Browsing by Author "Surdel, Nicholas"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Item
    Can Online College Education Make Students Smarter and More Moral? A Preliminary Study of the Effects of Two Online College Course Assignments on Students’ Moral Competence
    (Wydawnictwo Naukowe Instytutu Filozofii UAM, 2018) Klimenko, Marina A.; Surdel, Nicholas; Muir, Kathryn; Sofia, Fuaad
    Higher education institutions in the United States have historically been tasked with the responsibility of scaffolding the moral development of students. Although empirical evidence suggests that attending colleges and universities can foster students’ moral development and reasoning, the effect of online higher education remains mainly unknown. The current study has examined the effect of two online psychology courses, Developmental Psychology and Research Methods Lab, and their respective assignments on students’ moral competence. The findings revealed that students’ moral competence in both courses was improved; this improvement was partly attributed to online group discussions in the Developmental psychology course. No other assignments were found to be significant contributors of students’ moral competence. Limitations and implications of the findings were discussed.
  • Item
    Filing for Moral Bankruptcy: An Examination of How Affect and Empathy Predict Moral Competence
    (Wydawnictwo Naukowe Instytutu Filozofii UAM, 2018) Surdel, Nicholas; Klimenko, Marina A.
    What does being moral mean? On one hand people may justify mercy killing as sparing someone’s suffering, but on the other hand they are still, in-fact, taking another’s life. According to Lind’s theory of moral competence (2008), it is based on consistent utilization of moral principles. Although common sense tells us that people’s affective states and levels of empathy may explain the differences, there is little direct evidence. The purpose of this study was to fill this gap by examining the relative contribution of empathy and affective state to moral competence. Results of the study revealed that although perspective taking and negative affective state were both significant predictors of moral competence, perspective taking was a stronger contributor. This suggests that the next time you deliberate over a moral dilemma (e.g., euthanasia), you should try understanding another person’s perspective rather than feeling empathy to make the best moral judgment.