The Evolution of Children's Moral Development Research The development of morality is critical to a child’s growth. Jean Piaget (1932) has been one of the most influential researchers, through his cognitive development, in conceptualizing concepts on how children solve moral dilemmas in day to day life. He observed children while playing marbles and analyzed their attitudes and behaviors in justice, fairness, and the way they handled the rules for the game (Santrock, 2007, p.423). This research allowed Piaget to develop two main stages—the heteronomous morality and the autonomous morality (Santrock, p.423). In the heteronomous stage, from 4 to 7 years of age, children see rules as handed down by a high authority (i.e. parents, government, or God) and that they required strict respect. In this stage, children simply accept rules and consider them as unchangeable (Berk, 2009, p.492). In the autonomous stage, from 10 and older, children start to drift apart from adult control thus creating an autonomy when solving moral issues. At this point, children realize that rules can actually be discussed and start to fit them according to the majority. “Through [rules], children realize that people’s perspective on moral action can differ and that intentions, not concrete consequences, should serve as the basis for judging behavior” (Berk, 2009, p. 492). Later, this topic was taken up by Lawrence Kohlberg (1969) who found significant concepts and features children display when solving moral dilemmas, these features and concepts had not been contemplated by Piaget in his earlier research which makes Kohlberg’s work a deeper research and furthered on moral development based on Piaget’s theory. Kohlberg actually based his research on story-telling, that is, he first told children a story presenting a moral dilemma—i.e. should a person steal a medicine to save a loved one’s life? He then asked children a number of questions. This led Kohlberg to theorize three main stages in moral development which are listed and explained in Table 1. When analyzing Piaget’s and Kohlberg’s research on moral development, I find significant similarities and differences in how they interpret their theories. On the one hand, for example, both, Piaget and Kohlberg, agreed that peer relations are critical for the construction of moral reasoning in children (Santrock, 2007, p. 427). Yet on the other hand, they differed on the presence of subjective moral judgments, that is, “the child is said to take into account subjective or inner factors besides what objectively happened” (Singer & Singer, 1969, p. 188), stated by Piaget on children at about seven or eight years of age, while argued by Kohlberg that it can be seen in younger children (Singer & Singer, p.190). Despite these difference and similarities, there is a clear evolution from what Piaget initially did to what Kohlberg researched on. The stages proposed by Kohlberg and stated in table 1 show a clear and deeper reasoning on the stages previously stated by Piaget. References Berk, L. A. (2009). Child Development. (8th Ed.). Boston: Pearson. Crain, W. (2005). Theories of development: Concepts and applications. (5th Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. Gilligan, C. (1982). In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and women’s Development. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Harris, S. (Writer), & Weiner, R. (Director). (2008). iPromise Not to Tell. In Joe Catania (Producer), iCarly. California: Viacom International Inc. Myers, D. G. (2007). Psychology. (8th Ed.). New York: Worth Publishers. Santrock, J. W. (2007). Child Development. (11th Ed.). New York: McGrawHill. Singer, R. D. & Singer, A. (1969). Psychological Development In Children. Philadelphia: W. B. Sounders Company.   Back to Top