Moral Development Theories and Research Findings

Moral Development Concepts

Your Guess. 1. Moral Dumbfounding

2. Nativism

Instinctive, evolutionary history with a strong genetic base.

3. Empiricism

Morality learned during childhood.

4. Epigenetics

How the environment regulates particular genes in an individual’s lifetime. For example, twins raised in the same conditions are not perfectly correlated in either physiological or psychological measures (Plomin, 1994). This suggests that a genes + environment model is insufficient to explain the origin of morality, potentially pointing toward molecular chance.

5. Piaget: Rationalism

Morality in children is self-constructed through their interactions with others. Example: volume of a glass of water.

6. Kohlberg's Stages

Stages of moral development based on short stories and a hierarchy of morality centered on justice.

Limitations of Piaget and Kohlberg Studies

It has been argued that the results of their studies focus more on how children increase their abilities rather than on true developmental research. Their results could be due to the fact that:

• Kohlberg Limitations Study (Turiel): Used short stories requiring only yes or no answers. Turiel concluded that rules about food and clothing are social and changeable, whereas moral rules related to justice, rights, and welfare are unalterable and universal, establishing a distinction between moral rules and conventional rules.
• Gilligan's Replication: Replicated Kohlberg’s study, noting that Kohlberg focused only on white American males. Gilligan identified that the moral hierarchy could also be based on other values, such as care.

When the historical and sociological perspective on the nature of moral development is included, social convention and moral rules become confusing.

Cross-Cultural and Theoretical Perspectives

7. Richard Sweder's Cultural Study

Sweder conducted a moral study across different cultures and found that in India, for example, food, sex, and clothing were judged as moral issues rather than social conventions. He also criticized the validity of Kohlberg and Turiel for being individualistic frameworks.

8. Moral Foundation Theory

Haidt and Joseph (2004) developed the Moral Foundation Theory, suggesting that proportions of morality are universal but can be modified by culture.

9. Interspecies Morality

Warken (2011) crossed boundaries beyond species and found that moral behavior appears to be a uniquely human characteristic (e.g., chimpanzees did not share resources).

10. Neuroscience of Morality

Antonio Damasio suggests that reasoning requires passion; prefrontal cortex inability to process emotions impairs moral reasoning (e.g., the case involving inappropriate sexual behavior).