according to piaget, in what stage do children begin to consider that rules can be conditional?
Piaget'due south Theory of Moral Development
By Dr. Saul McLeod, updated 2015
Moral development refers to the process through which children develop the standards of right and incorrect within their society, based on social and cultural norms, and laws.
Lawrence Kohlberg describes moral development as a process of discovering universal moral principles, and is based on a child's intellectual development.
Piaget conceptualizes moral development every bit a constructivist procedure, whereby the interplay of activity and thought builds moral concepts.
Piaget (1932) was principally interested not in what children practice (i.e., in whether they break rules or non) just in what they think. In other words he was interested in children'south moral reasoning.
Piaget was interested in three main aspects of children's understanding of moral problems. They were
Children'due south understanding of rules. This leads to questions like
• Where do rules come up from?
• Can rules be changed?
• Who makes rules?
Children'due south understanding of moral responsibleness. This leads to questions like
• Who is to arraign for "bad" things?
• Is it the outcome of beliefs that makes an action "bad"?
• Is there a difference between accidental and deliberate wrongdoing?
Children's agreement of justice. This leads to questions like
• Should the punishment fit the crime?
• Are the guilty always punished?
Piaget found that children's ideas regarding rules, moral judgements and punishment tended to change every bit they got older. In other words just equally there were stages to children'due south cognitive evolution so there were also universal stages to their moral development.
Piaget (1932) suggested two main types of moral thinking:
- Heteronomous morality (moral realism)
- Autonomous morality (moral relativism)
Heteronomous Morality (5-nine yrs)
The stage of heteronomous morality is also known as moral realism – morality imposed from the outside. Children regard morality equally obeying other people's rules and laws, which cannot exist inverse.
They accept that all rules are made by some potency figure (due east.g. parents, teacher, God), and that breaking the rules will lead to immediate and severe penalty (immanent justice).
The function of any punishment is to brand the guilty endure in that the severity of the punishment should be related to severity of wrong-doing (expiatory punishment).
During this stage children consider rules equally being accented and unchanging, i.e. 'divine similar'. They think that rules cannot exist changed and have always been the same as they are now.
behavior is judged every bit "bad" in terms of the observable consequences, regardless on the intentions or reasons for that behavior. Therefore, a big amount of adventitious damage is viewed every bit worse than a small amount of deliberate damage.
Research Findings
Piaget (1932) told the children stories that embodied a moral theme and so asked for their opinion. Hither are two examples:
In that location was in one case a little girl who was called Marie. She wanted to requite her mother a nice surprise and cut out a slice of sewing for her. Merely she didn't know how to use the scissors properly and cut a big pigsty in her wearing apparel.
and
A petty daughter called Margaret went and took her mother's scissors one day when her mother was out. She played with them for a bit. And then, as she didn't know how to apply them properly, she made a little hole in her wearing apparel.
The kid is and then asked, "Who is naughtier?"
Typically younger children (pre-operational and early concrete operational i.e. upwardly to age 9-10) say that Marie is the naughtier child.
Although they recognise the distinction between a well-intentioned act that turns out badly and a careless, thoughtless or malicious deed they tend to gauge naughtiness in terms of the severity of the upshot rather than in terms of motives. This is what Piaget ways by moral realism.
Piaget was likewise interested in what children understand past a prevarication. Here he plant that the seriousness of a lie is measured past younger children in terms of the size of the deviation from the truth.
And so a child who said he saw a dog the size of an elephant would be judged to have told a worse lie than a kid who said he saw a dog the size of a horse even though the first child is less likely to be believed.
With regard to penalisation Piaget also institute that immature children also had a characteristic view. Firstly they saw the function of penalty every bit brand the guilty suffer. Paint called this retributive justice (or expiatory punishment) considering penalty is seen as an act of retribution or revenge.
If you like young children take a very Old Testament view of punishment ("an eye for an heart"). Punishment is seen as a deterrent to further wrongdoing and the stricter information technology is the more effective they imagine it volition be.
They also believe in what Piaget called immanent justice (that punishment should automatically follow bad behavior). For example i story he told was of ii children who robbed the local farmer'due south orchard (today nosotros might take the example of children who robbed cars).
The farmer saw the children and tried to catch them. One was caught and the farmer gave him a thrashing. The other, who could run faster, got away. Even so on the way dwelling this kid had to cross the stream on a very slippery log. This child fell off the log and cutting his leg desperately.
Now when you inquire younger children why the boy cutting his leg they don't say, "because the log was slippery," they say, "because he stole from the farmer". In other words immature children interpret misfortune as if information technology were some kind of penalization from God of from some kind of superiour force.
For young children justice is seen equally in the nature of things. The guilty in their view are always punished (in the long run) and the natural world is similar a policeman.
Piaget (1932) described the morality described higher up equally heteronomous morality. This ways a morality that is formed out of being subject to some other's rules.
Of grade for young children these are the rules that adults impose upon them. Information technology is thus a morality that comes from unilateral respect. That is to say the respect children owe to their parents, teachers and others.
However as children get older the circumstances of their lives change and their whole mental attitude to moral questions undergoes a radical alter. An example of this is is how children respond to a question about the wrongdoing of a member of their peer group.
Immature children typically "tell" on others. They believe their primary obligation is to tell the truth to an adult when asked to do so. Older children typically believe that their first loyalty is to their friends and you don't "grass" on your mates. This would be one example of the two moralities of the child.
Autonomous Morality (9-ten yrs)
The stage of autonomous morality is also known every bit moral relativism – morality based on your own rules. Children recognize there is no absolute correct or wrong and that morality depends on intentions not consequences.
Piaget believed that around the age of nine-ten children's agreement of moral issues underwent a primal reorganisation. By now they are beginning to overcome the egocentrism of middle childhood and have adult the ability to see moral rules from other people'southward indicate of view.
A child who can decentre to take other people'south intentions and circumstances into account tin can move to making the more contained moral judgements of the 2d stage. As a result children's ideas on the nature of rules themselves, on moral responsibility and on punishment and justice all change and their thinking becomes more than like that of adults.
Children now sympathise that rules do non come from some mystical "divine-similar" source. People brand rules and people can change them – they are not inscribed on tablets of stone. With regard to the "rules of the game" older children recognise that rules are needed to forestall quarrelling and to ensure off-white play.
Indeed sometimes they even get quite fascinated with the whole issue and will for example discuss the rules of board games (like chess, Monopoly, cards) or sport (the off-side rule) with all the interest of a lawyer. They also recognise that rules can be changed if circumstances dictate (eastward.g. "You've got one player less so nosotros will give you lot a three goal start") and if everybody agrees.
With regard to issues of blame and moral responsibility older children don't but take the consequences into account they besides consider motives. Children begin to realize that if they acquit in means that appear to exist wrong, but have expert intentions, they are not necessarily going to exist punished. Thus for them a well-intentioned act that turned out badly is less blameworthy than a malicious act that did no harm.
So in the previous inquiry study children of 10 and over typically consider Margaret the naughtier child. Although Marie fabricated a much bigger hole in her apparel she was motivated by the desire to please her mother whereas Margaret may take caused less damage just did not act out of noble intentions.
Information technology all goes to bear witness, in Piaget'due south stance, that children are now able to appreciate the significance of subjective facts and of internal responsibility.
Children's views on lying also alter. The seriousness of a lie is judged in terms of betrayal of trust. They now recognise that all lies are not the aforementioned and, for example, you might tell a "white lie" in lodge to spare someone's feelings.
They also recognise that if someone says something that they know not to be the case this doesn't necessarily mean the other person is telling a lie. Information technology could be that they made a fault or that this is a difference of opinion. Overall lying is now considered wrong not because you lot get punished for it by adults (the younger children'due south view) but because it is a betrayal of trust and undermines friendship and co-performance.
With regard to penalisation the emphasis now moves from retribution to restitution. It's purpose is not primarily to make the guilty suffer simply to put things right again.
In other words punishment should exist aimed at helping the offender understand the harm (south)he has caused so that (due south)he will not exist motivated to repeat the offence and, wherever possible, punishment should fit the criminal offence – say for case when a vandal is required to brand skilful the damage (s)he has caused.
Older children also recognise that justice in real life is an imperfect system. Sometimes the guilty get away with their crimes and sometimes the innocent suffer unfairly. For younger children commonage punishment is seen as acceptable.
For example they would not disagree with a whole class being punished for the misdeeds of a unmarried child. For the older children it is always considered wrong to punish the innocent for the misdeeds of the guilty.
Overall Piaget describes the morality of the older child every bit an autonomous morality i.eastward. a morality that is field of study to its own laws. The modify is partly seen as a result of the kid's general cognitive development partly due to failing egocentrism and partly to the growing importance of the peer group.
The reference grouping for children'due south moral behavior is increasingly focused on other children and disputes betwixt equals need to be negotiated and compromises made. In place of the unilateral respect the younger children owed to their parents an mental attitude of mutual respect governs relations between peers.
Critical Evaluation
Piaget's theory of children'due south moral development can exist seen as an application of his ideas on cognitive development generally. As such his theory here has both the strengths and weaknesses of his overall theory.
ane. Reliability
Piaget uses qualitative methods (observation and clinical interviews). His enquiry is based on very small samples. His methods are not standardised and therefore not replicable.
It is incommunicable to say from his enquiry how generalizable the results are. His is exploratory research, which is useful for generating new ideas rather than for the rigorous testing of hypotheses.
2. Validity
Is Piaget testing what he thinks he is testing? This isn't clear. For example in his story of the cleaved cups Piaget claims to observe a departure in children'southward views of what is right or off-white.
However it may be that the answer the children give is based on their view of what would actually happen in such circumstances not what they recall should happen.
3. Underestimating children's charge per unit of evolution
Piaget argues that the shift from "moral realism" to "moral relativism" occurs around the historic period of 9 to 10 and that children younger than this do not accept motives into business relationship when judging how much someone is to blame.
Other research suggests that children develop an understanding of the significance of subjective facts at a much earlier age. Nelson (1980) plant that fifty-fifty 3-year olds could distinguish intentions from consequences if the story was made simple enough.
4. What do children's replies to a story actually mean?
This again isn't necessarily clear. Practise they understand the story? Are they able to think it correctly? Practise they give the answer that they call back volition please the experimenter? Is their reply governed by the noun aspects of the story (what actually happens) or past the moral principle embedded in information technology?
5. Does Piaget tell united states of america what we want to know?
Piaget's research is most children'southward moral reasoning. Many psychologists argue that what is far more than of import is not what children think about moral problems but how they actually bear.
And we should not forget that there is no 1 to one relationship between attitudes and behavior. La Pierre (1934) proved that in his research with the Chinese couple driving round America.
APA Manner References
LaPiere, R. T. (1934). Attitudes vs. deportment. Social forces, thirteen(ii), 230-237
Nelson, South. A. (1980). Factors influencing young children'due south utilize of motives and outcomes as moral criteria. Kid Development, 823-829.
Piaget, J. (1932). The moral judgment of the child. London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.
How to reference this commodity:
How to reference this article:
McLeod, Due south. A. (2015). Piaget'due south theory of moral development. Simply Psychology. world wide web.simplypsychology.org/piaget-moral.html
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