Moral development is the process throught which children develop proper attitudes and behaviors toward other people in society, based on social and cultural norms, rules, and laws

1. TERMPAPERONMORAL
DEVELOPMENT
DMIMS (DU)
Smt. Radhikabai Meghe Memorial College of Nursing
Sawangi (Meghe), Wardha
Submitted to:-
Mrs. Archana Mourya
HOD & Professor
Child Health Nursing
Submitted by:-
Mr, Abhijit P. Bhoyar
1st Year M. Sc Nursing
Child Health Nursing
Batch 2013-14

2. INDEX
SR.
NO.
NAME OF THE TOPIC PAGE NO.
1 Introduction 1
2 Definition of moral development 2
3 Piaget theory of moral development 3
4 Kohlberg’s Theory Of Moral
Development
• Biography 4
• levels 5-16
7 Research 17-21
8 Summary & conclusion 22
9 Bibliography 23

3. INTRODUCTION
Moral development focuses on the emergence, change, and
understanding of morality from infancy through adulthood.
In the field of moral development, morality is defined as
principles for how individuals ought to treat one another,
with respect to justice others’ welfare, and rights In order to
investigate how individuals understand morality, it is
essential to measure their beliefs, emotions, attitudes, and
behaviors that contribute to moral understanding. The field of
moral development studies the role of peers and parents in
facilitating moral development, the role of conscience and
values, socialization and cultural influences, empathy and
altruism, and positive development. The interest in morality
spans many disciplines (e.g., philosophy economics biology,
and political science and specializations within psychology
(e.g., social cognitive and cultural. 1
1

4. MEANING
• Etimologicallythe term moral is derived from the latin word
“morea” means manner, customs and folkways.
• Moral development refers to a behaviour of a members of
a given culture which has been accepted and followed.
• Much of the work on the concept of moral development
was done by Piget (1972), and Kohlberg (1964).
• Moral development has two component namely
intellectual and impulsive aspects. It refers to what is called
right and wrong.
Accourding to Piaget, there are two clear cut stages
1) Stage of moral realism or morality by constraint.
2) Autonomous morality or morality by cooperation or
reciprocity.
2

5. 1)Stage of moral realism or morality by constraint.
In this stage, automatic obedience to rule without reasoning
or judgement occurs. Parents and all adults are considered as
omnipotent. Here, children judge act as right or wrong in
terms of consequences rather than in terms of motivation
behind them.
2) Autonomous morality or morality by cooperation or
reciprocity.
• In this stage, children judge behaviour in terms of
undrelying intent or purpose. This stage is between 7 and 12
years. By 5 to 7 years of age, concepts of justice began to
change. The rigid and inflex right and wrong notions are
modified. Therefore they start to take consideration of
specific circumstances related to the moral violations.
• To a five year old, lying is bad, but for an 8 year old, lying is
justified in certain circumstances and is not always
necessarily bad. 2
3

6. KOHLBERG’S THEORY OF
MORAL DEVELOPMENT
4
1

7. 5
1-3 years toddler
3-6 years preschooler
and schooler
Schoolers and above (12-
16 and above)

8. 6

9. •Kids learn a fear of
punishment/ obedience.
•Self interest
•Usually occurs in early
childhood development
IN THIS STAGE
7

10. 8

11. 9

12. 10

13. Principle
Avoiding punishment
Self interest
11

14. 12

15. 13

16. 14

17. 15

18. 16
2

19. 1) J Genet Psychol. 2012 Oct-Dec;173(4):417-39.
• Aggressive and
nonaggressive children's moral judgments
and moral emotion attributions in situations involving
retaliation and unprovoked aggression.
• Gasser L1, Malti T, Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger E.
• Abstract The authors investigated 7- and 9-year
old children's moral understanding of retaliation as compared
to unprovoked aggression with regard to their aggressive
behavior status. Based on peer ratings, 48 children were
selected as overtly aggressive and 91 as nonaggressive.
Their moral understanding of retaliation and unprovoked
aggression was assessed by an interview including questions
about their moral judgments and emotion attributions.
Aggressive children judged retaliations as less serious than
did nonaggressive children. They also referred less often to
the harmful consequences of retaliation and were more likely
to excuse the retaliation because of the provocation. In
unprovoked aggressive situations younger
aggressive children, compared with the younger
nonaggressive children, attributed more happiness to
transgressors, more anger to victims, and less sadness to
transgressors and victims. The results are discussed in terms
of previous research on aggressive children's Oral
understanding of retaliation and unprovoked aggression. 3
17

20. 2) Child Dev. 2008 Jul-Aug;79(4):866-81. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-
8624.2008.01164.x.
• Social and cognitive correlates of children's lying
behavior.
• Talwar V1, Lee K.
• Abstract
• The relation between children's lie-telling and their social
and cognitive development was examined. Children (3-8
years) were told not to peek at a toy. Most children peeked
and later lied about peeking. Children's subsequent verbal
statements were not always consistent with their initial denial
and leaked critical information revealing their
deceit. Children's conceptual moral understanding of lies,
executive functioning, and theory-of-mind understanding
were also assessed. Children's initial false denials were
related to their first-order belief understanding and their
inhibitory control.Children's ability to maintain their lies was
related to their second-order belief understanding. Children's
lying was related to their moral evaluations. These findings
suggest that social and cognitive factors may play an
important role in children's lie-telling abilities.4
18

21. 3) Child Dev. 2006 Jul-Aug;77(4):1050-62.
• When victims don't cry: children's understandings of
victimization, compliance, and subversion.
• Shaw LA1, Wainryb C.
• Abstract
• How do children understand situations in which the targets
of moral transgressions do not complain about the way they
are treated? One-hundred and twenty participants aged 5, 7,
10, 13, and 16 years were interviewed about hypothetical
situations in which one child ("transgressor") made an
apparently unfair demand of another child ("victim"), who
then responded by either resisting, complying, or subverting.
In general, 5-year-olds judged compliance positively and
resistance negatively and 7- to 16-year-olds judged resistance
positively and compliance negatively; all but 16-year-olds
judged subversion negatively. Most participants judged the
transgressor's actions negatively, regardless of how the
victim had responded. The findings are discussed in terms of
their implications for children's developing understandings of
victimization.5
19

22. 4) Psychol Rep.2004 Apr;94(2):613-8.
• Construction of a scale for
measuring development of moral judgement.
• Comunian AL.
• Abstract
• The present research is a part of a study done to develop an
objective measure of the development of moral judgement
according to Kohlberg's theoretical construct. The Padua
Scale of Moral Judgement and the relationship between
empirical data and theory are presented. The scale was
constructed from responses to the Sociomoral Reflection
Measure-Short Form derived from
Kohlberg's Moral Judgement Interview. Reliability and
validity of the new scale as well as group age and sex
differences were examined. 6
20

23. 5) Strategies of control, aggression, and morality in
preschoolers: an evolutionary perspective.
• Hawley PH.
• Abstract
• Moral reasoning, moral affect, social problem solving skills,
and social preferences were assessed in 163 ethnically mixed
preschoolers (2.86-5.95 years). Participants were rated by
their teachers on prosocial and coercive strategies of control,
success at resource control, and aggression (overt and
relational). Based on their employment of coercive and
prosocial strategies of resource control, the children were
categorized as bistrategic controllers, coercive controllers,
prosocial controllers, noncontrollers, or typicals. Teacher-
rated relational aggression was positively associated
withmoral maturity in girls. Bistrategic controllers, although
aggressive, were morally mature and preferred play partners
by their peers. The results are discussed in terms of
hypotheses that arise from evolutionary theory which
suggests that highly effective resource controllers would be
simultaneously aggressive and yet well aware
of moral norms. The findings are contrasted with alternative
hypotheses that might arise variously from traditional and
prevailing approaches. 7
21

24. CONCLUSION
Moral development focuses on the emergence, change, and
understanding of morality from infancy through adulthood.
In the field of moral development, morality is the principles
for how individuals ought to treat one another, with respect
to justice others’ welfare, and rights In order to investigate
how individuals understand morality, it is essential to
measure their beliefs, emotions, attitudes, and behaviors that
contribute to moral understanding.
SUMMARY
In this topic, we had seen about the moral development in that
the meaning types that is first accourding to the piaget and
second is the koholenberg’s and the stages of moral
development.
22

25. BIBLIOGRAPHY
1) Wong’s; essential of pediatric nursing; Mosby and Elsevier
Publication; 8th edition; page no 495-496; 519-520
2) Beevi Assuma T. M.; textbook of pediatric nursing;
Elsevier Publication; 1st edition; page no 65-77
3) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed 23264993
4) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18717895
5) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16942505
6) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15154193
7) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12810036
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