A Child's Mind: How Kids Learn Right And Wrong

There are many theorists whose work influences the way we work with children today. There are several distinct groups that the theorists are split into; the behaviourists, such as Bandura, Skinner and Watson, who believed that behaviour influences development, the humanists, like Maslow, who believed that a person’s needs has an impact on their development, the constructivists, which includes Piaget, that believed that a person’s personality is influenced by many factors, such as family, friends, cultures, and the psychoanalysts, like Freud, who thought that the subconscious mind has a control over behaviour.

Kohlberg’s theory of moral development is an adaptation of the development theory of Jean Piaget. Piaget studied many aspects of moral judgment, most of his findings fit into a two stage process of moral development. Put into the simplest of terms, Stage 1: children younger than 10 or 11 years think about moral dilemmas one way and Stage 2: older children consider them differently.

Kohlberg piggybacked off the groundwork laid by Piaget, with his concepts on cognitive development in adolescents. Kohlberg postulated that a newly formed moral stance will guide new behaviors if these actions lead to strife, therefore another stage of morality will be adopted (Bergman, 2002). His stages of moral development followed this pattern: At the preconventional level the child has awareness on what behavior is acceptable or not, and can conform to these standards out of a necessity to avoid punishment; At the conventional level the person understands what the norms of society are and no longer complies with them out of a sense of fear of reprisal,

Piaget – Cognitive Development - Observed his own children, plus others to develop his theories. His theory is broad and runs from birth to adolescence and includes concepts of language, scientific reasoning, moral development and memory. Piaget believed that children went

“Socialization is so basic to human development that we sometimes overlook its importance.” (Macionis, Pg. 84) Both Lawrence Kohlberg and James Fowler developed theories on how people develop in stages. Both Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development and Fowler’s Stages of Faith Development contain 6 stages that people are believed to go through as they develop.

As stages in psychological development have been defined by Freud, stages in moral development have been outlined by early educators Jean Piaget and Kohlberg, who put forth differing views on the moral development of children. Piaget theorized that children process morals in stages, first one then the next, with a transition in between. The first stage (from ages 4 to about 7) is referred to as “heteronymous morality”, where children think of rules as constants, that is to say, rules are part of the world’s makeup with no input or possibility of change by people. As children progress from seven to ten years of age, they move from one stage to the next, maintaining some of the traits of the

Lawrence Kohlberg, a professor at Harvard, creates a theory of human moral development. Since his theory was an expansion of Jean Piaget moral development of children, he elucidates of his theory to have series of stages. Each stage were categorized into three levels: preconventional, conventional, and postconventional. During each level there are 2 stages which are consequent for moral development because they are action that manifest on who we are.

Developmental psychology recognizes three main models of psychosocial and cognitive development. The first theory, presented by developmental psychologist and philosopher Jean Piaget, addresses cognitive development. The second theory, presented by psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg, focuses on the development of morality. The third theory, proposed by developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, outlines psychosocial development. All three theories are applicable from birth to death.

The first stage in Kohlberg’s Moral Development is called Preconventional and that is when a person is more worried about the reward and the punishment that comes with a certain situation (powerpoint). When a person is at this stage they are more worried about what would happen to them than to the people around them. A child who is at this stage has not yet adapted to the society's

Moral development is the growth through which children evolve proper attitudes and behaviors toward other people in society, depend on social and cultural norms, rules, and laws.

Kohlberg (1963, 1981, 1984; Colby & Kohlberg, 1987) expanded Piaget’s work, developing a most influential cognitive developmental theory of moral development. Kohlberg proposed the progression through the invariant, universal sequence of three moral levels each composed of two distinct stages. According to Kohlberg, no stage can be skipped, neither will there be a regression to an earlier stage.

Jean Piaget is considered to be very influential in the field of developmental psychology. Piaget had many influences in his life which ultimately led him to create the Theory of Cognitive Development. His theory has multiple stages and components. The research done in the early 1900’s is still used today in many schools and homes. People from various cultures use his theory when it comes to child development. Although there are criticisms and alternatives to his theory, it is still largely used today around the world.

Jean Piaget is one of the pioneers to child development, he was an important factor in the growth, development and one of the most exciting research theorists in child development. A major force in child psychology, he studied both thought processes and how they change with age. He believed that children think in fundamentally different ways from adults.. Piaget’s belief is that all species inherit the basic tendency to organize their lives and adapt to the world that’s around them, no matter the age. Children develop schemas as a general way of thinking or interacting with ideas and objects in the environment. Children create and develop new schemas as they grow and experience new things. Piaget has identified four major stages of cognitive development which are: sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operations, and formal operations. According to the text here are brief descriptions of each of Piaget’s stages:

Lawrence Kohlberg was a psychologist known mostly for his research of moral psychology and development. He became popular in the late 1950's when he published his theory of moral development. Moral development represent an important role in our social interactions. Understanding why and how individuals make decisions regarding moral dilemmas can be very useful in many situations. Kohlberg’s theory focuses on the thinking process that occurs when one decides whether a behaviour is right or wrong. He believed that social relationships and culture were central to understanding children's moral development, and he believed moral development occurred in six stages. Erik Erikson is another psychologist who proposed a psychosocial theory of human development. Unlike Kohlberg, Erikson's theory stretches the entire lifecycle and making the developmental process an ongoing lifelong process. According to Erikson's theory, people must make it through eight sequential developmental stages, during which they either develop the mandatory skills needed to become successful, happy members of society, or they will fail to successfully pass the stage and remain at that current developmental stage. Both psychologist focused on specific characteristics of human development, but their theories helped me realize the various dimensions of adolescent development which include: physical, cognitive, emotional, social, moral, and sexual development.

Lawrence Kohlberg spent a lot of years examining how an individual develops his or her own moral principles. For his doctoral research, Kohlberg studied differences in children's arguments about presented by him moral dilemmas. He hypothesized that moral difficulties stimulated their development through a fixed order of increasingly flexible kinds of moral reasoning. Moreover, Lawrence Kohlberg also managed to clarify the general cognitive-developmental views of changes at different age stages. Subsequently, Kohlberg became a significant leader in the field of moral education. Kohlberg was a psychologist who used the developmental approach of Jean Piaget in order to the research the main changes in moral reasoning. Kohlberg's theory establishes six stages of moral development, arranged in three levels. The purpose of this essay is to conceptualize and explain Kohlberg’s theory and research on moral stages.