Moral Development
What is morality?
- An understanding of the difference between right and wrong
- Intuition sense vs reason response to a dilemma
Theories of moral development
Piaget’s theory
- Moral realist vs moral subjectivist
- His stages of moral development:
Children made judgements about the relative naughtiness of 2 boys; good intentions but
large damage (went to clean a room but spilt ink everywhere) or bad intentions but with
small damage (wasn’t allowed to enter room but did anyway and only spilt a very small
amount of ink)
Found that moral realists; < 7y/o, pre-operational stage and their moral judgements are
based on the scale of the damage.
Moral subjectivists; > 7y/o, in concrete operational stage, judgement based on the intention
of the protagonist.
Under 7 is the pre-operational period
Piaget – crucial stage at age 7
Very limited theory as the boys didn’t intentionally damage the property, there is no
cognitive explanation, is moral development FULLY developed at age 7, and is morality only
based on understanding the difference between outcomes and intentions
Children under 6 are very egocentric, may not be able to sympathise, or empathise or
perspective take.
Kohlberg’s moral dilemma theory
- Mr Lim and the drug for his dying wife.
- A bunch of questions were asked about the morality of the situation about how it was a good
idea to steal the drug or whether the pharmacist was in the wrong for pricing it so high.
- They proposed there were 3 levels including two stages each, these were called Kohlberg’s
stages:
Level 1 – Preconventional morality = stage 1. Punishment = wrong, stage 2. reward=right
Level 2 – conventional morality = stage 3. Consider intentions, stage 4. Obedience to
authority
Level 3. Postconventional morality = stage 5. Morally vs legally right, stage 6. Consider
multiple views
- People progress these stages sequentially and you can’t skip or regress through the stages.
Prosocial behaviour
Moral dilemma are very rare in everyday life
Deciding between selfish and selfless actions is a lot more common
Examples of prosocial behaviour:
- Altruism (costly helping)
- Helping
- Sharing
Hamlin et al (2007) – shows two videos (the yellow triangle that helps the red circle, and the blue
square that hinders the red circle from going up the hill) – habituation
Unexpected outcome when the red circle moves to the red square (child looks longer as they’re
surprised the red circle moves to the blue square) – looking time test
What is morality?
- An understanding of the difference between right and wrong
- Intuition sense vs reason response to a dilemma
Theories of moral development
Piaget’s theory
- Moral realist vs moral subjectivist
- His stages of moral development:
Children made judgements about the relative naughtiness of 2 boys; good intentions but
large damage (went to clean a room but spilt ink everywhere) or bad intentions but with
small damage (wasn’t allowed to enter room but did anyway and only spilt a very small
amount of ink)
Found that moral realists; < 7y/o, pre-operational stage and their moral judgements are
based on the scale of the damage.
Moral subjectivists; > 7y/o, in concrete operational stage, judgement based on the intention
of the protagonist.
Under 7 is the pre-operational period
Piaget – crucial stage at age 7
Very limited theory as the boys didn’t intentionally damage the property, there is no
cognitive explanation, is moral development FULLY developed at age 7, and is morality only
based on understanding the difference between outcomes and intentions
Children under 6 are very egocentric, may not be able to sympathise, or empathise or
perspective take.
Kohlberg’s moral dilemma theory
- Mr Lim and the drug for his dying wife.
- A bunch of questions were asked about the morality of the situation about how it was a good
idea to steal the drug or whether the pharmacist was in the wrong for pricing it so high.
- They proposed there were 3 levels including two stages each, these were called Kohlberg’s
stages:
Level 1 – Preconventional morality = stage 1. Punishment = wrong, stage 2. reward=right
Level 2 – conventional morality = stage 3. Consider intentions, stage 4. Obedience to
authority
Level 3. Postconventional morality = stage 5. Morally vs legally right, stage 6. Consider
multiple views
- People progress these stages sequentially and you can’t skip or regress through the stages.
Prosocial behaviour
Moral dilemma are very rare in everyday life
Deciding between selfish and selfless actions is a lot more common
Examples of prosocial behaviour:
- Altruism (costly helping)
- Helping
- Sharing
Hamlin et al (2007) – shows two videos (the yellow triangle that helps the red circle, and the blue
square that hinders the red circle from going up the hill) – habituation
Unexpected outcome when the red circle moves to the red square (child looks longer as they’re
surprised the red circle moves to the blue square) – looking time test
