Analysis of Moral Development in Young Children Essay

The theory holds that moral reasoning, the basis for ethical behavior, has six identifiable developmental stages, each more adequate at responding to moral dilemmas than its predecessor.Kohlberg followed the development of moral judgment far beyond the ages studied earlier by Piaget,who also claimed that logic and morality develop through constructive stages.Expanding on Piaget's work, Kohlberg determined that the process of moral development was principally concerned with justice, and

There is a lot of evidence that focuses on moral development as a life-long process that develops throughout a person’s life and changes based on a variety of factors. The first is Kohlberg’s theory of moral development. Inspired by early work of Piaget on moral judgment, Kohlberg set out to develop a more comprehensive cognitive understanding of moral development. Kohlberg used with clinical interviewing procedure in which he presented a sample 10-to-16- year old boys with hypothetical moral dilemmas presenting in the conflict between two moral values- and asked them what the main actor should do and why. ? Real life moral dilemmas often help to highlight the role of emotion in moral judgment. Then he followed the participants longitudinally, reinter viewing

Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development has served as basis of the investigation of many issues related to morality. Building on Piaget’s belief that the moral judgment of children derived from their cognitive development, Kohlberg attend to identify cognitive stages that underline the development of moral thinking.

In Michael Stewart’s novel Bye Bye Birdie, children and their attitudes play a significant role from disobedience and protective parents, to teenage love and jealousy. Some parents in the little town of Sweet Apple, Ohio attributed children’s attitudes to “Elvis-stereotyped” Conrad Birdie; however, others believed it was their age. Psychologist, Lawrence Kohlberg, described many moral stages each and every person goes through during his or her life. I know two children who illustrate Kohlberg 's stages of Moral Development very well. Karim is an eight year old boy to whom I taught swim lessons, and he is currently in the preconventional stage. Sam is my 12 year old brother and living in the conventional stage of Kohlberg’s Moral Stages.

Rather than being inspired by the work of Freud, Kohlberg’s theory of moral development is a cognitive developmental theory was inspired by Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. Kohlberg’s theory is made up of three different levels; the preconventional level, the conventional level, and the postconventional or principled level. The three levels are each broken up into two separate stages. For the purpose of this observation, we will be mainly focusing on the preconventional level and the conventional level of moral development. Kohlberg intended the preconventional level to be focused toward infants and preschool children, however the students behavior more closely related to this level than that of the conventional level which is aimed toward his age range. The preconventional level is where children learn that their actions have consequences. The first stage of this level is the punishment and obedience orientation stage, children in this stage are focusing on the consequences of their actions rather than the logical thing to do. The following stage is the instrumental purpose orientation stage, within this stage children tend to believe that if they do someone a favor, that person should do a favor in return (Berk & Meyers,

An outstanding example of research in the Piagetian tradition is the work of Lawrence Kohlberg. Kohlberg has focused on the moral development and has proposed a stage theory of moral thinking which goes well beyond Piaget's initial formulations.

It is upon this theory and study that Lawrence Kohlberg developed his own theory of morality; that contains three levels and six stages. Unlike Piaget who solely targeted children in his theory, Kohlberg discusses early adolescence as well as young adulthood. Kohlberg’s three overall levels and first three stages are basically the same as in Piaget’s theory. It is in his last three stages that his theory differs from Piaget’s. Kohlberg’s fourth stage of morality, which takes place during level two: conventional morality, addresses children ages ten to thirteen or beyond. Kohlberg refers to this fourth stage as “social concern and conscience” (376). During this stage, adolescents begin to obey rules and laws because they understand that it is necessary in order to maintain social order. Immediately it can be seen that nurture related factors are associated with this stage. Both rules and society are discussed here. As mentioned earlier, laws and rules are given to people; no one is born with them. Maintaining social order deals exclusively with society, and has not the slightest connection to genetics. Also considering the age range for this stage, it can be assumed that most children

Moral development refers to the change and understanding of morality from infancy through to becoming an adult. Moral development works to further look at how a child’s system of values form, on which to base decisions concerning right as well as wrong good and bad. It is also important to know values are underlying assumptions about moral decisions. Lawrence Kohlberg (1927-1987), an American psychologist who built upon piaget’s work in cognitive

The complexity of this area and the concepts involved necessitates a rather expansive look at the perspectives on Moral Development in order to develop contextual

The second level of moral development is the conventional moral reasoning; “Beginning in middle school, up to middle age – most people end up here” (“Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development.”). At this level,

Although moral development has addressed from different models or approaches to psychological and educational, it is the cognitive-developmental approach; they are given more importance. For the definition of the cognitive, means that moral development has its bases in the stimulation of the reasoning of the person about circumstances and decisions regarding situations of interpersonal relationship. The role of thinking is necessary, and above all the how and why the subject justifies and reasoned moral decisions. Also, it is an evolutionary model because it proposes a sequence of moral development through three stages; the preconvention, conventional, and the post-conventional, which progressively follow from reasoning less balanced and mature to a more advanced, and in turn, each level is subdivided into moral stages.

Piaget believes that the young child’s morality of constraint is the product of two interacting factors: cognitive immaturity and unilateral emotional respect for adults. The first is the more fundamental source; Piaget sees moral realism as one expression of a generally immature cognitive organization which is both egocentric and realistic. The child’s progress to cooperative morality is a process of developing the capacity to function at the higher level. A morally mature child can, but does not necessarily, apply the principles of autonomous cooperation in his moral judgement.

Lawrence Kohlberg’s stage theory of moral reasoning is an elaboration and refinement of Piaget’s theory. This is evident in his three levels of Pre-conventional, Conventional and Postconventional moral reasoning’s and his six stages of moral judgment. In stage 1 children obey to avoid punishment followed by stage 2 where they look out for themselves but are aware of others peoples interests. Stage 3 has children cooperating with peers and considering their feelings. In stage 4 they believe that laws must be followed and individual rights and ethical principles are prevalent. Kohlberg suggests in stage five that people see the laws a necessary to persevere the basic rights and liberty. In conclusion stage six portrays the individual’s ethical principles, values, and the equality of human rights (Slavin & Schunk, 2018, p.56). Kohlberg believed that children should learn moral principles through moral dilemmas.

Introduction “The conscience of children is formed by the influences that surround them; their notions of good and evil are a result of the moral atmosphere they breathe” Jean Paul Lawrence Kohlberg (the pioneer of the second major perspective on moral development) proposed that moral reasoning is developed when people pass through three levels which comprise of two stages each as they grow older. He investigated the nature of moral thought by interacting with children, presenting them with a story in which moral dilemmas were faced by the characters in the story. This is what led to the birth of his theory of moral development. This essay therefore seeks to practically apply Kohlberg’s thesis to the real world. In so doing, it will review and evaluate the theory

The study used the theory of moral development by Lawrence Kohlberg to articulate its views on the process of human socialization. This theory gives three levels of moral development in the human beings that include the pre-conventional morality, conventional morality and post-conventional morality (Murphey 367). The process of socialization of children following this theory has good results in the society. Children get to learn ways of handling things and situation from their elders. This theory provides a consequential way through which individuals can socialize with others in the society without causing tension or harm. The universal