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
- - the sensorimotor period of development = from 0-4, the child plays in terms of his motor schemes
- - egocentric = 4-7, the child doesn't fully understand rules and has a weak sense of competition
- - incipient cooperation = more social and rules are understood, although mutual understanding isn't a given yet, 7-11
- - 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