Hello, I'm looking for a review or any empirical works on how children in small scale societies learn about local values and moral norms. ( Teaching methods; source of learning; developmental trajectory; terms used by different groups of people use in case they rely on abstract concepts such as fairness and justice as in Western societies etc.,) Is there any paper that investigates these patterns of cultural transmission in the domain of norms and moral values outside industrialized societies? Something like House et al (2013) would also be useful (Attached).
Dear Minwoo,
I am attaching to this message PDF with a paper I published in New Ideas in Psychology some years ago. I hope it gives you some hints.
Best regards,
Orlando
Thank you Orlando, this paper should give a useful conceptual framework for studying moral development in children!
I am than more happy, dear Minwoo, to know that my article can be of help for you.
Have a nice time,
Orlando
The child’s first social learning occurs at home, and his earliest experiences with his family, particularly his mother, are critical in determining his attitude toward—and his expectations of—other individuals. So, moral value mainly depends on the upbringing of children.
I hope the following links can satisfy what you are looking for:
www.unipo.sk/.../8-Fostering%20Goodness%20-%20Teaching%20parents%20to%20f.
wordpress.clarku.edu/.../2009-Encyclopedia-Child-Jensen-Moral-Development.pdf
https://www3.nd.edu/~dlapsle1/Lab/.../Enright%20Theory%20into%20Practice.pdf
Article The Moral Development of Child Soldiers: What Do Adults Have to Fear?
https://us.corwin.com/upm-data/16297_Chapter_5.pdf
https://www.iep.utm.edu/moraldev/
Best of luck,
R. Biria
Hi,
I believe you will find the following sources useful:
Baek, H. J. (2002). A comparative study of moral development of Korean and British children. Journal of moral education, 31(4), 373-391.
Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S., Camerer, C., Fehr, E., Gintis, H., & McElreath, R. (2001). In search of homo economicus: behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies. American Economic Review, 91(2), 73-78.
Fehr, E., Bernhard, H., & Rockenbach, B. (2008). Egalitarianism in young children. Nature, 454(7208), 1079.
Best
Thank you guys for your comments and links. I agree that humans, regardless of specific cultural background, have been endowed with a shared propensity towards other-regarding behaviors, and also with a sensitivity towards reciprocity, fairness and group membership etc. Yet, those potentially innate dispositions develop into specific behavioral phenotype that are considered normative and morally desirable could vary a great deal depending on cultural/ecological conditions as well as developmental inputs from home or other bigger social institutions (As famously demonstrated by Henrich and colleagues and Fehr et al.
Knowing that the variation exists, I was wondering how moral values are defined using local language in the first place (Do people across the globe also use the notion of "morality"? How about fairness and loyalty? Is the distinction between, say, moral vs. conventional violations common and universal? How are good and bad deeds are defined?) and how those values are transmitted either vertically or horizontally (in many cultures where there are no, say, institutionalized legal systems and schools)? What are the relevant local practices? I feel that our understanding of specific mechanisms of knowledge transfer or moral education (if that's a thing) is somewhat limited when it comes to those living outside the industrialized societies.
Building on the data some of you shared, I'm now looking for ethnographic investigations on social learning and teaching practices in small-scale societies. I'll post updates as I go.
Again, please feel free to suggest any relevant literature and your expertise. Thanks,
Best,
Minwoo
Just for your interest, this is a book that inspired the original questions above: Konner, M. (2010). The evolution of childhood: Relationships, emotion, mind. Harvard University Press.
...may we suggest a new paradigm for the moral domain, given the new technologies impact on human ecology in all cultures:
Technethics, AI & Human Ecological Recovery
https://individual.utoronto.ca/media_anonymous/Technetics&AI.htm
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