Young children’s behaviors and attitudes toward ethical issues vary greatly.
AN OVERVIEW OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT
The socialization of moral beliefs and behavior is one of the main tasks in all cultures. Psychological research has focused on three basic components of morality—the cognitive, the behavioral, and the emotional components.
Research, which has in the past focused mostly on nonmoral, nonethical behaviors, is beginning to give more attention to the more positive aspects of behavior such as sharing, helping, and cooperating with others.
COGNITIVE THEORIES OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT
Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg have both proposed theories involving invariant sequences of stages of moral development related to the increasing cognitive complexity of the child.
Jean Piaget’s Cognitive Theory of Moral Development
Piaget proposed a three-stage approach; the premoral stage, the stage of moral realism, and the stage ruled by a morality of reciprocity, also called autonomous morality. Moral absolutism, a belief in immanent justice and objective responsibility, characterizes moral realism. In contrast, children in the stage of reciprocity recognize the arbitrariness of social rules and intentionality in their moral judgments.
Later research has shown that young children can distinguish between intentions and consequences if material is presented to them in a less complex manner. Many other factors affect children’s judgments.
Lawrence Kohlberg’s Cognitive Theory of Moral Development
Kohlberg proposed a theory of the development of moral judgment in which each of three levels contains two stages. The order of development is fixed and invariant, and movement is generally from lower levels—the preconventional and conventional levels, toward higher stages. Moral judgments continue to develop into adulthood, but few individuals reach the most advanced, postconventional levels (Stages 5 and 6).
Gilligan has proposed that Kohlberg’s model emphasizes a more masculine orientation, focusing on rights and logic, whereas an interpersonal and caring orientation may more accurately describe women’s moral reasoning and judgments.
Piaget emphasized the role of peers and Kohlberg, the importance of varied opportunities for role taking in the development of moral judgments. Both views tend to minimize the influence of parents in the development of moral judgments. There is evidence, however, that consistent discipline involving reasoning and explanation and concern with the feelings of others leads to both more mature moral judgments and more self-control and that a maturity of moral reasoning is related to cognitive maturity. Educational programs in which students explore possible solutions to moral dilemmas may be useful in developing moral reasoning.
Kohlberg’s theory may be flawed in some ways. The theory’s third level is controversial; relatively few people reach this level, in particular, the sixth stage of moral reasoning. In addition, cross-cultural research suggests that Kohlberg’s theory is culture-bound.
Distinguishing Moral Judgments from Other Social Rules
Rules of social convention, such as table manners and forms of address, are distinct from moral rules and follow a different developmental course, although children learn quite early to distinguish thesekindsofrulesfromeachother.Children also distinguish issues of morality and social convention from those that belong to the personal domain.
Do Moral Judgments Always Lead to Moral Behavior?
Moral judgments do not always lead to moral behavior, particularly among very young children.
THE BEHAVIORAL SIDE OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT
Self-Regulation and the Delay of Gratification
Self-regulation, the ability to inhibit one’s impulses and to behave in accord with social or moral rules, proceeds through three stages—the control phase, the self-control phase, and the self-regulation phase. In the latter phase, children become capable of delaying gratification.
Children can learn to use strategies and plans to help them postpone rewards and attend to a task at hand. Specific verbal plans are more useful to children than general directions.
Consistency Across Situations and Time
Self-control or moral behavior is strongly influenced by situational factors. As the elements of situations and types of behavior assessed become more similar, more consistency of moral conduct occurs. The development of conscience is linked with children’s achievement of self-regulatory capacities. Both self-regulation and the development of conscience are linked with mother-child relationships that are positive, responsive, and cooperative.
Some evidence indicates that children’s early ability to regulate their behavior is related to later social and cognitive competence.
THE EVOLUTION OF PROSOCIAL AND ALTRUISTIC BEHAVIORS
Prosocial behavior begins very early; helping, sharing, and exhibiting emotional reactions to the distress of others occur in the first and second years of life. Altruism may also appear quite early.
How Prosocial Behavior Evolves
Parents influence the emergence of altruistic behavior by their direct teaching in “distress” situations, by providing models, and by arranging for opportunities to behave in prosocial ways. Opportunities for children to take responsibility appear to lead to increased altruistic behavior. Similarly, role playing and empathy both contribute to the development of altruism and helping behavior.
Are Girls More Prosocial than Boys?
Girls tend to be more prosocial than boys, but gender differences depend on the type of prosocial behavior being expressed. Such differences are largest for expressions of kindness and consideration.
Determinants of Prosocial Behavior
Evidence of helping and sharing behavior in infrahuman animals leads some scientists to believe that evolution has prepared both humans and animals for prosocial behavior.
Environmental factors, including the family, the mass media, and general cultural influences sway prosocial and altruistic behaviors, but children probably learn such behaviors most often from modeling parental behaviors.
The Influence of Cognitive Development
Children’s prosocial reasoning evolves over time through a number of stages including hedonistic reasoning and needs-oriented reasoning, as values and norms become increasingly internalized.
Empathy, Perspective Taking, and Altruism
Both empathy and perspective taking contribute to the child’s capacity for altruistic behavior.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF AGGRESSION
WHAT IS AGGRESSION?
How Aggressive Behavior Develops in Children
Aggression undergoes important developmental shifts: Younger children show more instrumental aggression, whereas older children display more person-oriented or hostile aggression. Children's ability to correctly infer intent in others—which varies among individual children—may account, in part, for these shifts. Proactive aggression, which is used to dominate another person, decreases across development more than reactive aggression, which occurs in response to being attacked. The expression of aggression changes over time, becoming more verbal as children mature, but the amount and quality of aggression remain fairly stable.
Gender Differences in Aggression
Girls are more likely to use relational aggression than boys, who are more likely to use physical aggression. Aggression is moderately stable over age for both sexes. Clear gender differences in aggression are evident, with boys instigating and retaliating more than girls.
Origins of Aggressive Behavior
Certain parental disciplinary practices, especially ineffectual and erratic physical punishment, contribute to high levels of aggression in children. Lack of parental monitoring of children is another contributor to later aggressive behavior or even serious delinquency.
Biological influences on aggression include genetic, temperamental, and hormonal factors. All of these factors find expression in interaction with the environment.
Association with deviant peers can increase the possibility that a child will engage in aggressive or delinquent activities. Poverty and high-crime neighborhoods can also promote aggressive behavior.
Control of Aggression
Catharsis theory, the belief that aggression can be reduced by behaving aggressively against a safe target, has been seriously challenged by research evidence. Strategies that involve cognitive modification may be more successful. Some aggressive children who are socially unskilled may be helped to learn more prosocial behaviors through teaching them how to read others’ behavior more accurately and encouraging them to be more sensitive to the views and feelings of others.
Increasing children’s awareness of the harmful effects of aggression is an effective control technique, as are eliciting cooperation and the enjoyment of humor. Altering the environment by reducing crowding, providing adequate numbers of toys and playthings and providing toys that are nonaggressive in nature may also reduce aggression.