Moral Development: Emotion and Moral Behavior Research Paper

Emotion, Regulation, and Moral Development

Philosophers’ have different opinions on whether the emotion is moral or contributes to certain behaviors. Through emotions, people are seen to differentiate features of moral acts. Guilt and sympathy motivate moral behavior and help towards the development of moral characters. This paper examines how moral behavior is activated by emotions.

Emotion and Moral Behavior

Guilt, embarrassment, and shame are considered to be self-conscious emotions because they come out of an individual’s behavior. However, embarrassment is viewed as the least serious and least negative emotion. This is because embarrassment involves experience and non-verbal displays which are different from the ones of other emotions. Embarrassment is least related to moral implications and moral transgressions. There is less anger that is brought by embarrassment, justifying less role of moral behavior.

Ferguson & Stegge (1998) defines guilt as, “an agitation-based emotion or painful feeling of regret that is aroused when the actor actually causes, anticipates causing, or is associated with an aversive event.” Guilt and shame are always viewed in Psychoanalytic theory as a superego response to an individual’s unacceptable impulses; they are based on anxiety caused by childhood conflicts like parental punishment and abandonment. Despite causing psychological distress and several problems to human beings, this kind of guilt is viewed as contributing to moral behavior. When guilty, an individual is more willing to accept doing something that might otherwise cause distress to the other party or even one’s self. As defined by Estrada (1995);

Shame is a passive, helpless, and dejection-based emotion that is brought about by self-related aversive events. People who are ashamed tend to devalue and condemn themselves; they avoid groups and hide from other people. In early childhood, guilt, shame, and other emotions are high on girls.

Both guilt and shame respond to the same situations of the effects of one’s behavior on others. More moral emotion is guilt as compared to shame because those who are shamed are relatively unlikely to rectify as compared to the guilty people. Those who are guilty would be more willing to apologize and confess rather than avoid situations (Ferguson & Stegge, 1998).

Empathy- Related Responding

When people view sad people and consequently feel sad, then empathy is in existence. In their work, Eisenberg et al. (1994) Define empathy as;

• an effective response that stems from the apprehension or comprehension of another’s emotional state or condition and is similar to what the other person feels or would be expected to feel.
• An empathetic response turns to sympathy or personal distress. With sympathy, there are moral behaviors because of causing endurance on other people’s well-being. Sympathy is hypothesized to be associated with positive emotionality. However, children’s distress is always correlated with negative emotions. Negative emotions are associated with low levels of sympathy.

The Development of Guilt, Shame, and Empathy

According to Estrada (1995), shame and guilt emerge in children while at the age of three years. At this age, children recognize themselves as different from other people, have no right/wrong, and have developed some forms of behavior. Young children initially respond to others’ distress with self-oriented distress. The wholesome development of conscience is associated with moral behavior in children as they grow up.

The Socialization of Guilt, Shame, and Empathy

In Eisenberg (1994), Parental use of inductive-reasoning techniques brought guilt. The essence of reasoning with kids brings strong emotions which would lead to healthy behavior. Development of sympathy in children is associated with:

1. Parents being high in sympathy
2. Parents allow their children to express negative emotions that do not harm others.
3. Low levels of hostile emotion at home
4. Parental practices help children to cope with negative emotions.
5. Parental practices that help children to focus on and understand others’ emotions (Eisenberg, 1994).

Shame and guilt may have different relations to parental socialization practices. Shame is predicted by high parental anger and the absence of any discipline, love withdrawal, and power assertion. During the early stages in life, infants take after the character of their mother’s hat is induced to them. Their mothers who have them when they are young need to hunger. Emotions that affect the unborn and underage children negatively. In the early age of their education, it is observed that children’s behaviors follow what they had been brought up to believe in when they were young. The mood of mothers and fathers that they show to their children affects their future behaviors. The regulations that are instilled in children that are not for the positive being affect their moral behavior in the future. Most studies indicate that children who are under tight regulations mature late or indulge in drug abuse. It is for the good of the parents to build the positive side of these virtues for their children. The parents need to give generously virtues that are considered acceptable for the upbringing of their children. Generosity as a virtue to their children stands out when their emotions, regulations, and moods are positive ones. The children will be brought up on the positive side of these values.

Individual Differences in Emotionality and Regulation

Different perceptions are in existence concerning differences in emotionality and regulation. Children who are prone to negative emotions like anger and anxiety have problems and this in essence brings about inappropriate behavior. Most regulatory measurers tend to timely control one’s behavior. Attention to regulation is associated with social competence and prosaical behavior, with the low problem in behavior. More often, emotionality and regulation bring wide differences in externalizing problem behavior.

Generosity

Generosity is the act of giving people things they desire and wish to have for free. Through Generosity, there is no return or favor expected. It is an act that brings with it a full beneficial relationship. With generosity, there is a good moral development in the society, and things like guilt, shame would abundantly reduce, while we would see many empathy situations in areas of generosity.

References

Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R., Nyman, M., Bernzweig, J & Pinuelas, A. (1994). The Relations of emotionality and Regulation to Children’s anger related reactions. New York: Newbury Park.

Estrada, P. (1995). Adolescents’ self-reports of prosocial responses to friends and acquaintances: the role of sympathy-related cognitive, affective, and motivational processes. London: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Ferguson, T & Stegge, H. (1998). Measuring guilt in children: a rose by any other name still has thorns. In Guilt and children. New York: Guilford Press.