Emotional and Moral Development

Developmental psychologists recognized that when an one-on-one begins life, we are all a example or in other words, an exclusive do non yet nurture the rudiments of incorrupt astuteness. By the cadence an individual be heralds bads, however, he/she may possess a heterogeneous judgement of virtuousity. morality is defined by closely psychology books is a governance of soulfulnessal values and judgments about the fundamental beneficialness or inappropriateness of acts, and of an individuals obligations to behave in just ship canal that do not interfere with the rights of others.Moral exploitation on the other hand, is the achievement of clean-living standards and the ability to make judgments. But how do an individual learn from a clean to lesson, from a total lack of understanding on responsibilities to a complex perception of right and wrong? This question has occupied the attention of many interruptmental psychologists. The two approximately influential psychol ogical researchers on moralistic growth were Lawrence Kohlberg and Piaget as Kohlbergs research on moral development was heavily influenced by Piagets cognitive development.According to Kohlberg, people raise through stages in the development of moral minding. I would like to conduct the minorren, adolescence, and adulthood emotional and moral-related life events and apply understanding of emotional and moral development.Moral development in nipperren. Piaget (1975) birdsonged the first period in a childs moral development as moral realism. sooner the age of seven or eight, the child has little concern for the reason that specific behaviors are allowed or forbidden he is a self-absorbed creature, and his mind does not seem flexible enough to fully embrace the violation of rules as an interference with others (which theoretically, provides the pedestal for pietism).Another label for the earliest moral realism period is the rules stage, a term that suggests that a child blindly follows rules without reason or unreasoning adherence to authority. For Kohlberg, this stage of moral development is kn give as pre naturalized morality that is exemplified by most children at the preschool years (Fischer, 1993).Pre ceremonious morality is a kind of self-serving approach to right and wrong where children tend to behave in certain ways in order to avoid being punished and in certain ways to obtain rewards. In his longitudinal study of moral judgment, Kohlberg (1976) reinterviewed several children at different points in time. At age 8, John, one of the participants, was asked, Why shouldnt you steal from a store?Johns preconventional answer was Its not good to steal from the store. Its against the law. Someone could see you and call the police (Kohlberg, 1976). At this lowest level of moral development, children have not internalized a personal code of morality. Rather, they are molded by the standards of adult caregivers and the consequences of adhering to o r rejecting these rules.Moral development during Adolescence. It is during early adolescence stage that a persons sense of right and wrong typically matures to the level of conventional morality as Kohlberg calls it. Conventional morality is the level shown by most adolescents and some adults (Colby et al., 1983). Maintaining conventional expectations has a moral value in its own right. From Kohlbergs (1976) study at age 17, Johns conventional-level response to the question about stealing from a store was Its a matter of law. Its one of our rules that were trying to help to protect everyone.Its some matter thats needed in our society. If we didnt have these laws, people would steal, they wouldnt have to work for a living. Here, the motivating force behind behaving in a just or moral fashion is the desire both to help others and gain their approval or to help maintain the genial order. Individuals at the conventional level make moral judgments on the basis of expectations those o f the family, the social group, or the nation at large. As young adolescents advance through these stages, they begin to internalize the moral standards of valued adult or role models.Moral development in Adulthood. The next level of moral judgment is postconventional level and only a few individuals may give to this final level. Though a person may progress from conventional to postconventional level any time during adolescence, Kohlberg maintained that only about 25 percent of adults in the world progress beyond the conventional level, and most of these individuals do so sometime during their adult years.Moral judgments at the postconventional level transcend the authority of persons or conformity to groups. no, values and principles guide moral judgments. Individuals at this level may understand and accept societys rules and laws but tend to view them in terms of the underlying principles. Postconventional morality affirms peoples agreed-upon rights and exhibited in such state ments as People have a right to live, If you steal the drug, you wont lived up to your own ideals.Hence it affirms values agreed on by society, including individuals rights and the need for democratically determined rules and guided by widely distributed ethical principles in which they do what they think is right as a matter of conscience, even if their acts conflict with societys rules. As stated, not many people reach this level of moral reasoning. Only those who develop the abstract reasoning of formal operational thought may come to this level.Hence the exact nature of the stages and their sequence in moral development of an individual remain an open question. But one thing is pull though, that moral development is not fixed at adolescence, but or else continues throughout adulthood. Also, how quickly and how far people progress in moral development depends on a number of factors, including their cognitive development. One thing is certain though, that moral judgment and mor al behavior are valuable aspects of an individuals personality development.ReferencesColby, A., Kohlberg, L.,Gibbs, J., & Lieberman, M. (1983). A longitudinal study of moraldevelopment. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 48 (1-2,Serial No. 200).Fisher, K.W. (1993). Commentary Illuminating the processes of moral development.Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 48 (1-2, Serial No. 200).Kohlberg, L. (1976). Moral stages and moralization The cognitive-developmental approach. InT. Lickona (Ed.), Moral development and behavior Theory, research and social issues.New York Holt, Rinehart, Winston.Piaget, J. (1975). The moral judgment of the child. New York The Free Press.