Moral Identity

Moral Development

Morality is a system of beliefs about what is right and good compared to what is wrong or bad. Moral development is the process whereby children develop an understanding of the proper attitudes and behaviors toward other people in society based on social and cultural norms, rules, and laws. Moral beliefs are related to, but not identical with, moral behavior: it is possible to know the right thing to do, but not actually do it. It is also not the same as knowledge of social conventions, which are arbitrary customs needed for the smooth operation of society. Social conventions may have a moral element, but they have a primarily practical purpose. Conventionally, for example, motor vehicles all keep to the same side of the street (to the right in the United States, to the left in Great Britain). The convention allows for the smooth, accident-free flow of traffic. But following the convention also has a moral element, because an individual who chooses to drive on the wrong side of the street can cause injuries or even death. In this sense, choosing the wrong side of the street is wrong morally, though the choice is also unconventional.

When it comes to schooling and teaching, moral choices are not restricted to occasional dramatic incidents but are woven into almost every aspect of classroom life. Imagine this simple example. Suppose that you are teaching, reading to a small group of second graders, and the students are taking turns reading a story out loud. Should you give every student the same amount of time to read, even though some might benefit from having additional time? Or should you give more time to the students who need extra help, even if doing so bores classmates and deprives others of equal shares of “floor time”? Which option is more fair, and which is more considerate? Simple dilemmas like this happen every day at all grade levels simply because students are diverse, and because class time and a teacher’s energy are finite.

Embedded in this rather ordinary example are moral themes about fairness or justice, on the one hand, and about consideration or care on the other. It is important to keep both themes in mind when thinking about how students develop beliefs about right or wrong. A morality of justice is about human rights—or more specifically, about respect for fairness, impartiality, equality, and individuals’ independence. A morality of care, on the other hand, is about human responsibilities—more specifically, about caring for others, showing consideration for individuals’ needs, and interdependence among individuals. Students and teachers need both forms of morality. In the next sections, therefore, we explain a major example of each type of developmental theory, beginning with the morality of justice.

Video 11.14 Moral Development

Piaget’s Theory of Moral Development

Piaget based his theory of moral development on the patterns of reasoning used by children of different ages about moral decisions.  These moral decisions made by children were based on short stories or “vignettes” told to the children who were then asked questions about who the child believed was naughtier.  For example,

1a. A little boy called John is in his room. He is called to dinner. He goes into the dining room. But behind the door, there was a chair, and on the chair, there was a tray with fifteen cups on it. John could not have known that there was all this behind the door. He goes in, the door knocks against the tray, bang go the fifteen cups and they all get broken!

1b. Once there was a little boy whose name was Henry. One day when his mother was out, he tried to get some jam out of the cupboard. He climbed up onto a chair and stretched out his arm. But the jam was too high, and he couldn’t reach it and have any. But while he was trying to get it he knocked over a cup. The cup fell down and broke.

The following dialog represents the typical 6-year-old’s response and the typical 9-year-old’s response to the teacup story:

Up until the age of about 2, Piaget (1965) believed that infants and children were premoral and had no conscious awareness of rules or morality.  However, based on his interviews with older children Piaget consistently found that children younger than 7 tend to view the child who broke more cups as being naughtier than the child who broke fewer cups.  However, by 8 years of age, the child begins to understand that one’s intentions are an important factor when judging morality.

Piaget (1965) suggested two main types of moral thinking:

• Heteronomous morality (moral realism) (4 to 7 years)
• Autonomous morality (moral relativism) (Begins by age 7 or 8)

Heteronomous Morality

Younger children, according to Piaget reasoned about morality in a way that was heteronomous, or subject to the control of others such as parents, teachers, and even God.  In addition, these authority figures have the ability to impose punishment based on their power over the child.  This type of thinking is also egocentric, in that the younger child cannot see the situation from different points of view, therefore intent is meaningless in the younger child’s determination of who is naughtier.

Another aspect of heteronomous thinking is immanent justice or the idea that automatic punishments come to someone based on their prior bad behavior or deed.  For example in one moral dilemma posed to children, Piaget notes how children in this stage believe that a boy who stole apples then ran away only to fall through a rotting bridge into the water, fell through the bridge because he stole the apples.  In other words, his fall was causally related to his bad deed and was a punishment for what he had done.

Autonomous Morality

This second stage sees the child move away from being egocentric and consequently begins to understand the broader perspective of another as well as their intentions.  The child also understands that rules are arbitrary constructs that are created by mutual consent for reasons of fairness and that following these rules is beneficial to them when interacting with others.

Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development

One of the best-known explanations of how the morality of justice develops was developed by Lawrence Kohlberg and his associates (Kohlberg, 1963).  To explore this area, he read the following moral dilemma to boys of different age groups:

A woman was on her deathbed. There was one drug that doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman’s husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: “No, I discovered the drug and I’m going to make money from it.” So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man’s laboratory to steal the drug for his wife. Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?

What is important in terms of the answer is not whether you replied, “Yes, I would steal the drug,” or “No, I would not steal the drug,” but rather your rationale for the answer.

Based on participants’ responses Kohlberg developed a three-level (preconventional, conventional, and postconventional), six-stage (two stages for each level) theory of moral development whereby individuals experience the stages universally and in sequence as they form beliefs about justice.

Preconventional Level

At the preconventional level, a child’s sense of morality is externally controlled. A child accepts that a rule is a rule simply because someone in authority says so. Any behavior that results in punishment is deemed as bad, whereas any behavior that results in a reward is deemed as good.

Stage 1: Punishment and Obedience – In this stage, children find it hard to distinguish between two separate moral points of view, especially in a moral dilemma. The focus continues to be on behaving according to adult rules and avoiding punishment.

Stage 2: Instrumental Purpose – In this stage, children start to understand people can have conflicting moral views in the same situation; however, they view the “right” choice as the choice that has the most benefit for themselves rather than others.

Conventional Level

At the conventional level, children still believe they should follow rules, but not only for themselves. Rather, rules should be followed to maintain social order and keep positive relationships among others.

Stage 3: Interpersonal Cooperation – In this stage, children want to obey rules because “that’s what a good person should do. ” They focus on maintaining positive relationships with others, and they believe a good person should be trustworthy, loyal, and respectful. The main idea in this stage is following the Golden Rule – “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. ”

Stage 4: Social-order maintenance – In this stage, a child begins to look at the bigger picture of the world and how rules impact it. Rules should be enforced in the same way for all people; equality plays a large role in morality. Children believe all people play a role in upholding and maintaining social order.

Postconventional or Principled Level

At the postconventional or principled level, children can think of morals and values in an abstract way and begin to realize some moral dilemmas do not have a clear-cut, right or wrong answer.

Stage 5: Social contract – In this stage, children start to see the flexibility of rules and can imagine alternative situations. The social contract orientation believes that a person follows (or breaks) a rule because it brings about more good than harm in the long run.

Stage 6: Universal ethical principle – In this stage, a child believes the right action is the one chosen by his or her conscience and what is in the best interest of a person, regardless of the legality. Children begin to consider how a law (or breaking a law) would impact a person’s life, values, and self-worth.

Video 11.15 Kohlberg’s stages of moral development

Table 11.3 Summary and Examples of Responses for Each Stage

Although research has supported Kohlberg’s idea that moral reasoning changes from an early emphasis on punishment and social rules and regulations to an emphasis on more general ethical principles, as with Piaget’s approach, Kohlberg’s stage model is probably too simple. First, Kohlberg’s theory focused on moral reasoning rather than moral behavior. This is problematic because there is only a moderate positive correlation between moral reasoning and moral behavior (Wu & Liu, 2014). Second, it has been argued that the stage model is particularly appropriate for Western, rather than non-Western, samples in which allegiance to social norms, such as respect for authority, may be particularly important (Atari et al., 2023).

Perhaps the most important critique of Kohlberg’s theory is that it may describe the moral development of males better than it describes that of females (Jaffee & Hyde, 2000). One of Kohlberg’s students, Carol Gilligan (1982) has argued that, because of differences in their socialization, males tend to value principles of justice and rights, whereas females value caring for and helping others. Although there is little evidence for a gender difference in Kohlberg’s stages of moral development (Walker, 1984), it is true that girls and women tend to focus more on issues of caring, helping, and connecting with others than do boys and men (Jaffee & Hyde, 2000).

Carol Gilligan and the Morality of Care

As logical as they sound, Kohlberg’s stages of moral justice are not sufficient for understanding the development of moral beliefs. To see why this is, suppose that you have a student who asks for an extension of the deadline for an assignment. The justice orientation of Kohlberg’s theory would prompt you to consider issues of whether granting the request is fair. Would the late student be able to put more effort into the assignment than other students? Would the extension place a difficult demand on you since you would have less time to mark the assignments? These are important considerations related to the rights of students and the teacher. In addition to these, however, are considerations having to do with the responsibilities that you and the requesting student have for each other and for others. Does the student have a valid personal reason (illness, death in the family, etc.) for the assignment being late? Will the assignment lose its educational value if the student has to turn it in prematurely? These latter questions have less to do with fairness and rights, and more to do with taking care of and responsibility for students. They require a framework different from Kohlberg’s to be understood fully.

One such framework has been developed by Carol Gilligan (1982), whose ideas center on the morality of care, or a system of beliefs about human responsibilities, care, and consideration for others. Gilligan proposed three moral positions that represent different extents or breadth of ethical care. Unlike Kohlberg, Piaget, or Erikson, she does not claim that the positions form a strictly developmental sequence, but only that they can be ranked hierarchically according to their depth or subtlety. The table below summarizes the three moral positions from Gilligan’s theory:

Table 11.4 Positions of Moral Development According to Gilligan

Position 1:  Survival Orientation

The most basic kind of caring is a survival orientation, in which a person is concerned primarily with his or her own welfare. If a teenage girl with this ethical position is wondering whether to get an abortion, for example, she will be concerned entirely with the effects of the abortion on herself. The morally good choice will be whatever creates the least stress for herself and that disrupts her own life the least. Responsibilities to others (the baby, the father, or her family) play little or no part in her thinking.

As a moral position, a survival orientation is obviously not satisfactory for classrooms on a widespread scale. If every student only looked out for himself or herself, classroom life might become rather unpleasant! Nonetheless, there are situations in which focusing primarily on yourself is both a sign of good mental health and relevant to teachers. For a child who has been bullied at school or sexually abused at home, for example, it is both healthy and morally desirable to speak out about how bullying or abuse has affected the victim. Doing so means essentially looking out for the victim’s own needs at the expense of others’ needs, including the bully’s or abuser’s. Speaking out, in this case, requires a survival orientation and is healthy because the child is taking care of themself.

Position 2: Conventional Caring

A more subtle moral position is conventional caring (caring for others), in which a person is concerned about others’ happiness and welfare, and about reconciling or integrating others’ needs where they conflict with each other. In considering an abortion, for example, the teenager at this position would think primarily about what other people prefer. Do the father, her parents, and/or her doctor want her to keep the child? The morally good choice becomes whatever will please others the best. This position is more demanding than Position 1, ethically and intellectually, because it requires coordinating several persons’ needs and values. But it is often morally insufficient because it ignores one crucial person: the self.

In classrooms, students who operate from Position 2 can be very desirable in some ways; they can be eager to please, considerate, and good at fitting in and at working cooperatively with others. Because these qualities are usually welcome in a busy classroom, teachers can be tempted to reward students for developing and using them. The problem with rewarding Position 2 ethics, however, is that doing so neglects the student’s development—his or her own academic and personal goals or values. Sooner or later, personal goals, values, and identity need attention and care, and educators have a responsibility for assisting students to discover and clarify them.

Position 3: Integrated Caring

The most developed form of moral caring in Gilligan’s model is integrated caring, the coordination of personal needs and values with those of others. Now the morally good choice takes account of everyone including yourself, not everyone except yourself. In considering an abortion, a woman at Position 3 would think not only about the consequences for the father, the unborn child, and her family but also about the consequences for herself. How would bearing a child affect her own needs, values, and plans? This perspective leads to moral beliefs that are more comprehensive but ironically are also more prone to dilemmas because the widest possible range of individuals are being considered.

In classrooms, integrated caring is most likely to surface whenever teachers give students wide, sustained freedom to make choices. If students have little flexibility about their actions, there is little room for considering anyone’s needs or values, whether their own or others. If the teacher says simply: “Do the homework on page 50 and turn it in tomorrow morning,” then the main issue becomes compliance, not a moral choice. But suppose instead that she says something like this: “Over the next two months, figure out an inquiry project about the use of water resources in our town. Organize it any way you want—talk to people, read widely about it, and share it with the class in a way that all of us, including yourself, will find meaningful.” An assignment like this poses moral challenges that are not only educational but also moral since it requires students to make value judgments. Why? For one thing, students must decide what aspect of the topic really matters to them. Such a decision is partly a matter of personal values. For another thing, students have to consider how to make the topic meaningful or important to others in the class. Third, because the timeline for completion is relatively far in the future, students may have to weigh personal priorities (like spending time with friends or family) against educational priorities (working on the assignment a bit more on the weekend). As you might suspect, some students might have trouble making good choices when given this sort of freedom—and their teachers might therefore be cautious about giving such an assignment. But the difficulties in making choices are part of Gilligan’s point: integrated caring is indeed more demanding than caring based only on survival or on consideration of others. Not all students may be ready for it.

Video 11.16 Carol Gilligan’s Theory of Moral Development

Social Domain Theory

Like the theories of Piaget, Kohlberg, and Gilligan, Social domain theory adopts the premise that children actively construct ways of understanding their world.  However, unlike these theories, moral development is viewed in terms of the individual’s interactions with their environment, and that moral reasoning is a separate domain of social knowledge.  According to Turiel (1983) there are three domains of knowledge, the moral (how individuals should treat one another), the societal (conventions designed to foster the functioning of social groups which can vary from culture to culture), and the personal (matters of individual choice that do not affect others).  Each of these domains is independent and develops in early childhood.  Consequently, children as young as four years of age can evaluate and assess not only their own moral behavior but the behavior of others.

In the tradition of Piaget and Kohlberg social domain researchers also ask children probing questions regarding the moral transgressions of others after having been presented with stories that reflect a moral indiscretion.  However, unlike Piaget and Kohlberg, follow questions such as, “Would it still be wrong to do “X” behavior even if there was no rule about it?” are asked.  Research from such studies has consistently revealed that children as young as 4 understand the difference between situations that are moral in nature (e.g., taking something that is not yours is always wrong) versus situations that are social in nature (e.g., It’s not polite to cut in front of the line), versus situation that are personal in nature (e.g., I don’t like loud discussion, but if someone else does then that’s their choice).

Moral Development in the Family

In the formation of children’s morals, no outside influence is greater than that of the family. Through punishment, reinforcement, and both direct and indirect teaching, families instill morals in children and help them to develop beliefs that reflect the values of their culture. Although families’ contributions to children’s moral development are broad, there are particular ways in which morals are most effectively conveyed and learned.

Justice

Families establish rules for right and wrong behavior, which are maintained through positive reinforcement and punishment. Positive reinforcement is the reward for good behavior and helps children learn that certain actions are encouraged above others. Punishment, by contrast, helps to deter children from engaging in bad behaviors, and from an early age helps children to understand that actions have consequences. This system additionally helps children to make decisions about how to act, as they begin to consider the outcomes of their own behavior.

Fairness

The notion of what is fair is one of the central moral lessons that children learn in the family context. Families set boundaries on the distribution of resources, such as food and living spaces, and allow members different privileges based on age, gender, and employment. The way in which a family determines what is fair affects children’s development of ideas about rights and entitlements, and also influences their notions of sharing, reciprocity, and respect.

Personal Balance

Through understanding principles of fairness, justice, and social responsibilities, children learn to find a balance between their own needs and wants and the interests of the greater social environment. By placing limits on their own individual desires, children benefit from a greater sense of love, security, and shared identity. At the same time, this connectedness helps children to refine their own moral system by providing them with a reference for understanding right and wrong.

Social Roles

In the family environment, children come to consider their actions not only in terms of justice but also in terms of emotional needs. Children learn the value of social support from their families and develop motivations based on kindness, generosity, and empathy, rather than on only personal needs and desires. By learning to care for the interests and well-being of their family, children develop concern for society.

Are We Born Moral? Helpers and Hinderers

In 2007, Hamlin and colleagues provided the first evidence that preverbal infants at 6 and at 10 months of age evaluate others on the basis of their helpful and unhelpful actions toward unknown third parties using what they called a “hill paradigm.”  All events began with a “Climber” (most commonly a red, circular wooden character with large plastic ‘googly’ eyes) resting at the bottom of a hill containing two inclines, one shallow and one steep. To imply that the Climber’s goal was to reach the top of the hill, the googly portions of the Climber’s eyes were fixed diagonally upward such that he “gazed” uphill during the entirety of each event.  “Helpers” and “Hinderers” were most commonly a blue square and a yellow triangle (whose googly eyes remained movable); whether the square or the triangle was the Helper was counterbalanced
across infants.

At the start of both Helper and Hinderer events, the Climber first moved easily up the shallow incline to a landing where he wiggled back and forth. He then made two unsuccessful attempts to climb the steeper incline; on his first attempt he made it 1/3 of the way up before coming back down and on his second attempt he made it 2/3 of the way. To imply the Climber’s movements up and down the hill reflected a failed intention to climb to the top, during each ascent the Climber decelerated as though fighting upward against gravity, while during each descent he accelerated as though falling down with gravity. On the Climber’s third attempt, Helper and Hinderer events diverged. During Helper events, the Helper entered the scene from the bottom of the hill and bumped the Climber up from below twice, pushing him to the top of the steep incline. The Climber then bounced up and down for several seconds (as though happy to have achieved his goal) and the Helper moved back down the hill and offstage. During Hinderer events, the Hinderer entered the scene from the top of the hill and bumped the Climber down from above twice, forcing him to the bottom of the steep incline. The Climber then rolled end-over-end to the very bottom of the hill and the Hinderer moved back up the hill and offstage. Infants viewed alternating Helper and Hinderer events until a pre-set habituation criterion was reached. Following habituation, infants were presented with soft, stuffed, doll images of the Helper and Hinderer to reach for. Both 6- and 10-month-olds selectively reached for the Helper, leading Hamlin et al. (2007) to conclude that the infants had based their decisions on a preference for those who performed positive social acts over those who performed negative social acts, and that this preference formed the basis for the development of later moral cognition.

 

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