Moral sense
and education.

6 - Education - developing a sense of morality :

     It's often a question of degree, between the deviations of common behavior and proven pathologies that can be detected by examining the brain.
 So let's take a look at how education can reinforce a child's innate abilities to prevent him or her from becoming an insensitive adult.
In fact, children don't need to acquire a moral sense, for it already exists in them.

A – Social influence - from the child king to the forbidden :

    a - The fragility of the human personality :
    The influence of adults on a child's behavior is felt very early on. Their worries are often the cause. In order not to lose the child's love, he first satisfies all his desires and gives him a central place. Later, after this uncontrolled "freedom" has been granted, he has to help the child integrate into the social framework.
Added to this is the loss of the critical spirit exploited by interest groups.

    b – The forbidden :
    Depending on the group and the era, the community has been led to create rules to ensure the order essential to its proper functioning.
However, they can become excessive : for example, in some societies, we have been led to punish insults.
But what do they express ? That the person who utters them doesn't like the person who receives them. It might be better for them to be wary and distance themselves. Because insults are not only a threat, they are also a warning that protects the person to whom they are addressed. This is the role of the dog's growl, which, without biting, warns you to stay in your place.
In human beings, if the forbidden spares the self-esteem of the person who could have been insulted, it prevents him from differentiating between his friends and his enemies. Sometimes, it also prevents him from recognizing the mistakes that led to his hatred.

B – Education methods :

    Adults use three methods to encourage children to behave in accordance with collective rules.
    - The first, the exercise of power, is essentially coercive. It relies on threats, the use of physical force or deprivation (toys, TV, outings, etc.).


    - The 2nd method is affection withdrawal : the adult ignores the child and refuses to talk to him/her.


    - Finally, the last method, known as "inductive reasoning", consists in explaining to the child, in a more or less elaborate way depending on his age, the consequences of his behavior on others.



    What are the results of these methods ?
The assertion of just power fosters support, but the exercise of authoritarian power can, on the contrary, lead to revolt or profound disruption. The results obtained with young people can be compared to those obtained in a nation ruled by an authoritarian power.
As for the technique of affection withdrawal, it proves ineffective.
Induction, on the other hand, reinforces children's internalization of moral standards, develops their empathic capacities and stimulates their desire to be like the person who helps them better understand the world in which they live.

C – Do reward and punishment shape morality ?

    a - What do habits and common experience tell us ?

    Punishment and reward are the methods generally used to inculcate moral behavior : the probability of acquiring a new behavior increases when it is rewarded, and decreases when it is punished.
We therefore consider that the behavior observed seems to respond to 2 types of motivation, reward or punishment.


    Similarly, in both children and adults, material rewards (such as remuneration) and social rewards (such as praise) reinforce behavior in the desired direction.

However, rewards can sometimes feel like an entitlement. If they are withdrawn, they will exclude all moral conduct.
Punishment then becomes almost indispensable : indeed, when antisocial behavior is reprimanded or punished, it is usually found not to recur.

    b – What does science have to say about children ?

          1 - Reward :

    Richard Fabes of Arizona State University worked with children aged 7 to 11 whose mothers regularly rewarded them, in the belief that this would stimulate their altruism; he suggested that they make games for hospitalized children.
As a reward for their generosity, he gave a toy to some of the children, while the others received nothing.

    When the children were given another opportunity to help the hospitalized children, he found that only 44% of the rewarded children offered to help, while all of the non-rewarded children were still willing to help.

    Similar behavior has been observed in play behavior. In this study, children were rewarded each time they played a game they already enjoyed before the experiment. It was found that these children preferred to play a different game when the rewarding stopped, whereas the unrewarded children returned to their favorite game.

    This experiment can be compared with one carried out by Japanese researcher Kou Murayama [cf : Money and the reward circuit - in french].

    Such results seem to indicate that only behaviours induced by feelings towards others are spontaneous ; behaviours triggered by the prospect of a reward persist only as long as the reward remains attractive, and are gradually reduced if the reward is not re-evaluated.

          2 - Encouragement :

    In another study, children were rewarded for helping others, either with coins or with encouragement: in both cases, this was found to reinforce their short-term behavior.
Then, a few days later, they were asked why they had helped.
Those who had received the coins replied that they had done it for the money, while those who had received the encouragement replied that they had helped to bring well-being to others.

    Here we see the addictive nature of material rewards : the link is no longer established with the person, but with the object received ; in this case, only an increase in the reward can prolong the helping behavior.
The disappearance of the reward not only removes all interest in the assistance, but can also lead to frustration, conducive to asocial behavior


          3 – The threat :

    Jonathan Freedman and Scott Fraser of Stanford University worked with children aged 7 to 9, asking them not to play with a particularly attractive toy.
Some children were threatened with punishment, while others were given less strict instructions.
At the start of the study, and in the majority of cases, the experimenter's authority alone was enough to enforce compliance.
A few weeks later, the children were put back in the same playing conditions, but this time without any particular instruction : the researchers found that 60% of the children who had received the threatening instruction played with the toy, while only 29% of the children who had received a weak threat played with it.

          4 - Verbal rewards :

    In another study, 8- to 9-year-olds earned tokens which they could then exchange for toys. However, they were encouraged to share their tokens with disadvantaged children.
When they gave away part of their tokens, praise was presented in two ways : either their altruism was praised, or it was explained that their behavior was altruistic.

Later, when asked to perform a new sharing action, children who had been recognized as altruists were more likely to behave altruistically than those whose behavior had only been described.

    What does this mean for parenting ?
In general, researchers use low-value material rewards with children, such as sweets or a few euros as the case may be, and altruistic behavior does indeed increase : however, over the course of trials, this behavior becomes rarer when it is no longer rewarded.

Material incentives have a major drawback: they are external motivators to which children are sensitive, but which redirect their behavior towards a focus of interest, a source of better well-being, which has nothing to do with the well-being provided by a sense of morality.



On the contrary, if words expressing feelings are used (congratulations, encouragement), altruistic behavior persists longer, even in the absence of a reward.



    c - What does science have to say about adults ?

          1 - The role of rewards :

    Why does moral behavior change when the subject receives a material reward ? Is it useless ?
    To answer this question, Dan Ariely, from Duke University, asked adult volunteers to perform exercises covering a variety of skills (dexterity, logic or memory), with varying degrees of remuneration [remuneration of adult subjects].
He found that the higher the remuneration, the worse the performance, apparently due to the stress of high stakes.

    However, other studies have shown that high remuneration increases performance in only one case : when the tasks performed are very simple (pressing 2 keys), highlighting the establishment of an automatism. It was when a reflective task was required that performance plummeted with increasing remuneration.
This result seems to be contradicted by what we observe in the field of work: the success of certain bosses, artists or sportsmen seems to be related to their merit, which justifies their remuneration.

    However, we can consider that the activity they have chosen is one for which they were predisposed, i.e. for which they had a facility from the outset : as far as they are concerned, it is therefore an activity that falls within the scope of simple tasks.

    For example, a child with a good memory will have no trouble memorizing the civil code and will become a good lawyer, a child with a "gift" for music or drawing will become a talented artist, and a child with exceptional reflexes will become an exceptional gambler.

    Edward Deci (University of Rochester) synthesis of nearly 130 independent studies has confirmed that the use of rewards to encourage moral behavior is often ineffective because it lacks an essential element : empathy [cf : Money and empathy]. Behavior is no longer motivated by the desire to help others, but by the material benefits that flow from it. What's more, high remuneration quickly amplifies an addiction to money [cf : Money and lies], and develops narcissism and egotism.




          2 - The role of punishment :

    In a community, punishment only has positive effects if it is carried out in a predictable way, meets standards accepted by the majority of its members, and is applied immediately. Delaying punishment promotes the certainty that the threat is unlikely to be carried out.


    On the other hand, if too much time elapses between the act of delinquency and the punishment, a feeling of inadequacy and injustice may arise, especially if the fault has not been repeated in the meantime. What's more, if the sanction is not perceived as fair, subjects are less inclined to obey the law, and take what they consider to be compensation for the harm they have suffered.

    Monetary sanctions, on the other hand, can lead to unexpected behavior. For example, the directors of 6 day-care centers in Haifa (Israel) decided to apply a monetary penalty for each delay in parents picking up their children at closing time.
The result didn't live up to expectations: the number of late arrivals doubled! By paying for the time they were late, parents felt they had acquired the "right" to be late.
When the fines were abolished, the new habit took hold and persisted.


    In the adult world, rewards and punishments can be of variable value (e.g. a subject who owns property will be more likely to fear punishment than one who does not), and they do not contribute to the long-term learning of moral standards.
Sanctions only have a real effect on those who anticipate the consequences they will have on their living conditions. What's more, they only play an important and lasting role in the learning of moral standards if they are fair. Only then can they foster integration into the group.

D - The importance of innate moral sense - The role of example :

          Conversely, if our innate moral sense meets the conditions necessary for it to flourish - justice, trustworthy partners, access to fulfilling work - learning by reward or punishment is not necessary.

     However, in the maturing years of childhood and adolescence, other factors are important in the development of a sense of morality : theobservation of behavior and its consequences, and the example set. The latter, of primary importance, is not exclusive to the human species. Ethology teaches us that animals raised by man have difficulty acquiring balanced behavior if they have not been able to benefit from their mother's example.


    Are rewards and punishments indispensable when evolution has integrated them into the brain in the form of pleasant or painful sensations [cf : guilt] ?
As for collective sanctions, they are only of importance to those who, having lost their capacity for empathy, must be forced by the rules, since they have forgotten that the innate moral "sense" obeys what we feel, not what we learn.

    Education as it is practised and as scientists reveal it to us demonstrates once again that morality dispensed from language does not have the same impact as that which comes from our senses, senses which do not reason it but experience it.

    It then becomes possible to understand most human behavior : when the material reward ceases, the contract is broken : the subject then regains his freedom of action and his own interests.


    The positive results obtained are not the consequence of a feeling of pride created by encouragement.
They come from the feeling of well-being that arises when you are recognized at your true worth by a benevolent person, who then acquires the status of friend.
    Helping others has a triple importance:
- the happiness that comes with the feeling of helping,
- the joy of sharing the joy of the person you've helped,
. - and finally, the happiness of having made two new friends : the one helped, and the one who asked to help














Cinquième étape vers l'interprétation des rêves : (in french)