Search

How moral decision-making occurs, matures over time and relates to behaviour is complex. To develop a full picture of moral decision-making, moral development and moral behaviour it is necessary to understand: (a) how real-time moral decisions are made (including relevant social and contextual factors), (b) what processes are required to develop to enable mature moral decisions, (c) how these processes develop over time, and (d) how moral decisions relate to behaviour. In this paper, psychological and social neuroscience theories of moral decision-making and development are briefly reviewed, as is the development of relevant component processes. Various component processes and factors are seen as required for moral decision-making and development, yet there is no comprehensive framework incorporating these components into one explanation of how real-time moral decisions are made and mature. In this paper, we integrated these components into a new framework based on social information processing (SIP) theory. Situational factors, and how both cognitive and affective processes guide moral decisions was incorporated into the Social Information Processing-Moral Decision-Making (SIP-MDM) framework, drawing upon theories and findings from developmental psychology and social neuroscience. How this framework goes beyond previous SIP models was outlined, followed by a discussion of how it can explain both real-time moral decisions and moral development. We concluded with how the SIP-MDM framework could be used to guide future research and theory development in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a minimalist framework for understanding the development of children's theory of mind (ToM). First, I provide a critical analysis of rich interpretations of ToM tasks tapping infants' understanding of perception, goals, intentions, and false beliefs. I argue that the current consensus that infants understand mental states is premature, and instead, that excellent statistical learning skills and attention to human faces and motion enable infants' very good performance, and reflect an implicit understanding of behavior. Children subsequently develop an explicit understanding of mental states through talk from parents and siblings, their developing language abilities, and their developing distinction between self and other. The paper also examines corollary theories such as the idea that there are subsystems of a theory of mind (ToM), that infants use rules on false belief tasks, that minimalist theory is post hoc, and that parallel onset of success on different ToM tasks indicates an underlying ToM. The paper concludes by considering previous arguments against minimalist interpretations of infant performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main thrust of this paper is to argue that teleology is the way by which we tend to understand ourselves and others in routine cases. Since teleology has an inbuilt slant towards cooperation, it may be the essence of what made Homo sapiens , starting with Homo heidelbergensis , the cooperative species it is. We present the critical features of the teleological approach in terms of justifying reasons for action. These features differentiate teleology from theory of mind (theory theory) and mental simulation. Our emphasis on justifying reasons also distinguishes our teleology from other approaches under the same heading. We also point out the limitations of teleology when it comes to competition, understanding subjective mental perspectives and cultural differences. Although our grand picture is speculative, we firm up our claims with data from children's cooperation and their appreciation of competition that appear in stages reminiscent of Piaget's view on development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Extant literature in developmental psychology has documented the co-occurrence of aggressive and affiliative behaviors with various measures of social dominance. While these findings have been taken as evidence for the functional value of aggression, they have not been integrated into a more general theoretical frame accounting for contextual variation. In this paper the literature on aggression, agonism, affiliation, and social dominance is reviewed in light of behavioral ecological theory suggesting that different forms of competition (scramble and contest) determine, respectively, the use of affiliative and aggressive strategies. Results generally support the hypotheses advanced by this theory. In order to further integrate these findings suggestions for the study sequences of behavior, where reconciliations follow aggression, are made. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper outlines a way for thinking about continuity and change in childhood anxiety symptoms. Considerations for a model of continuity and change in anxious emotion are discussed first. Then, a perspective which may resolve inconsistencies across studies on the stability of childhood anxiety problems overtime is presented. The perspective views dysregulation of the anxiety response system and distress/negative affect as the core primary and necessary features of maladaptive anxious emotion and views the disorder-specific symptoms (generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, separation anxiety, panic disorder, and simple phobia) as secondary characteristics of maladaptive anxious emotion. The perspective emphasizes ordered complexity in the developmental expression of anxious emotion, and delineates expectations for continuity and change in the features of anxious emotion by describing major normative trajectories across childhood and positing multiple sub-trajectories. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Examines how theories of self-regulation relate to emotion regulation in young children. • Executive functioning and effortful control perspectives are integrated. • Distinctions between cognitive and emotional emphases of theories are described. • We recommend multi-method assessments including neurophysiological measures. • Future work will focus on emotion regulation and reactivity in the same studies. In this paper, we address how the concept of self-regulation relates to emotion regulation in young children. We define self-regulation as the ability to regulate one's emotions, attention, behavior, and cognition, and emotion regulation as the intrinsic processes used to manage and change one's experience of emotions, emotion-related states, and the behavioral expression of emotions. "Hot" and "cool" processes of self-regulation, and the two primary theoretical perspectives on self-regulation, executive functioning and effortful control are then discussed, delineating the primary dimensions of each, and how both intersect with emotion regulation. Although theory and research on emotion regulation and self-regulation is not typically integrated, conceptually, we view self-regulation as a broader construct within which the intrinsic aspects of emotion regulation are included. Our attempt to integrate both self-regulation perspectives with emotion regulation includes explaining how inhibitory control (a primary executive functioning and effortful control skill) relates to the regulation of emotion, the relative emphasis of emotion and cognition in each theory, and the distinction between automatic (often described as "hot") and conscious ("cool") regulation processes. We then recommend an integration of the theoretical perspectives and employment of multi-method assessment regulation strategies. In addition to using both parent-rated and lab-based observational methods, ongoing and future work in this area will incorporate both executive functioning and effortful control assessments, and neurophysiological measures. One final future research direction will be to focus on emotion regulation and emotional reactivity in the same longitudinal investigations during early childhood, examining optimal regulation for best moderating emotional reactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]