This document outlines key concepts in moral development including: 1. Theories of moral development from Piaget, Kohlberg, and others that propose stages of moral reasoning from childhood through adulthood. 2. Domains of moral development including thought, behavior, and feelings that develop through social and cognitive influences. 3. Contexts that shape moral development such as parenting, schools, and culture. Prosocial and antisocial behaviors in children and adolescents are also discussed.

1. Chapter Chpt 13 Outline
Please note that much of this information is quoted from the text.
I. DOMAINS OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT
A. What Is Moral Development?
• Involves thoughts, feelings, and behaviors regarding standards of right and wrong.
• The intrapersonal dimension is a person’s basic values and sense of self.
• The interpersonal dimension focuses on what people should do in their interactions with
other people.
B. Moral Thought
1. Piaget’s Theory
• Piaget believed that children are able to think differently as they mature, and that for
moral reasoning there are two stages:
a. Heteronomous morality is the first stage of moral development occurring at 4 to 7
years of age.
— Justice and rules are conceived of as unchangeable properties of the world
removed from the control of people.
— Immanent justice is the belief that all transgressions will be punished somehow.
— Consequences of an act determine how bad it is.
— Rules of a game cannot be broken.
b. Autonomous morality is the second stage beginning at about age 10, when the child
becomes aware that rules and laws are created by people.
— When judging an action, the intentions must be considered.
— Rules are agreed upon, and if all players agree, rules can be changed.
— Some transgressions go unpunished and life is not necessarily fair.
2. Kohlberg’s Theory
• Kohlberg also proposed that moral development develops in stages, linked to
individuals’ cognitive stage, and he used moral dilemmas to observe the reasoning of
different aged children. Kohlberg hypothesized three levels of moral development, each
of which is characterized by two stages and can be attained most effectively by
discussion using advanced moral reasoning.
a. Preconventional reasoning is controlled by external rewards and punishments.
— Stage 1: Heteronomous morality: Behavior is tied to punishment.
— Stage 2: Individualism, instrumental purpose, and exchange: People are nice
to others, so they will be nice in return.
b. Conventional reasoning: Laws and rules are revered for their own sake and are
obeyed
— Stage 3: Mutual interpersonal expectations, relationships, and interpersonal
conformity: trust, caring, and loyalty to others are valued as a basis of moral
judgments.
— Stage 4: Social systems morality: Moral judgments are based on understanding
the social order, law, justice, and duty.
c. Postconventional reasoning: At this level, a personal moral code is determined by
considering various alternatives and making a choice based on reason.
— Stage 5: Social contract or utility and individual rights: Individuals reason
that values, rights, and principles may transcend the law. Validity of current laws
and rules may be questioned and evaluated as to how they preserve and protect
fundamental human rights and values.
— Stage 6: Universal ethical principles: The highest stage in Kohlberg’s theory.
Individuals develop a moral standard based on universal human rights.
3.Influences on the Kohlberg Stages

2. •Although moral reasoning at each stage presupposes a certain level of cognitive
development, Kohlberg argued that advances in children’s cognitive development did not
ensure development of moral reasoning.
•Moral reasoning also reflects children’s experiences in dealing with moral questions and
moral conflict.
•Kohlberg believed that peer interaction is a critical part of social stimulation that challenges
children to change their moral reasoning.
4.Kohlberg’s Critics
• Key criticisms involve the following:
• The link between moral thought and moral behavior
• The role of culture in moral development
• Some assert that Kohlberg’s theory is culturally biased.
• Stages 5 and 6 have not been found in all cultures.
• Kohlberg’s scoring system does not recognize the higher-level moral reasoning
of certain cultures.
• Kohlberg’s approach misses or misconstrues some important moral concepts in
specific cultures.
• Contexts of Life-Span Development: Moral Reasoning in the United States and
India
• Cultural meaning systems vary around the world and these systems shape
children’s morality.
• Indians view moral rules as part of the natural world order. Thus, Indians do
not distinguish between physical, moral, and social regulation, as Americans
do.
• In India, social rules are seen as inevitable, much like the law of gravity.
• Families and Moral Development
• Kohlberg argued that family processes are essentially unimportant in children’s
moral development.
• Most developmentalists emphasize that parents play more important roles in
children’s moral development than Kohlberg envisioned.
• Gender and the Care Perspective
• Carol Gilligan criticizes Kohlberg’s theory on the basis that it does not reflect
relationships and concern for others and proposed two prospectives to consider:
• Justice perspective: focuses on the rights of the individual, with moral
decisions being made independently (Kohlberg’s theory).
• Care perspective: focuses on interpersonal connectedness and relationships,
and this perspective is lacking in Kohlberg’s theory and is more often a
female perspective.
• Assessment of Moral Reasoning
• Some developmentalists fault the quality of Kohlberg’s research and stress that
more attention should be paid to the way moral development is assessed.
• Social Conventional Reasoning
• Some argue that Kohlberg did not adequately distinguish between moral
reasoning and social conventional reasoning.
• Social conventional reasoning focuses on thoughts about social consensus and
convention rather than the moral issues in Kohlberg’s theory.
• In contrast, moral reasoning focuses on ethical issues and rules of morality.
• Social conventional rules are arbitrary, moral rules are not.
• Some issues belong to a personal domain, not governed by moral strictures or
social norms—such as control over one’s body, privacy, and choice of friends and
activities.
C. Moral Behavior
1. Basic Processes

3. • Behavioral view: Reinforcement and punishment are environmental determinants of
behavior. Models (i.e., imitation) of moral behavior are also important, and moral
behavior is situationally dependent.
2. Resistance to Temptation and Self-Control
 Mischel argues that cognitive factors affect self-control.
 Providing rationales for not engaging in a behavior are more effective in helping children
demonstrate self-control and resist temptation than are punishments that do not use
reasoning.
3. Social Cognitive Theory
• Social cognitive theory of morality highlights the relationship between
environment, cognition, and behavior. It emphasizes a distinction between moral
competence and moral performance
• Moral competencies include what children are capable of doing, what they
know, their skills, awareness of moral rules, and their cognitive ability to
construct behaviors.
• Moral performance is determined by motivation and the rewards or incentives
to act in a specific moral way.
D. Moral Feeling
1. Psychoanalytic Theory
• Ego ideal rewards the child with pride when the child behaves appropriately, whereas the
conscience punished the child when the child misbehaves by making the child feel guilty
and worthless.
• Children internalize their parents’ standards of right and wrong, which reflect societal
prohibitions and hence develop the superego.
• In the psychoanalytic account of moral development, children conform to societal
standards to avoid guilt.
• Freud’s claims regarding the formation of the ego ideal and conscience cannot be
verified.
• Recent research indicates that young children are aware of right and wrong, have the
capacity to show empathy toward others, experience guilt, indicate discomfort following
a transgression, and are sensitive to violating rules.
• Girls express more guilt than boys.
2. Empathy
• Empathy means reacting to another’s feelings with an emotional response that is similar
to the other’s feelings.
• Empathy requires a cognitive component—perspective taking (the ability to discern
another’s inner psychological states)
• Global empathy is the young infant’s empathic response in which clear boundaries
between the feelings and needs of the self and those of another have not yet been
established.
• When they are 1 to 2 years of age, infants may feel genuine concern for the distress of
other people, but only when they reach early childhood can they respond appropriately to
another person’s distress.
• By late childhood, they may begin to feel empathy for the unfortunate.
3.The Contemporary Perspective on the Role of Emotion in Moral Development:
• Emotions provide a base for the development of moral values, motivating children to pay
close attention to moral events.
• Moral emotions are inextricably interwoven with the cognitive and social aspects of
children’s development.
E. Moral Personality
• Thoughts, behavior, and feelings can all be involved in an individual’s moral
personality.
• Three aspects of moral personality that have recently been emphasized are moral
identity, moral character, and moral exemplars.

4. a. Moral Identity
• Individuals have a moral identity when moral notions and commitments are central to
one’s life.
• In this view, behaving in a manner that violates this moral commitment places the
integrity of the self at risk.
b. Moral Character
• Moral character involves having the strength of your convictions, persisting, and
overcoming distractions and obstacles.
• Moral character presupposes that the person has set moral goals and that achieving
those goals involves the commitment to act in accordance with those goals.
• Moral motivation involves prioritizing moral values over other personal values.
c. Moral Exemplars
• Moral exemplars are people who have lived exemplary lives.
• Moral exemplars have a moral personality, identity, character, and a set of virtues that
reflect moral excellence and commitment.
• Three different moral exemplars have been identified—brave, caring, and just.
II. CONTEXTS OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT
A. Parenting
• Neither Piaget nor Kohlberg acknowledged parental input as being essential to children’s
moral behavior, but instead felt that peers were more influential.
1.Parenting
• In Ross Thompson’s view, young children are moral apprentices, striving to understand
what is moral.
• Among the most important aspects of the relationship between parents and children that
contribute to children’s moral development are relational quality, parental discipline,
proactive strategies, and conversational dialogue.
a. Relational Quality
• Parent-child relationships introduce children to the mutual obligations of close
relationships.
• An early mutually responsive orientation between parents and their infant and a
decrease in parents’ use of power assertion in disciplining a young child were linked
to an increase in the child’s internalization and self-regulation.
• Secure attachment may play an important role in children’s moral development.
b. Proactive Strategies
• An important parenting strategy is to proactively avert potential misbehavior by
children before it takes place.
• Diversion works well with younger children.
• With older child, talking about values, cocooning, and pre-arming are good proactive
strategies.
c. Conversational Dialogue
• Conversations related to moral development can benefit children whether they occur
as part of a discipline encounter or outside the encounter in the everyday stream of
parent-child interaction.
d.Parenting Recommendations
• Children who behave morally tend to have parents who:
o Are warm and supportive rather than punitive
o Provide opportunities for the children to learn about others’ perspectives
and feelings
o Involve children in family decision making and the process of thinking
about moral decisions
o Model moral behaviors and thinking themselves, and provide opportunities
for their children to do so
o Provide information about what behaviors are expected and why

5. o Foster an internal rather than an external sense of morality
e.Schools
o The Hidden Curriculum – this is the moral atmosphere that is a part of
every school.
o Character Education – a direct education approach that involves teaching
students a basic moral literacy to prevent them from engaging in immoral
behavior and doing harm to themselves or others.
• Every school should have an explicit moral code that is clearly
communicated to students.
o Values Clarification – an approach to moral education that helps people to
clarify what their lives mean and what is worth working for.
o Cognitive Moral Education – an approach to moral education that is based
on the belief that students should learn to value such things as democracy
and justice as their moral reasoning develops.
o Service Learning – a form of education that promotes social responsibility
and service to the community.
• Service learning is often more effective when two conditions are
met: 1) students are given some degree of choice in the service
activities in which they participate, and 2) students are provided
opportunities to reflect about their participation.
• Service learning benefits adolescents in a number of ways,
including:
• Higher grades in school
• Increased goal-setting
• Higher self-esteem
• An improved sense of being able to make a difference for
others
• An increased likelihood that they will serve as volunteers in
the future
o Cheating – a moral education concern is whether students cheat and how to
handle the cheating if they discover it.
• 60% of secondary school students report that they have cheated on
a test and 1/3 report plagiarizing information from the Internet.
• Among the reasons students give for cheating include the pressure
for getting high grades, time pressures, poor teaching, and lack of
interest.
o An Integrative Approach – an approach to moral education that
encompasses both the reflective moral thinking and commitment to justice
advocated in Kohlberg’s approach, and developing a particular moral
character as advocated in the character education approach.
• Integrative ethical education is a program that aims to turn moral
novices into moral experts by educating students about four ethical
skills that moral experts possess: ethical sensitivity, ethical
judgment, ethical focus, and ethical action.
III. PROSOCIAL AND ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR
A. Prosocial Behavior
 Involves caring about the welfare and rights of others, feeling concern and empathy for them,
and acting in a way that benefits others.
1. Altruism and Reciprocity
 Altruism: An unselfish interest in helping another person.
 Many behaviors that appear to be altruistic are actually motivated by reciprocity, the
obligation to return a favor with a favor.

6.  Reciprocity or altruism may motivate many important prosocial behaviors, including
sharing.
2. Sharing and Fairness
• As described by Damon, there is a developmental sequence of sharing that develops in
children.
• Three-year-olds share for the fun of social play ritual or imitation.
• By 4 years, a combination of empathic awareness and adult encouragement produce an
obligation to share.
• By school age, children express a more objective idea about fairness or equality.
• School age children emphasize equality, benevolence, and merit.
• Prosocial behavior occurs more often in adolescence than in childhood, although
examples of caring for others and comforting someone in distress occur even during the
preschool years.
3. Gender and Prosocial Behavior
 Across childhood and adolescence, females engage in more prosocial behavior than
males.
4. Altruism and Volunteerism in Older Adults
• A recent study found that 1/3 of adults over age 50 say that they either volunteer now or
have volunteered in the past.
• The rate of volunteering increases from middle adulthood to later adulthood.
• When older adults engage in altruistic behavior and volunteering, they benefit from these
activities.
• Benefits include better health, lower depression, lower anxiety, and increased life
satisfaction.
B. Antisocial Behavior
 Most individuals act out or do things that are destructive to themselves or others at some time
in their lives.
 If acting out or destructive behaviors occur frequently, psychiatrists will diagnose children
with conduct disorders. If the behaviors are illegal, society labels the juveniles as
delinquents. Both of the aforementioned problems are more likely to occur in males than in
females.
1. Conduct Disorder
 Age-inappropriate actions and attitudes that violate family expectations, society’s norms,
and the personal or property rights of others.
 It is more common in boys than girls.
• It is estimated that 5 percent of children show serious conduct problems.
• The externalizing, or undercontrolled pattern of conduct disorder, often includes
impulsive, overactive, aggressive, and delinquent behavior patterns.
• Causes include difficult temperament (genetic), ineffective parenting, and living in a
violent neighborhood.
2. Juvenile delinquency refers to an adolescent who breaks the law or engages in behavior that
is considered illegal.
 FBI statistics indicate that at least 2% of all youth are involved in juvenile cases.
 U.S. government statistics reveal that 8 out of 10 cases of juvenile delinquency
involve males, although there has been an increase in female delinquency during the
last 20 years.
 A distinction is made between early onset (before age 11) and late onset (after age 11)
antisocial behavior.
 Early onset antisocial behavior is associated with more negative developmental
outcomes than late onset antisocial behavior.
 Delinquency rates among minority groups and lower SES youth are especially high
in proportion to the overall population of these groups.
 In the Pittsburg Youth Study, three developmental pathways to delinquency were
identified: authority conflict, covert, and overt.

7. • Trying adolescent offenders as adults has been found to increase rather than decrease
their crime rate.
a. Causes of Delinquency
• Erikson saw delinquency as an attempt to establish an identity, although a negative
one.
• Some characteristics of a lower SES culture might promote delinquency.
• Certain characteristics of family support systems are also associated with
delinquency.
• Parents of delinquents are less skilled in discouraging antisocial behavior and in
encouraging skilled behavior than are parents of non-delinquents.
• Parental monitoring is especially important in determining whether an adolescent
becomes a delinquent.
• Family discord and inappropriate discipline is associated with delinquency.
• Sibling delinquency has a strong influence.
• Having delinquent peers has a strong influence.
• Cognitive factors, such as low self-control, low intelligence, and lack of sustained
attention, are also implicated in delinquency.
• Research in Life-Span Development: Fast Track
• Fast Track is an intervention that attempts to lower the risk of juvenile
delinquency and other problems.
• The 10-year intervention consisted of behavior management training of parents,
social-cognitive training of children, reading tutoring, home visitations,
mentoring, and a revised classroom curriculum that was designed to increase
socioemotional competence and decrease aggression.
• The intervention was only successful for those children identified as the highest
risk in kindergarten.
IV. VALUES, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY, AND MEANING
 James Garbarino interviewed youth who kill and found that the youth had a spiritual or
emotional emptiness. These youth attempted to find meaning in the dark side of life.
 Spirituality involves a sense of connectedness to a sacred other.
A. Values
• Values are beliefs and attitudes about the way people think things should be. They
involve what is important to us.
• Traditional-aged college students report an increased concern for personal well-being and
a decreased concern for the well-being of others especially the disadvantaged.
• College freshman are more committed to financial success and less committed to
developing a meaningful philosophy of life than were their counterparts 10–20 years ago.
• There are some signs that U.S. college students are shifting toward a stronger interest in
the welfare of society.
• A major difficulty confronting today’s youth is their lack of a clear sense of what they
want to do with their lives.
• Damon argues that their goals and values too often focus on the short term, rather
than developing a plan for the future based on positive values.
B. Religion and Spirituality – One long-standing source for discovering purpose in life is
religion.
1. Childhood, Adolescence, and Emerging Adulthood
• Societies use many methods – such as Sunday schools, parochial education, and parental
teaching – to ensure that people will carry on a religious tradition.
• In general, individuals tend to adopt the religious teachings of their upbringing.
• Religious issues are important to many adolescents and emerging adults, but in the 21st
century, a downtrend in religious interest among college students has occurred.
• A recent developmental study revealed that religiousness declined from 14 to 20 years of
age in the U.S.

8. • Analysis of the World Values Survey of 18- to 24-year-olds revealed that emerging adults
in less developed countries were more likely to be religious than their counterparts in
more developed countries.
• Religion and Cognitive Development:
o Adolescence and emerging adulthood can be especially important junctures in
religious development.
o Many of the cognitive changes thought to influence religious development
involve Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory.
o The increase in abstract thinking lets adolescents consider various ideas about
religious and spiritual concepts.
• Religion and Identity Development:
o As part of their search for identity, adolescents and emerging adults begin to
grapple in more sophisticated, logical ways the big spiritual questions.
o Adolescence and adulthood can serve as gateways to a spiritual identity.
• The Positive Role of Religion in Adolescents’ Lives:
o Researchers have found that various aspects of religion are linked with positive
outcomes for adolescence, including:
 Better grades
 Social competence
 Positive peer relations
 Emotional regulation
 Prosocial behavior
 Self-esteem
 Lower rates of delinquency
 Lower rates of drug and alcohol use
 Lower truancy
 Lower depression rates
 Internalization of caring and concern for others
 Higher involvement in community service
2. Adulthood and Aging
a. Religion and Spirituality in Adulthood
• The vast majority of U.S. adults (70%) consider themselves religious and believe that
spirituality is a major part of their lives.
• Females are more religious than males.
• African Americans and Latinos show higher rates of religious participation than non-
Latino White Americans.
• It is important to consider individual differences when thinking about religion.
b. Religion and Health
• Some studies find a positive link between religiosity, health, and longevity.
• Religion might promote physical health because: (a) religious individuals have
healthier lifestyles, (b) religious organizations provide social opportunities/functions,
and (c) religion provides a source of comfort and assists in coping with stressful
events.
• Applications in Life-Span Development: Religion and Coping
• Some styles of religious coping are associated with high levels of personal
initiative and competence.
• Religious coping behaviors appear to function quite well during times of high
stress.
• Spiritual support is related to lower depression and higher self-esteem.
• Meaning-making coping involves drawing on beliefs, values, and goals to
change the meaning of a stressful situation.
• Religious beliefs can shape a person’s psychological perception of pain or
disability.

9. • The socialization provided by religious organizations can help prevent isolation
and loneliness.
c. Religion in Older Adults
• In many societies around the world, older adults are the spiritual leaders in their
churches and communities.
• Religious attendance at least weekly compared to never was linked to a lower risk of
morality.
• Spirituality/religiousness is linked to a lower incidence of depression in older adults.
• There is an increase in spirituality between late middle adulthood and late adulthood,
more so for females than males.
• Older adults are more likely to say that religion is the most significant aspect in their
lives (after age 65) and report a strong interest in spirituality and prayer. They also
attend religious services.
• There is a positive correlation between religiosity and self-esteem.
• Religion can meet some important psychological needs in older adults, helping them
to face impending death, to find and maintain a sense of meaningfulness in life, and
to accept the inevitable losses of old age.
C. Meaning in Life
 Frankl believes that the three most distinct human qualities are spirituality, freedom, and
responsibility.
 Baumeister and Vohs believes that the quest for a meaningful life can be understood in terms
of four main needs for meaning:
 Need for purpose.
 Need for values.
 Need for a sense of efficacy.
 Need for self-worth.