Moral development
Moral development focuses on the emergence, change, and understanding of morality from infancy through adulthood. The theory states that morality develops across a lifespan in a variety of ways and is influenced by an individual's experiences and behavior when faced with moral issues through different periods of physical and cognitive development. Morality concerns an individual's reforming sense of what is right and wrong; it is for this reason that young children have different moral judgment and character than that of a grown adult. Morality in itself is often a synonym for "rightness" or "goodness." It also refers to a specific code of conduct that is derived from one's culture, religion, or personal philosophy that guides one's actions, behaviors, and thoughts.[1]
This article is about the development of morality in individuals. For theories about the development of morality on a societal scale, see moral progress.
Some of the earliest known moral development theories came from philosophers like Confucius, Aristotle and Rousseau, who took a more humanist perspective and focused on the development of a sense of conscience and virtue. In the modern-day, empirical research has explored morality through a moral psychology lens by theorists like Sigmund Freud and its relation to cognitive development by theorists like Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, B. F. Skinner, Carol Gilligan, and Judith Smetana.
Moral development often emphasizes these four fundamentals: First, feeling or emotion aspect: these theories emphasize the affective aspect of moral development and include several altruism theories. Second, behavioural aspect: these theories mainly deal with moral behaviour. Third, the Cognitive aspect: these theories focus on moral judgment and moral reasoning. Fourth, Integrated perspectives: several theorists have also attempted to propose theories which integrate two or three of the affective, behavioural, and cognitive aspects of morality.[2]
Cognition and intentionality[edit]
A hallmark of moral understanding is intentionality, which can be defined as "an attribution of the target's intentions towards another,"[19] or a sense of purpose or directedness towards a certain result.[20] According to researchers Malle, Moses, and Baldwin (2001), five components make up people's concept of intentionality: an action is considered intentional if a personal has (a) a desire for an outcome, (b) a belief that the action will lead to the outcome, (c) an intention to perform the action, (d) skill to perform the action, and (e) awareness while performing it.[21]
Recent research on children's theory of mind (ToM) has focused on when children understand others' intentions[22] The moral concept of one's intentionality develops with experience in the world. Yuill (1984) presented evidence that comprehension of one's intentions plays a role in moral judgment, even in young children.[23] Killen, Mulvey, Richardson, Jampol, and Woodward (2011) present evidence that with developing false belief competence (ToM), children are capable of using information about one's intentions when making moral judgments about the acceptability of acts and punishments, recognizing that accidental transgressors, who do not hold hostile intentions, should not be held accountable for adverse outcomes.
[24] In this study, children who lacked false belief competence were more likely to attribute blame to an accidental transgressor than children with demonstrated false belief competence. In addition to evidence from a social cognitive perspective, behavioral evidence suggests that even three-year-olds can take into account a person's intention and apply this information when responding to situations. Vaish, Carpenter, and Tomasello (2010), for instance, presented evidence that three-year-olds are more willing to help a neutral or helpful person than a harmful person.[25] Beyond identifying one's intentionality, mental state understanding plays a crucial role in identifying victimization. While obvious distress cues (e.g., crying) allow even three-year-olds to identify victims of harm,[26] it is not until around six years of age that children can appreciate that a person may be an unwilling victim of harm even in the absence of obvious distress.[27] In their study, Shaw and Wainryb (2006) discovered that children older than six interpret compliance, resistance, and subversion to illegitimate requests (e.g., clean my locker) from a victim's perspective. That is, they judge that victims who resist illegitimate requests will feel better than victims who comply.
Throughout the lifespan[edit]
Infant[edit]
Infants, as they are newly entering the world, are not aware of morality or rules in general. This puts them at a stage of life where they are focusing on learning about the world around them through the people they are around. They are able to pick up on social connections and kindness, even if they are not explicitly aware of social cues or rules.[38]
An infant is not held accountable for wrongdoings because an infant is considered to be amoral. Infants do not have the ability to understand morality at this stage of their life. Infancy ranges from birth to the age of two. It is during this time that infants learn how to be prosocial and empathetic by observing those around them.[3]