Moral development

What is moral development? It's development of the ability to reason or judge whether an action is right or wrong, and be prepared to act accordingly. 

Walker (1982): morality involves voluntary actions that, at least potentially, have social or interpersonal implications and are governed by internal cognitive and emotional processes

Early theories of moral development:

• Biological: sense of morality is innate, serves the function of species' adaptation and genetic survival. Large variations in moral standards between cultures. Contextual influences can drastically change sense of morality (e.g. Milgram experiment, Stanford Prison experiment)
• Social learning: morality is learned directly from the child's immediate social environment (Aronfreed, 1968). Morality develops through positive reinforcement and punishment. Do morals only apply in the presence of adults?

Morality is defined as principles by which individuals 'should' treat each other: justice, welfare of othres, etc. It is not necessarily clean cut. It is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper and those that are improper.

Morality is not simply helping behaviour, "rule following" or compliance. Rule following behaviour and compliance are relative values.

Morality may be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion, or culture, or it can derive from a standard that a person believes should be universal. Morality may be specifically synonymous with "goodness" or "rightness".

Immorality is the active opposition to morality (i.e the opposition to what is good or right), while amorality is variously defined as an unawareness of, indifference toward, or disbelief in any particular set of moral standards or principles.

Piaget (1932) was principally interested not in what children do, but in what they think - he was interested in children's moral reasoning. He looked at 3 main aspects of children's understanding of moral issues: children's understanding of rules, understanding of moral responsibility, and understanding of justice.

Piaget found that children's ideas regarding rules, moral judgements, and punishment tended to change as they got older. As there were stages to children's cognitive development, there was also universal stages to their moral development. Piaget suggested 2 main types of moral thinking: heteronomous morality (moral realism) and autonomous morality (moral relativism).

Heteronomous morality (5-9 years): morality imposed from the outside. Children regard morality as obeying other people's rules and laws, which can't be changed. They accept that all rules are made by some authority figure, and breaking rules with lead to immediate and severe punishment (immanent justice). The function of punishment is to make the guilty suffer, in that the severity of punishment should be according to severity of the wrong-doing.

During this stage children consider rules as absolute and unchanging, i.e "divine like". Behaviour is judged as "bad" in terms of observable consequences, regardless of intentions or reasons.

Research findings: Piaget (1932) told children stories that embodied a moral theme and then asked for their opinion. Two examples: (1)Marie wanted to give her mother a nice surprise and cut out a piece of sewing for her, but didn't know how to properly use scissors and cut a big hole in her dress. (2)Margaret went and took her mother's scissors to play with them. As she didn't know how to use them properly, she made a little hole in her dress.

The child is asked "who is naughtier?" Typically younger children (up to the age of 10) say that (1) Marie is naughtier. Although they recognise the distinction between a well-intentioned act that turns out badly and a careless, thoughtless or malicious act, they tend to judge naughtiness in terms of the severity of consequence, rather than in terms of motives. This is what Piaget means by moral realism.

Piaget was also interested in what children understand by a lie. He found the seriousness of a lie is measured by younger children in terms of the distance from the truth.

With regard to punishment Piaget also found young children had a characteristic view. They saw the function of punishment as making the guilty suffer (i.e "an eye for an eye"). Punishment is seen as a deterrent to further wrongdoing and the stricter it is, the more effective they imagine it will be.

Children also believe in what Piaget called immanent justice (that punishment should automatically follow bad behaviour). For example, one story he told was of 2 children who robbed the local farmer's orchard. The farmer saw the children and tried to catch them. One was caught and the farmer gave him a thrashing. The other, who could run faster, got away. However, on the way home this child had to cross the stream on a very slippery log. This child fell off the log and cut his leg badly.

When younger children are asked why the boy cut his leg they don't say "because the log was slippery", they say, "because he stole from the farmer". Young children interpret misfortune as if it were some kind of punishment from God or from some kind of superior force. Justice is seen as the nature of things; the guilty in young children's view are always punished, and the natural world is like a policeman.

Piaget termed this morality as heteronomous morality - morality formed out of being subject to another's rules. For young children, these are the rules that adults impose upon them. As children get older, the circumstances of their lives change and their attitude to moral questions undergoes a radical change.

The stage of autonomous morality is known as moral relativism - morality that is based on your own rules. Children recognise there's no absolute right or wrong and that morality depends on intentions not consequences.

Piaget believed that around the age of 9-10, children's understanding of moral issues underwent a fundamental reorganisation. They have begun to overcome the egocentrism of middle childhood, and have developed the ability to see moral rules from other people's points of view. A child who can decentre and take other's intentions and circumstances into account can move to make the more independent moral judgements of the second stage.

Children now understand that rules don't come from some mystical "divine-like" source. People make rules and people can change them - they are not set in stone. They recognise rules can be changed if circumstances dictate.

In regards to issues of blame and moral responsibility, older children don't just take consequences into account, they also consider motives which was ignored in the first stage. Children begin to realise that if they behave in ways that appear wrong, but have good intentions, they are not necessarily going to be punished. Thus, a well-intentioned act that turned out badly is less blameworthy than a malicious act that did no harm.

Children's views on lying also change. The seriousness of a lie is judged in terms of betrayal of trust, rather than distance from the truth. They also recognise that if someone says something they know not to be the case, this doesn't necessarily mean the other person is telling a lie; they may have just made a mistake or there's a difference of opinion. 

In regards to punishment, the emphasis moves from retribution to restitution. Its purpose is not primarily to make the guilty suffer, but to put things right again. The punishment should be aimed at helping the offender understand the harm they caused so they will not be motivated to repeat the offence.

Older children recognise that justice in real life is an imperfect system. Sometimes the guilty get away with their crimes, and sometimes the innocent suffer unfairly.

Overall, Piaget described the morality of the older child as an autonomous morality - subject to its own laws. The change is partly due to the child's general cognitive development, declining egocentrism and partly due to the growing importance of the peer group. The reference group for children's moral beliefs in increasingly focused on other children and disputes between equals need to be negotiated and compromises made.

• Reliability: Piaget uses qualitative methods that are based on very small samples. His methods aren't standardised, and therefore are not replicable. It's also impossible to say from his research how generalisable the results are.
• Validity: Does Piaget test what he thinks he's testing? Children may be giving answers based on their view of what would actually happen rather than what they think should happen
• Underestimation: Piaget argues the shift from moral realism to moral relativism occurs around the age of 9-10, and children younger than this don't take motives into account when judging who's to blame. Other research suggests children develop an understanding of the significance of subjective facts at a much earlier age. Nelson (1980) found that even 3-year olds could distinguish intentions from consequences if the story was made simple enough
• What do children's replies really mean? This is not necessarily clear - do they understand the story? Do they remember it correctly? Children's limitations with memory has been shown to decrease their performance in tasks. Do they give an answer that they think will please the experimenter?
• What does it tell us? There can be no real relationship with attitudes and behaviours anway. La Pierre (1934) demonstrated this with his research on the Chinese couple being served in American restaurants.

Kohlberg (1958) agreed with Piaget's (1932) theory of moral development, but wanted to develop the ideas further. One of the best known of Kohlberg's stories concerns a man called Heinz.

Heinz's wife was dying from cancer. Doctors said a new drug might save her. Heinz desperately tried to buy this drug, but the chemist was charging 10x the money it costed to make it, and this was more than Heinz could afford. He only raised half the money, so explained to the chemist his wife was dying, and asked if he could have the drug cheaper or pay the rest later. The chemist refused. Heinz was so desperate he broke into the chemist's later at night and stole the drug.

Kohlberg then asked a series of questions such as (1) should Heinz have stolen the drug, (2) would it change anything if Heinz didn't love his wife, (3) what if the person dying was a stranger, would it make any difference? (4) should the police arrest the chemist for murder if the woman died?

By studying the answers from children of different ages to these questions, Kohlberg hoped to discover how moral reasoning changed as people grew older. He identified 3 distinct levels of moral reasoning each with 2 sub-stages.

Level 1 - Pre-conventional morality (most 9 year olds and younger, some over 9): we don't have a personal code of morality. Instead, our moral code is shaped by the standards of adults and consequences of following or breaking their rules. Authority is outside the individual and reasoning is based on the physical consequences of actions.

Stage 1: obedience and punishment orientation. The child/individual is good in order to avoid being punished. If a person is punished, they must have done wrong

Stage 2: individualism and exchange. Children recognise that there's not just one right view that is handed down by the authorities. Different individuals have different viewpoints

Level 2 - conventional morality (most adolescents and adults): we begin to internalise the moral standards of valued adult role models. Authority is internalised but not questioned, and reasoning is based on the norms of the group to which a person belongs to.

Stage 3: good interpersonal relationships. The child/individual is good in order to be seen as being a good person by others. Therefore, answers relate to the approval of others

Stage 4: maintaining the social order. The child/individual becomes aware of the wider rules of society, so judgements concern obeying the rules in order to uphold the law and to avoid guilt

Level 3 - Post-conventional morality: individual judgement is based on self-chosen principles, and moral reasoning is based on individual rights and justice. According to Kohlberg, this level of moral reasoning is as far as most people get. Only 10-15% are capable of the kind of abstract thinking required for stage 5 or 6. That is to say, most people take their moral views from those around them, and only a minority think through ethical principles for themselves

Stage 5: social contract and individual rights. The child/individual becomes aware that while rules and laws might exist for the good of the greatest number, there are times they will work against the interest of particular individuals. The issues aren't always clear cut.

Stage 6: universal principles. People at this stage have developed their own set of moral guidelines which may or may not fit the law. The principles apply to everyone.

• Artifical dilemmas (lack of ecological validity: most of the dilemmas are unfamiliar to most people. Kohlberg's subjects were aged between 10 and 16. They had never been married, and never been placed in a situation remotely like the one in the story; how are they to know whether Heinz should steal the drug?
• Biased sample: Gilligan (1977) explains because Kohlberg's theory was based on an all-male sample, the stages reflect a male definition of morality (it's androcentric). Men's morality is based on abstract principles of law and justice, whilst women's is based on principles of compassion and care
• Dilemmas are hypothetical: in a real situation the course of action taken has real consequences - and sometimes very unpleasant ones for themselves. Would subjects reason in the same way if they were placed in a real situation. The fact that Kohlberg's theory is heavily dependent on an individual's response to an artificial dilemma brings a question to the validity of the results obtained through this research.
• Poor research design: the way in which Kohlberg carried out his research when constructing his theory may have not been the best way to test whether all children follow the same sequence of stage progression. He carried out a cross sectional experiment. It may have been better to carry out longitudinal research on the same children

• Problems with the stages: Kohlberg claims there are distinct stages, but research may not support this. For example, a person who justified a decision on the basis of principled reasoning in one situation (post-conventional morality stage 5 or 6) would frequently fall back on conventional reasoning (stage 3 or 4) with another story. In practice, it seems reasoning about right and wrong depends more upon the situation than upon general rules. Individuals don't always progress through the stages, Rest (1979) found that one in fourteen actually slipped backward.
• Does moral judgment match moral behaviour?: Bee (1994) points out moral behaviour is only partly a question of moral reasoning, it also has to do with social factors
• Is justice the most fundamental moral principle?: Gilligan (1977) suggests that the principle of caring for others is equally important. Furthermore, Kohlberg claims that the moral reasoning of males has ben often in advance of that for females. Girls are often found to be at stage 3 in Kohlberg's system, whereas boys are more often found to be at stage 4. Gilligan claims there is a sex bias in Kohlberg's theory, concluding Kohlberg's theory didn't account for the fact women approach moral problems from an 'ethics of care', rather than an 'ethics of justice' perspective.

Piaget and Kohlberg failed to consider how the experiences of the preschooler help lay the foundations for moral development in middle childhood and adolescence.

Dunn (1988): the beginnings of social understanding - learning about right and wrong during family exchanges. Rules must apply to adults not only children, and there must be explicit discussion about responsibility for actions.

The importance of family exchanges: facilitating the development of children's understanding of mental states and emotion. Crucial factors for the development of moral reasoning (Hughes & Dunn, 2000). Young children may not be as amoral as implied by Piaget and Kohlberg - individuals respond differently in different domains or contexts.

Social-Cognitive Domain Theory (SCD): provides theoretical definitions for different domains of knowledge which co-exist (Turiel, 1983). Moral: issues of right and wrong, fairness, justice. Social conventional: traditions, customs, expectations, norms intended to ensure social coordination/organisation. Personal/psychological: actions in which individual preferences are the main consideration (autonomy, personal choice). Children from a wide range of cultures, countries, and levels of income use these different forms of reasoning when evaluating social events, issues and transgressions in social life (Smetana, 1995)

Traditional models like those proposed by Piaget and Kohlberg assume children, at a particular point of development, apply the same form of reasoning across situations. Social Domain Theory proposes that children apply different forms of reasoning to range of social situations i.e children will apply different domains or forms of social reasoning about exclusion/prejudice, depending on the context.

Evaluation of Social domain theory

• not sole focus on moral reasoning
• focuses on everyday/familiar rather than hypothetical events tested by Kohlberg
• contextual rather than a stage model
• away from primitive to advanced theories of morality to children's use of different domains of reasoning in different contexts
• doesn't compare children from different cultures one one scale or 'standard'

Prosocial behaviour: voluntary behaviour intended to benefit another (sharing, helping, comforting)

It is altruistically motivated. Early motives include empathy: willingness to share emotions of others, similar reaction to another's emotional state, and sympathy: willingness to alleviate suffering of another, feeling of concern for another's emotinal state. Later motives involve acting consistently with own conscience and moral principles, as well as empathy and sympathy.

Environmental factors of prosocial behaviour

• Parents: modelling and communication of values, and opportunities for prosocial activites.
• Parental warmth: empathy and sympathy (Eisenberg, 1986), sympathy and prosocial moral reasoning (Carlo et al, 2010)
• Physical punishment, threats, and authoritarian parenting associated with lack of sympathy and prosociality (Asbury et al, 2003)