Scribd
Upload
26 views

Intrapersonal - Interpersonal: Morality

Moral development involves changes in thoughts and behaviors regarding what is right and wrong. Piaget's theory identified two stages of moral understanding - heteronomous morality in young children who believe rules are absolute, and autonomous morality in older children who understand rules are created by people and consider intentions and consequences. Kohlberg's theory proposed six stages of moral reasoning development focused on justice, with the highest stage emphasizing universal ethical principles over laws. Exposure to violent TV can promote acceptance of violence as a solution, while moral content promoting perspective-taking can encourage fairness and caring in children older than 5.5 years even without parental influence. However, the effects of a single TV program may not generalize and their duration is unclear.

Uploaded by

Rosa Finizio
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
26 views

Intrapersonal - Interpersonal: Morality

Moral development involves changes in thoughts and behaviors regarding what is right and wrong. Piaget's theory identified two stages of moral understanding - heteronomous morality in young children who believe rules are absolute, and autonomous morality in older children who understand rules are created by people and consider intentions and consequences. Kohlberg's theory proposed six stages of moral reasoning development focused on justice, with the highest stage emphasizing universal ethical principles over laws. Exposure to violent TV can promote acceptance of violence as a solution, while moral content promoting perspective-taking can encourage fairness and caring in children older than 5.5 years even without parental influence. However, the effects of a single TV program may not generalize and their duration is unclear.

Uploaded by

Rosa Finizio
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

Tutorial 5.

6
Morality
Moral development involves changes in thoughts, feelings, behavior regarding standards of
what is wrong or right.
-Intrapersonal dimension regulates a person’s activities when he/she is not engaged.
-Interpersonal dimension regulates social interactions and arbitrates conflict.

Piaget’s theory
According to Piaget there are 2 stages of moral understanding:
1. Heteronomous morality (4-7 years old)
Rules and justice are unchangeable and require strict obedience.
Moral rules are characterized by realism and children believe in immanent justice, the
expectation that if a rule is broken, punishment will happen immediately.

Transition phase (7-10 years old)


It is not an official phase; however, children show a period of transition between the first
phase, heteronomous morality and the second, autonomous reality which is not understood
completely yet.

2. Autonomous morality (10-beyond)


Children understand that rules are created by people, and in judging an action they consider
both intentions and consequences.

Support: Moral, social thinking and cognitive processes develops around the same age in all
children.
Critique: Children seems to develop earlier these stages than Piaget thought. Cultural
differences seems to have an impact on moral development, meaning that not all children
reach it at the same time. No social factor are taken into the account.

Kohlberg’s theory
According to Kohlberg there are 6 stages of moral understanding which are universal.
Development from one stage to another, happens when a person is in conflict between
one’s current stage moral thinking and the next stage.

1. Preconventional reasoning it is the lowest stage. Usually characterizes children before age
of 9 years old. It consists of 2 substages:
 Punishment and obedience orientation: Moral thinking is often tied to punishment.
 Individualism, instrumental purpose, and exchange: People try to avoid punishment, by
having an equal exchange of pursuing their own interest.

2. Conventional reasoning is an intermediate stage between internal standards and external


society, which usually characterizes early adolescent. It consists of 2 substages:
 Mutual interpersonal expectations, relationships, and interpersonal conformity:
Individuals value trust, caring and loyalty as a basis of moral judgements.
 Social system morality: Moral judgement are based on understanding and the social
order, law, justice, and duty.
3. Postconventional reasoning it is the highest stage and morality is internal; usually the first
stage characterize adolescent. It consists of 2 substages:
 Social construct or utility and individual rights: Individuals thinks about society in a
theoretical way and first are evaluated the validity of actual laws and social systems.
 Universal ethical principles: A person face a conflict between law and conscience, and
when faced a conflict a person will follow conscience, even if personal risk is involved.
Not everybody reaches the last stages.

Support: Stages follows an invariant sequence (1,2,3) and are hierarchically integrated
(elaborate on the previous stage when you move to the new one).
Advantages in children development does not mean moral reasoning and thinking.
Kohlberg also stressed the importance of peer interaction which can produce perspective-
taking opportunities.

Critique: The theory seems to be gender biased, because Kohlberg’s theory was mainly
based on a male norm group. Also, there is no much attention on the environment.
His theory was focus on justice perspective, about rights of the individual while Gillian
proposed the care perspective, focused on moral perspective which emphasizes
interpersonal communication, relationships, and concern for others.
However, Gillian’s claim that Kohlberg downplayed females’ moral thinking has no evidence.

Article
Exposure to certain television content influence individuals’ moral judgements in positive or
negative way, with or without parents.

-Exposure to violent television programming -> more positive judgments of violence as a


solution to problems.
-Exposure to moral content with consideration of others’ thoughts and feelings -> promotes
fairness and caring.

-Improved perspective-taking (and not comprehension) may encourage positive effects.


-Children older than 5,5 years old used more strategies for moral reasoning than younger
one, which seems not influenced by the parents.

Critique
-Only two episodes of one tv show is used; this may be not generalizable for other shows.
----Only high educated parents participated with this research.
-lt is not clear how long the effect of the tv show lasts. Is this for couple of hours or for a
long period?

You might also like