scholarly journals Why be moral? Children's explicit motives for prosocial-moral action

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonia Sengsavang ◽  
Kayleen Willemsen ◽  
Tobias Krettenauer
Author(s):  
Martin Bettschart ◽  
Marcel Herrmann ◽  
Benjamin M. Wolf ◽  
Veronika Brandstätter

Abstract. Explicit motives are well-studied in the field of personality and motivation psychology. However, the statistical overlap of different explicit motive measures is only moderate. As a consequence, the Unified Motive Scales (UMS; Schönbrodt & Gerstenberg, 2012 ) were developed to improve the measurement of explicit motives. The present longitudinal field study examined the predictive validity of the UMS achievement motive subscale. Applicants of a police department ( n = 168, Mage = 25.11, 53 females and 115 males) completed the UMS and their performance in the selection process was assessed. As expected, UMS achievement predicted success in the selection process. The findings provide first evidence for the predictive validity of UMS achievement in an applied setting.


Author(s):  
Stefanie J. Sharman ◽  
Samantha Calacouris

People are motivated to remember past autobiographical experiences related to their current goals; we investigated whether people are also motivated to remember false past experiences related to those goals. In Session 1, we measured subjects’ implicit and explicit achievement and affiliation motives. Subjects then rated their confidence about, and memory for, childhood events containing achievement and affiliation themes. Two weeks later in Session 2, subjects received a “computer-generated profile” based on their Session 1 ratings. This profile suggested that one false achievement event and one false affiliation event had happened in childhood. After imagining and describing the suggested false events, subjects made confidence and memory ratings a second time. For achievement events, subjects’ explicit motives predicted their false beliefs and memories. The results are explained using source monitoring and a motivational model of autobiographical memory.


1995 ◽  
Vol 40 (12) ◽  
pp. 1167-1168
Author(s):  
Debora L. Liddell
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Diane Jeske

Emotions play a critical role in both moral deliberation and moral action. Understanding the emotions and how they ought to interact with theoretical principles is an important part of fulfilling our duty of due care in moral deliberation. By examining the Nazi police squads and the Nazi virtue of “hardness,” we can come to see how ordinary people can suppress their emotions in order to carry out morally odious tasks. We can then see that the methods we use to live with our treatment of nonhuman animals bear striking similarities to the methods used by those in the police squads. Ted Bundy, a psychopath, suggests that a lack of emotions can hinder our ability to grasp moral concepts, thus showing that even while emotions must be regulated by theory, they also play an important role in any full understanding of the significance of moral demands.


2020 ◽  
pp. 209653112097395
Author(s):  
Zhengmei Peng ◽  
Dietrich Benner ◽  
Roumiana Nikolova ◽  
Stanislav Ivanov ◽  
Tao Peng

Purpose: This article presents the theoretical framework, research design, methodology, and main findings of the comparative measurement of ethical–moral competences of 15-year-old upper secondary students in Shanghai, under the ETiK-International-Shanghai project. Design/Approach/Methods: By dividing the ethical–moral competences into the categories of basic ethical–moral knowledge, ethical–moral judgment competence, and competence in developing ethical–moral action plans, a survey of 2,036 students was conducted, using a reliable and valid testing instrument. Findings: In general, 15-year-olds from homes with more educational resources perform higher in all three scales across all countries taken under consideration in our study. Furthermore, school practices, teaching, as well as quantity and quality of instruction play a very important role in the moral education process and especially in developing students’ proficiency levels of ethical–moral knowledge, reasoning competence, as well as students’ high abilities in developing moral action plans. When relevant educational background factors are held constant, Chinese students show lower average scores on basic ethical–moral knowledge and moral judgment competence. With exception of the tested Vienna students, all other European samples scored better than the Chinese students—also on the test for developing ethical–moral action plans. However, Chinese students are especially able to display outstanding empathy when dealing with suffering, misfortune, and sorrow, as well as in their willingness to help others. Originality/Value: The findings of this article can foster thinking about which topics should be further discussed to improve the ethical–moral knowledge and competences of Chinese students and highlight requirements for the further development of moral education in China at the levels of teaching, curriculum, teacher education, and research.


1988 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 603-627 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hillel G. Fradkin

Benedict Spinoza is the first philosophical proponent of liberal democracy. In his Theologico-Political Tractate he calls for the liberation of philosophy from theology and for the subordination of religion to politics. Though Spinoza may have not influenced the American Founding Fathers directly, both the clarity and the paradoxes of his arguments are perhaps the best guide to understanding better the present-day conflicts over religion and politics in the United States. Spinoza's insistence on the prerogative of the political sovereign to exercise absolute authority in the sphere of moral action necessarily complicates religious values. But the “inconveniences” resulting from liberal democracy are justified in terms of justice.


2021 ◽  
Vol 75 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-184
Author(s):  
Amanda Knight

Abstract The present essay argues that Augustine’s understanding of the physical mechanism of pain and pleasure bears an analogous relationship to the internal mechanics of his moral psychology. The significance of this analogy is threefold. It corroborates emerging consensus positions regarding Augustine’s moral psychology, including recognizing the significance of Stoic influences as well as construing Augustine’s psychology as monistic; it draws attention to a greater consistency between Augustine’s earlier and later accounts of moral psychology than is typically recognized in scholarship; and it offers a schema that organizes the significant components of Augustine’s moral psychology, like his theory of action, habit, the will, and conversion, in relation to one another within a single conceptual system.


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