Pitt Psychology Colloquium Title: The Early Ontogeny of Human Cooperation and Morality Presenter: Michael Tomasello Location: Martin Colloquium Center, Sennott Square 4127 Abstract: Young children are not very competent at making explicit moral judgments until late in the preschool period, and even then they are not very articulate about how moral norms function. A number of recent studies, however, have focused on young children's moral behavior and have found much more competence. Even toddlers will help others in simple tasks and will, in certain situations, share fairly with them. By all indications they do this without being taught by adults (although adults will have an influence later). Finally, when 3-year-olds do not have to talk about moral norms but are given the chance to enforce them, they do so quite flexibly and appropriately even on third parties when they have no direct interest in the situation - thus displaying a surprising understanding of how norms function. The evolutionary hypothesis is that this early moral competence is at least partly a result of human adaptations for collaboration and for living cooperatively with others.
Department of Neurobiology Seminar Series Title: Coding with precisely timed spikes: problems and solutions Presenter: William Spain, MD Location: BST3 6014