering solutions for more equitable treatment of all individuals.

The purpose of this chapter, then, is to review research regarding children and adolescents’
social reasoning about their interpersonal and intergroup interactions based on gender
and sexual orientation and the factors related to how individuals’ construct an understanding of
these interactions as moral. The chapter has four sections. First, we will discuss the relevant
theoretical frameworks related to discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation in
childhood and adolescence. Second, we will briefly define what we mean by gender and sexual
orientation. Third, we will review current developmental research regarding differential attitudes,
expectations, behaviors, and interactions related to gender and sexual
orientation.

Finally, we will discuss the implications of this research for educational policy
and practice, young people’s development, as well as future avenues for research.

Theoretical Background

Social cognitive domain theory (Nucci, 2001; Smetana, 2011; Turiel, 1983, 1998), a
developmental framework frequently used to investigate heterogeneity in individuals’ social
judgments and reasoning, is inherently suited to increasing an understanding of discrimination.
This theory can account for complexity and variation in social reasoning both
within and between individuals and provides a strong framework for studying stereotypes,
prejudice, and discrimination related to gender, gender identity/expression, and sexual
orientation (Horn & Nucci, 2006; Sinno & Killen, 2011).

CH. 16 Morality, Exclusion, and Prejudice

So what is fairness?. . . . Central to it must be a demand to avoid bias in our evaluations,
taking note of the interests and concerns of others as well, and in particular to need to
avoid being influenced by our respective vested interests, or by our personal priorities or
eccentricities or prejudices. It can broadly be seen as a demand for impartiality.(Sen, 2009, p. 54)

Discriminatory practices prevent society from making use of the contributions of all
individuals. (Graves, 2001, p. 10)

Morality emerges early in childhood. As has been well documented, other social cognitive
competencies also develop in early childhood, including an awareness of social groups,
categorization of individuals by group membership, and a sense of one’s own identity
(Killen & Rutland, 2011). Further, children develop psychological knowledge about
intentionality and the mental states of others, which bears on their moral judgments (Decety
& Howard, this volume; Lagattuta & Weller, this volume; Mulvey, Hitti, & Killen,
2013). The focus of this chapter is on how the emergence of morality along with other
social cognitive developments bear on the emergence of prejudicial attitudes, biases, and
forms of discrimination in development.

Given that morality develops early, it might be expected that young children would
not display prejudicial attitudes toward others based on categories such as gender, race,
and ethnicity. After all, morality refers to principles about how to treat others with respect
to equality, fairness, and justice. If young children hold a value that everyone should be
treated equally then we would expect that children would not display unequal treatment
in the form of exclusion, for example. Yet empirical research, as well as anecdotal
observations, has shown that children’s reactions to others, social exclusion decisions, and

in-group preferences reflect varying degrees of bias and prejudice based on gender, race,

Ethnicity, and cultural membership. What makes this possible when evidence demonstrates
that children care and reason about equality and fairness?
We draw from current research on the development of social identity as well as research
on the psychological understanding of the intentions of others to provide an explanation
for this conflict. Rather than view morality as a conflict of being “selfish” versus “moral”
(which we—and others—have argued is a false dichotomy; see Turiel, 1983), we will
argue that the application of moral principles to everyday social interactions is complex,
requiring judgments about groups, social relationships, and mental states of others.
Social psychological research on groups has demonstrated that group identity has a
normative aspect to it. In addition, social psychological research has also provided extensive
evidence for the way that categorization and group identity, as part of human development,
contributes to the manifestation of prejudice in adulthood (Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986).
For over 50 years, in fact, social psychological theories about prejudice in adulthood have
demonstrated that prejudicial attitudes are reflective of social attitudes, group processes,
group norms, and social identity (Dovidio, Glick, & Rudman, 2005). This approach does
not ignore the extreme conditions of social exclusion that occur in adulthood such as
genocide and acts of terrorism (Opotow, 1990; Staub, 1990). Understanding the everyday
events that reflect social exclusion based on group membership, however, requires information
about the basic social and cognitive processes associated with becoming a member
of a group (Nesdale, 2004; Tajfel & Turner, 1979). We argue that these processes begin in
childhood, and we review this literature from the lens of moral developmental theories.
Social groups perpetuate attitudes, often in the form of biases and stereotypes, in order
to maintain hierarchies, power, and status. Allport (1954) theorized that attitudes about
the out-group were an outcome of the desire to enhance the in-group that resulted in
negative attitudes about the out-group. Extensive research has shown that positive contact
with the out-group, particularly in the form of cross-group friendships, helps to reduce
prejudice (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006; Tropp & Prenovost, 2008). Intergoup attitude research
with adults has focused on the factors related to egalitarian attitudes, without examining
the developmental origins.

Developmental research over the past 15 years has examined the connections between
group identity and moral judgment (as well as affect) to understand the origins of prejudice.
This has been part of a larger area of research on developmental intergroup attitudes,
which has investigated the origins of stereotyping, discrimination, and bias (Dunham &
Degner, 2010; Killen & McKown, 2005; Levy & Killen, 2008; Quintana & McKown,
2008; Rutland, Abrams, & Levy, 2007). The central focus of research designed to address
the question that began this chapter is: How is it that children who hold moral values also
act in ways that violate the underlying principles of these values, particularly with respect
to prejudice and discrimination?

Theoretical Framework

Morality is at the core of what it means to be social. The acquisition of moral principles about
fairness and justice is a fundamental aspect of human development that has been studied by
developmental, social, cognitive, and comparative psychologists, as well as experimental
philosophers and behavioral economists. Drawing on philosophical theories (Nussbaum, 1999;
Rawls, 1971), morality has been defined by developmental psychologists as principles for
how individuals should treat one another with respect to another’s welfare, fairness, justice,
and rights. Piaget’s (1932) seminal book on the moral judgment of the child remains one of
the most cited sources for the origins of developmental theory about morality.

Piaget (1932) incorporated philosophical definitions of morality into his psychological
inquiry of the origins of moral thinking. He demonstrated that children develop a morality
independent of authority expectations by illustrating their ability to critique adult
mandates that violate moral norms about fairness or equality. Morality is not defined by
the group or by adults but exists as a set of independent principles by which to judge and
evaluate social actions and events. Piaget (1932) argued that moral norms, if they exist,
must be independent from group norms. This is because many societal norms are incompatible
with notions of fairness, justice, and equality. For example, societal norms about
unilateral power relationships and hierarchies are often in conflict with theories about
fairness, equal treatment, and justice, which Piaget (1932) articulated when analyzing the
child’s world of rules and regulations. In his theory, societal norms refer to broad ideologies
held by a nation, or specific norms held by a child’s peer group.

CH.17 Lying, Morality, and Development

Whether lying is morally right or wrong has been debated for centuries (e.g., Augustine,
1952; Bentham, 1843; Kant, 1949; Plato, 1991). This chapter will provide a survey of research
over the last 3 decades on the development of the morality of lying. As the literature
on children and lying encompasses a broad swath of issues, we will specifically focus
on studies that are pertinent to moral development in keeping with the general goal of
this handbook. More specifically, we will review research on children’s concepts and moral
judgments of lying, children’s actual lying behaviors, and the relation between the two. We
will use the speech act theory (Grice, 1980; Searle, 1969) as the framework for examining
the existing evidence on children and lying because this theory not only provides the best
theoretical framework for organizing and integrating the existing voluminous literature,

but it also offers the most parsimonious interpretations of the seemingly disparate and
often contradictory findings.

The study of children and lying has a long history. The first scientific report on the topic
was by Charles Darwin (1877). In “A Biographical Sketch of an Infant” Darwin described
his son’s first lie at the tender age of 2 and the child’s clumsy attempt at hiding his deceit
when confronted. This report, though rather personal and not at all objective, sowed the
seeds of modern scientific research on the development of lying in children.
In the decades that followed, considerable effort was devoted to examining the issue of
children and lying by none other than the founding fathers of developmental psychology
such as Hall (1890), Stern and Stern (1909), and Piaget (1932/1965). Research on the
issue reached its first pinnacle when Hartshorne and May produced their monumental
work on children’s honest behavior (Hartshorne & May, 1928), and Piaget published his
landmark book, The Moral Judgment of the Child, which systematically examined children’s
concepts and moral judgments of lying for the first time (Piaget, 1932/1965).

Despite its auspicious beginning, the research on the development of lying stalled for
the next 6 decades, perhaps due to the dominance of Kohlberg’s theory of moral development.
While Kohlberg did utilize moral dilemmas about lying and the breaking of a
promise, the focus of his investigation concerned the process of children’s moral judgments
rather than the content of the stories (e.g., lying). By the 1980s, developmental researchers
began to show renewed interests in this issue in response to new ideas regarding
child development. Among these new ideas was the increased awareness among
developmentalists about the crucial roles that intentionality (e.g., Astington, 1986; Astington,
Harris, & Olson, 1988) and social convention (e.g., Turiel, 1983) play in cognitive and moral
development in general and the development of lying specifically. These ideas ushered in
a new era of scientific research on the development of lying. As a result, we now have an
increasingly clearer and more comprehensive picture of the development of lying in children.
Thus, it is high time to take stock of what we have learned over the last 3 decades
and to look ahead and identify the future directions for research in this field. This is the
aim of this chapter.

Theoretical Background: Speech Act Theory

Among the major components of speech acts, two are most pertinent to the present
discussion:

First, a speech act is an intentional act that is mediated by the intentional states

of the communicator (the intentionality component); second, a speech act is a socially
motivated, rule-governed action that is performed to serve an interpersonal function in a
social/cultural context (the conventionality component).

The Intentionality Component Speech acts, according to Searle (1969), are intentional behaviors.
Due to this “intentionality component,” the meaning and function of a speech act is mediated and
determined not only by the literal meaning of a sentence and the actual state of affairs, but also
by the intentional states of the communication partners (e.g., the intention or belief of a speaker).
Hence, to determine what a specific speech act is and what function it serves, five factors
must be considered: the factuality (whether the statement is reflective of reality), the
literal meaning (what is actually said), the deeper meaning (the true meaning the speaker
wishes the statement to convey), the intention of the speaker (what the speaker aspires
to state), and the speaker’s beliefs (speakers beliefs about the state of affairs). By combining
these five factors in different ways, we form the intentionality component of various
speech acts, which serve different communicative functions (see Table 17.1). Understand

CH. 18 Interrelations Between Theory of Mind and Morality

One central way to predict and explain human behavior is by attending to people’s minds;
what they desire, intend, believe, think, and feel emotionally (Dennet, 1987; Wellman,
2011). Because such mentalizing is a ubiquitous part of everyday social interactions, a large
focus of cognitive development research has been identifying developmental changes in
children’s understanding of the mind, including their reasoning about interrelations between
different kinds of mental states and between mind and behavior—what is known as
a theory of mind (see Flavell, 2004). People’s behaviors can also be predicted and explained
in relation to social norms and moral rules. Because humans live in complex social groups,
our decisions are also guided by the rules, obligations, and permissions sanctioned by our
families and wider communities. There are certain actions that we should or should not
do, things we have to or do not have to do, things we are permitted or not permitted
to do, and decisions over which we have personal control or jurisdiction (e.g., Killen &
Smetana, 1999; Nucci, 1996; Turiel, 2002). A large body of developmental research reveals
significant advances in reasoning about morality, rules, and norms during childhood and
adolescence as well (see Smetana, 2006).

Over the past 5 to 8 years, there has been growing empirical attention directed to building

bridges between these two, often independent lines of research. This review summarizes
key advances in theory-of-mind research as it relates to children’s understanding of
morality. We start with children’s knowledge about intentions and motives, and then move
to examine how children’s understanding of false belief, desires and emotions, and thoughts
relate to their moral judgments and behavior. Next, we consider additional topics in theory
of mind and morality including reasoning about apology, moral status, and trust in testimony.
We then examine evidence of interrelations between theory of mind and morality
from studies with children and adults with autism, a population known to have deficits
in mental state understanding. We also summarize central findings from neuroscience research
investigating the extent to which moral judgment and theory of mind tasks recruit
overlapping versus independent neural regions. Finally, we discuss connections between
children’s theory of mind, moral judgment, and behavior. Although we primarily focus
on 3- to 10-year olds, we incorporate research with younger and older age groups as well.

During the first year of life infants begin to track other’s intentional, goal-directed actions
(e.g., Leslie, 1994; Woodward & Sommerville, 2000). By 14 to 18 months, children can
discriminate, at least on a basic level, between actions done “on purpose” versus “by accident”
(Carpenter, Akhtar, & Tomasello, 1998), and they can recognize what a person is
trying to do even when that person fails (Meltzoff, 1995). By the age of 3 years, children
develop explicit knowledge about the distinction between intentional and unintentional
behaviors, and they can further discriminate intentional behaviors from desires, mistakes,
reflexes, and passive movements (Baird & Astington, 2004; Mull & Evans, 2010). Indeed,
children’s understanding of intention is considered a critical cornerstone in the development
of folk psychology because it is central for predicting and explaining behaviors (see
Wellman, 2011). Intention is also a core feature of moral judgment, in that intentions are
often criterial for evaluating the moral status of a person’s actions or character and for
assigning blame or praise (Alicke & Rose, 2010). Not surprisingly, then, children’s and
adults’ reasoning about intention–morality connections is the most widely studied topic
in research bridging theory of mind and morality.
Piaget’s (1932) early tests of moral cognition involved presenting young children with
scenarios in which a story character either causes minor harm when engaged in a prohibited
action (e.g., breaks one dish when trying to sneak a cookie), or causes more severe harm
when trying to be helpful (e.g., breaks three dishes when helping to set the table). Piaget
documented that whereas young children typically judged the children’s “naughtiness” by the
severity of the outcome, children older than 8 or 9 years of age focused on the child’s motives
and intentions and judged the “cookie stealer” as more blameworthy even though he caused
less damage. Piaget argued from these results that children transition from an objective (focus
on severity of the crime) to a subjective view of moral responsibility (focus on intentions).