Children’s Social and Moral Reasoning

The study of morality has been approached from different perspectives within several disciplines, including philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and psychology. In psychology, proponents of the major theoretical approaches have attempted to explain the acquisition or development of morality. Behavioristic and social learning theorists have proposed that moral development entails a process of acquiring behaviors (Skinner, 1971) or internalizing the standards and values of society so that they are maintained without the necessity of external surveillance (Aronfreed, 1968). Psychoanalytic theorists, too, have presumed that morality comes from the incorporation of societal standards (Freud, 1930). In the psychoanalytic account the process of moral development, as well as the maintenance of morality, is full of conflict and tension for individuals. This is because in acquiring society’s moral standards the individual must control strongly felt instinctual drives and needs (through the formation of what Freud referred to as a superego). The emotion of guilt operates so as to maintain control over instincts. An alternative view on moral development, keeping with a long line of philosophical analyses from Aristotle to Kant and to modern versions (e.g., those of Dworkin, 1977; Gewirth, 1978; Rawls, 1971), is that it involves the construction of judgments about welfare, justice, and rights through children’s social interactions. Extensive study of children’s moral judgments dates back to the work of Jean Piaget (1932). Piaget’s research was extended a number of years later by Lawrence Kohlberg (1981), who was instrumental in drawing attention to the importance of processes of judgment in the moral realm (as well