Moral Development
Domains and Contexts
Objectives:
• Introduction
• Domains of Moral Development
• Contexts of Moral Development
• Pro-social and Antisocial Behavior
• Summary
• Moral development is the process through which children
develop proper attitudes and behaviors toward other people
in society, based on social and cultural norms, rules, and laws.
▫ Intrapersonal dimension: regulates a person’s activities when she
or he is not engaged in social interaction.
▫ Interpersonal dimension: regulates social interactions and
arbitrates conflict.
Domains Of Moral Development
• Moral Thought
• Moral Behavior
• Moral Feeling
• Moral Personality
Moral Thought : Piaget’s Theory
• Piaget conceptualizes moral development as a constructivist
process, whereby the interplay of action and thought builds moral
concepts.
• Piaget (1932) was principally interested not in what children do
(i.e., in whether they break rules or not) but in what they think. In
other words he was interested in children’s moral reasoning.
• Piaget was interested in three main aspects of children’s
understanding of moral issues. They were:
1. Children’s understanding of rules.
• This leads to questions like:
▫ • Where do rules come from?
▫ • Can rules be changed?
▫ • Who makes rules?
2. Children’s understanding of moral responsibility.
• This leads to questions like:
▫ • Who is to blame for “bad” things?
▫ • Is it the outcome of behavior that makes an action “bad”?
▫ •Is there a difference between accidental and deliberate wrong doing?
3. Children’s understanding of justice.
• This leads to questions like:
▫ • Should the punishment fit the crime?
▫ • Are the guilty always punished?
Types Of Moral Thinking:
• Heteronomous morality—The first stage of moral development in Piaget’s
theory, occurs from 4 to 7 years of age. Justice and rules are conceived of
as unchangeable properties of the world, removed from the control of
people.
• Autonomous Morality—The second stage of moral development in
Piaget’s theory, displayed by children about 10 years of age and older. The
child becomes aware that rules and laws are created by people and that,
in judging an action, one should consider the actor’s intentions as well as
the consequences.
Moral Thought : Kohlberg’s Theory
• Lawrence Kohlberg proposed a highly influential theory of moral
development which was inspired by the works of Jean Piaget and John
Dewey.
• Kohlberg was able to demonstrate through research that humans
improved their moral reasoning in 6 specific steps.
• These stages, which fall into categories of pre-conventional (punishment
avoidance and self-interest), conventional (social norms and authority
figures), and post-conventional (universal principles), progress from
childhood and throughout adult life.
• In his research, Kohlberg was more interested in the reasoning behind a
person’s answer to a moral dilemma more than the given answer itself.
Level 1: Pre-conventional Morality
• This applies to children under the age of ten. Here, the children are
concerned with avoiding punishment and ensuring that their needs are met.
• Stage 1: Obedience and Punishment orientation
▫ Children obey parents or adults in authority for the sole reason of avoiding
punishment.
• Stage 2: Exchange, Individualism, and Instrumentation
▫ Children, at this stage, begin to believe that the concept of rightness can be
subjective and viewed from an individual’s viewpoint. They also base their actions
on moral reciprocity and may tend to internalize an eye for an eye judgment
method. They also learn to make deals and accept payoffs for positive behavior.
Level 2: Conventional Morality
• This stage begins at the age of ten and can stretch well into adulthood, with
certain adults. It may remain the same throughout their lives. Children
gravitate towards acceptable behavior and the actions of adult role models.
• Stage 3: Interpersonal conformity
▫ Children engage in good deeds in order to be viewed as good people within a set
social group.
• Stage 4: Social System and Law and Order
▫ Rules are followed out of respect for authority and to maintain general order in
society.
Level 3: Post Conventional Morality
• Only about 10 to 15 percent of the adults achieve this stage, wherein their
morality is based on reasoning and principles that they have chosen for
themselves. Most people don’t achieve this stage as they take moral values
from people around them.
• Stage 5: Social contract and individual rights
▫ Although rules are made for the benefit of the majority, there can be individual
exceptions.
• Stage 6: Universal principles and ethics
▫ People in this stage are guided by their individual principles that are applicable
universally, like equality and human rights. They conform to rules that abide by
these principles and shun the others.
Criticisms:
• Kohlberg's theory played an important role in the development of moral
psychology. While the theory has been highly influential, aspects of the
theory have been critiqued for a number of reasons:
• Moral reasoning does not equal moral behavior: Kohlberg's theory is
concerned with moral thinking, but there is a big difference between
knowing what we ought to do versus our actual actions. Moral reasoning,
therefore, may not lead to moral behavior.
• Overemphasizes justice: Critics have pointed out that Kohlberg's theory of
moral development overemphasizes the concept of justice when making
moral choices. Factors such as compassion, caring, and other interpersonal
feelings may play an important part in moral reasoning.
• Cultural bias: Individualist cultures emphasize personal rights, while collectivist
cultures stress the importance of society and community. Eastern, collectivist
cultures may have different moral outlooks that Kohlberg's theory does not take
into account.
• Age bias: Most of his subjects were children under the age of 16 who obviously
had no experience with marriage. The Heinz dilemma may have been too
abstract for these children to understand, and a scenario more applicable to
their everyday concerns might have led to different results.
• Gender bias: Kohlberg's critics, including Carol Gilligan, have suggested that
Kohlberg's theory was gender-biased since all of the subjects in his sample were
male. Kohlberg believed that women tended to remain at the third level of moral
development because they place a stronger emphasis on things such as social
relationships and the welfare of others.
Moral Behavior : Basic Processes
• Based on Basic Learning Principles.
• Behavior is situation-specific; however, although moral
behavior is influenced by situational determinants, some
children are more likely than others to cheat, lie, and steal.
• Reinforcement, punishment, imitation, and the situation only
partially account for moral behavior.
Resistance to Temptation and Self-Control:
• A key ingredient of moral development from the social
cognitive perspective is a child’s ability to resist temptation
and to develop self-control (Bandura, 1986; Mischel, 1986);
• Self-control is influenced by cognitive factors (Mischel, 2004).
Social Cognitive Theory
• Social Cognitive theory of morality distinguishes between moral competence
(the ability to perform moral behaviors) and moral performance (performing
those behaviors in specific situations).
▫ Moral competencies—what individuals are capable of doing; the outgrowth of
cognitive-sensory processes.
▫ Moral performance is determined by motivation and the rewards and incentives to
act in a moral way.
• Bandura (1991, 2002, 2004) believes that moral development is best
understood by considering a combination of social and cognitive factors,
especially those involving self control; self-regulation (not abstract reasoning)
is the key to positive moral development.
Moral Feeling : Psychoanalytic Theory
• In Freud’s view, guilt and the desire to avoid feeling guilty are the
foundations of moral behavior.
• The ego ideal rewards the child by conveying a sense of pride and
personal value when the child acts according to ideal standards approved
by parents.
• The conscience punishes the child for behaviors disapproved by the
parents by making the child feel guilty and worthless.
Empathy
• Positive feelings, such as empathy—reacting to another’s feelings with an
emotional response that is similar to the other’s feelings—contribute to
the child’s moral development.
• Empathy has a cognitive component.
• Global empathy, the infant’s empathic response in which clear boundaries
between feelings and needs of the self and those of others have not yet
been established, is not consistently observed.
The Contemporary Perspective on Emotion in
Moral Development
• Many child developmentalists believe that both positive feelings (e.g.,
empathy, sympathy, admiration, and self-esteem) and negative feelings
(e.g., anger, outrage, shame, and guilt) contribute to children’s moral
development.
• Moral emotions are interwoven with the cognitive and social aspects of
children’s development.
Contexts Of Moral Development
• Parenting
• Schooling
Parenting Discipline: Discipline Techniques
• Love withdrawal: Parents withhold attention or love from the child. The
arousal generated may result in the child not paying attention.
• Power assertion: Parents attempt to gain control over the child or the
child’s resources. Parents act as weak models of self-control who cannot
control their feelings.
• Induction: Parents use reason and explanation of the consequences for
others of the child’s actions. The moderate level of arousal allows children
to pay attention to parents’ cognitive rationale.
Parenting Recommendations:
• Moral children tend to have parents who:
• Are warm and supportive, not punitive
• Use inductive discipline
• Provide opportunities for learning about others’ perspectives and feelings
• Involve children in family decision making and in the process of thinking
about moral discussion
• Model moral behaviors and thinking
• Provide information about what behaviors are expected and why
• Foster an internal rather than an external sense of morality
Schools:
• Hidden curriculum: The moral atmosphere that is part of every school; it
is conveyed by the moral atmosphere created by school and classroom
rules, the moral orientation of teachers and school administrators, and
text materials.
• Character Education: A direct approach that involves teaching students
“moral literacy” to prevent them from engaging in immoral behavior.
• Cognitive Moral Education: A concept based on the belief that students
should learn to value things like democracy and justice as their moral
reasoning develops.
• Values Clarification: Helping people clarify what their lives are for and
what is worth working for.
• Service Learning: A form of education that promotes social responsibility
and service to the community. It benefits students and community:
▫ Improved grades, motivation and goal setting
▫ Improved self-esteem and sense of being able to make a difference
▫ Decreased alienation
▫ Increased reflection on society’s political organization and moral order
Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior
Prosocial Behavior:
• Prosocial Behavior: behavior that is intended to benefit other people.
• Altruism and Reciprocity:
▫ Altruism, an unselfish interest in helping another person; an important
aspect of prosocial behavior.
▫ Reciprocity, a societal norm involving the obligation to return a favor
with a favor.
▫ Ideas that children form in early childhood set the stage for giant strides
that children make in the years that follow.
• Sharing and Fairness:
• During the first 3 years of life children imitate sharing behavior or do it for
the fun of social play.
• About 4 years of age: empathic awareness and adult encouragement
produces a sense of obligation.
• By elementary school age children express more complicated notions of
fairness based on equality, merits, benevolence, and compromise.
• Adult authority has little to do with children sharing.
• Adolescents engage in prosocial behavior more than children.
• Girls engage in prosocial behavior more than boys.
Antisocial Behavior:
• Conduct Disorder:
• Age-inappropriate actions and attitudes that violate family expectations,
society’s norms, and the personal or property rights of others.
• Five percent of children show serious conduct problems, also called an
externalizing or under controlled pattern of behavior.
• Possible causes are genetic inheritance of a difficult temperament,
ineffective parenting, and living in a neighborhood where violence is the
norm.
•Juvenile Delinquency:
•A broad range of behaviors ranging from socially unacceptable
behavior such as acting out in school to criminal acts such as
burglary.
•Index offenses: Criminal acts, committed by juveniles or adults,
such acts as robbery, aggravated assault, rape, and homicide.
•Status offenses: Less serious acts performed by youth under a
specified age, such as running away, truancy, underage drinking,
sexual promiscuity, and uncontrollability.
• Antecedents of Delinquency: Three pathways to delinquency are:
▫ Authority conflict—stubbornness prior to age 12, then defiance and
avoidance of authority.
▫ Covert—minor covert acts (e.g., lying) followed by property damage
and moderately serious delinquency, then serious delinquency.
▫ Overt—minor aggression followed by fighting and violence.
• Erikson: negative identity
• Characteristics of lower-SES culture
• Inadequate family support systems
• Peer relations
• Preventing Delinquency:
• Fast Track: At-risk children and their families receive support and training
in parenting, problem-solving and coping skills, peer relations, classroom
atmosphere and curriculum, academic achievement, and home-school
relations.
• Violence and Youth: These factors often are present in at-risk youths and
seem to propel them toward violent acts (Walker, 1998):
▫ Early involvement with drugs and alcohol
▫ Easy access to weapons, especially handguns
▫ Association with antisocial, deviant peer groups
▫ Pervasive exposure to violence in the media
• Reducing Youth Violence: Recommit to raising children safely and
effectively
▫ Make prevention a reality
▫ Give more support to school
▫ Forge effective partnerships among families, schools, social service
systems, churches, and other agencies
▫ Garbarino (1999) concludes that youth who are killers lack a spiritual
center.
SUMMARY
• Moral development involves changes in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
regarding right and wrong.
• Piaget distinguished between heteronomous morality in younger children
and autonomous morality in older children.
• Kohlberg developed a provocative theory of moral reasoning that
develops through three levels: preconventional, conventional, and
postconventional.
• His critics noted that moral reasoning does not adequately predict moral
behavior.
• Behaviorists argue that children’s moral behavior is determined by the
processes of reinforcement, punishment, and imitation.
• Cognitions can play a role in resistance to temptation and in self-control.
• Social cognitive theory emphasizes a distinction between moral
competence and moral performance.
• In Freud’s theory, the superego—the moral branch of personality—consists
of the ego ideal and the conscience, and guilt is the foundation of moral
behavior.
• Empathy is a positive feeling that influences children to act in accord with
moral standards.
• Secure attachment provides the basis for parents to influence a child’s
moral development in positive ways.
• Parental discipline can involve love withdrawal, power assertion, or
induction; induction is most likely to be linked with positive moral
development, at least in middle-SES children.
• Parents contribute to children’s moral development by providing
opportunities for perspective taking and by modeling moral reasoning and
behavior.
• Originally proposed by John Dewey, the hidden curriculum refers to the
moral atmosphere of a school.
• Contemporary approaches include character education, cognitive moral
education, values clarification, and service learning.
• Altruism, an unselfish interest in helping another person, and reciprocity
often motivate prosocial behavior such as sharing.
• Damon described a sequence by which children develop their
understanding of fairness.
• Peers play a key role in development of fairness and sharing.
• Adolescents engage in prosocial behavior more than children, and girls
engage in prosocial behavior more than boys.
• Conduct disorder involves age-inappropriate actions and attitudes that
violate family expectations, society’s norms, and the personal or property
rights of others.
• Juvenile delinquency includes a broad range of behaviors, including index
offenses and status offenses.
• Pathways to delinquency include conflict with authority, covert acts followed
by more serious acts, and minor aggression following by fighting and violence.
• Risk factors for delinquency are living in an urban, high-crime area, low
parental monitoring, ineffective discipline, having an older sibling who is a
delinquent, and associating with peers who are delinquents.
• Early involvement with drugs and violence, easy access to weapons,
associations with antisocial peer groups, and pervasive exposure to violent
content in the media are associated with youth violence.
• Recommendations for reducing youth violence include effective parenting,
prevention, support for schools, and forging effective partnerships among
families, schools, and communities.
