Monday, 27 November 2017

Piaget | moral development theory


Methods for studying moral development

Piaget believed that observing children playing games and asking them about the rules could give a realistic view on how their morals develop

He studied kids playing marbles and found that only the boys played with them, giving a limitation in his findings, so he also studied a girls' game of hide and seek

He pretended not to know the rules and asked the children to explain them to him, so he could understand how they understood the rules at different ages

The rules for these games were developed by children, 'game theory' can be used to stimulate competitive conditions in which selfish strategies benefit only individuals


Stages of moral development

Piaget observed 4 stages in the kid's moral development based on his observations


  1. - the sensorimotor period of development = from 0-4, the child plays in terms of his motor schemes
  2. - egocentric = 4-7, the child doesn't fully understand rules and has a weak sense of competition
  3. - incipient cooperation = more social and rules are understood, although mutual understanding isn't a given yet, 7-11
  4. - genuine cooperation = children can anticipate new possible contingencies in the game, 12+
Piaget found that younger children think in "moral realism" where rules are fixed/unchangeable 

Guilt is decided by how bad the violation of rules was

The 2nd stage for moral judgement comes after, at around 10 they realise rules are not always fixed, so moral autonomy (being self aware) comes a bit later, morality stages can overlap a bit but they always happen in the same order


Gender with moral development

The girls' games were not as complex as the boys' ones
The comparisons were difficult because the girls' games were simpler, with less rules
Girls seemed less bothered about legalities
Piaget said kids are Logicans and Kohlberg said they are moral philosophers 


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