This paper is written to examine various influences on the moral development of young children. Specifically, the paper will speak to the definition of moral development, the views held by educators Piaget and Kohlberg on this area of development in young children and the application of moral development theories by Early Childhood Educators. Theories posited by Sigmund Freud with regards to the psychological development of children in the early childhood arena will be discussed as well. Suggestions for parents on supporting the moral development of their children will also be addressed.
Moral Development is defined as “changes in thoughts, feelings and behaviors regarding standards of right and wrong” (Santrock, 2010). Moral development can further be described as learning what is and is not acceptable within the limits of “polite” society, and is an arguably elastic notion, with differences in culture (Pekarsky, 1998), religion, geography etc. somewhat complicating and expanding the definition. The theories of Sigmund Freud regarding the id, ego and superego are important here, because each of these factors defines an area of moral development.
The id is that which we cannot control. It is subconscious activity in the brain that operates solely on the pursuit of pleasure, and immediate gratification. The id is that part of the human psyche personified in Roald Dahl’s character Veruka Salt of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Dahl, 1964). She doesn’t care how, she wants it now, and according to Freud the id is responsible for this uncontrolled urge to satisfy all needs immediately.
The second part of Freud’s triumvirate of psychological components is the superego. As a child develops and learns what is expected of him by not...
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...e pathway to strong moral development.
References
Brown, B. (2010). Moral development theory for young children. Livestrong.com, Retrieved from http://www.livestrong.com/article/167125-moral-development-theory-for-young-children/
Dahl, R. (1964). Charlie and the chocolate factory. New York: Alfred Knopf.
Goldwater, E. (2010). Happiness: a structural theory. In , Modern Psychoanalysis (pp. 147-163). Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Merchant, R. L., & Rebelsky, F. (January 01, 1970). Effects of participation in rule formation on the moral judgement of children. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 85.
Pekarsky, D. (1998). The role of culture in moral development. Parenthood in America, Retrieved from http://parenthood.library.wisc.edu/Pekarsky/Pekarsky.html
Santrock, J.W. (2010). Child development. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Graham, Jesse and Johnathan Haidt. 2011. The Social Psychology of Morality: Exploring the Causes of
In this paper I attempt to describe the similarities and differences in both Erik Erikson and Sigmund Freuds ideas on development. I also attempt to describe the many influences that contributed to the creation of both Freud and Erikson's ideas of development as well as some background information on both theorists.
In this essay I am going to show my understanding of a child's early emotional development based on the psychoanalytical view of child development. I will show how emotional skills gained in the early years can be of a significant relevance to later life. I will show my understanding by illustrating it with the clinical material. Although I am focusing on the psychoanalytical approach to child development I believe that it is beneficial to present also some general background knowledge of child development.
Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 to Jewish Galician parents in the Moravian town of Pribor in the Austrian Empire (“Sigmund Freud” n. pag). During his education in the medical field, Freud decided to mix the career fields of medicine and philosophy to become a psychologist (“Sigmund Freud” n. pag). During his research as a psychologist, he conceived the Structural Model Theory, which he discussed in his essay Beyond the Pleasure Principle. The theory states that the human psyche is divided into three main parts: the id, ego, and super-ego (“Id, Ego, and Super-ego” n. pag). He concluded that the id was the desire for destruction, violence and sex; the ego was responsible for intellect and dealing with reality; and the super-ego was a person’s sense of right and wrong and moral standards (Hamilton, n. pag). Freud argued that a healthy individual will have developed the strongest ego to keep the id and super-ego in check (“Id, Ego, and Super-ego” n. p...
By reaching the stage of early adulthood, we as an individual will undergo cognitive development, moral development and socio-emotional development (Santrock, 2013). When one experiences cognitive development, s/he will be able to acquire the ability to learn, grasp problem solving skills and able to develop decision making skill (Huitt & Hummel, 2003). Kohlberg’s theory of moral development consists of three levels which consists two sub-levels each. The first level is the pre-conventional morality continued by the conventional morality and post-conventional morality (Mcleod, 2011). According to Huitt (2008), by developing socio-emotional skills, one will be able to have a better understanding in managing emotions and will be able to increase
The first aspect of society that influences morality is observation—primarily, what children observe among their families. There are natural gender roles that are stereotypically embodied in a family. For
Today I will be interviewing Baumeister, Gilligan, and Piaget who are some of the most influential psychologists in the field of moral development. I will be interviewing these three so and I have three critical questions in the field of moral development that I would like each to answer. I will then conclude with a brief summary of the similarities and differences between the psychologists I have interviewed.
One of the most persistently asked and perpetually unanswered questions in psychology is the question of morality. What is it, how does it develop, and where does it come from? A basic definition of morality is “beliefs about what is right behavior and what is wrong behavior” (Merriam-Webster). Based on the definition, the question then becomes even more complicated; How do people decide what is right and what is wrong? Research has examined this from many different angles, and two distinct schools of thought have emerged. One centers on the Lockian idea of children as blank slates who must be taught the difference between right and wrong and what it means to be moral, while the other espouses a more Chomskian perspective of a preset system of basic rules and guidelines that needs only to be activated. So what does this mean for humans and humanity? Are we born tabula rasa or are we born with an innate sense of good and evil? For those researching this topic, the question then becomes how to most effectively theorize, experiment and interpret human morality.
- Id is an entity that dwells in the unconscious and is responsible for our most rudimentary desires and urges.
The primary goal of Sigmund Freud’s deliberations is to reveal where our unidentified psychological inclinations come from. In his book “Civilization and its Discontents,” Freud discusses a category of psychological themes regarding how internal influences developed by people’s psyches motivate people to act in certain ways. He focuses on complexes of the mind such as aggression, the super-ego, and the relationship between guilt and remorse. An essential argument that Freud makes is that the human psyche is structured and is largely developed based on surrounding forces, such as other people. Freud attempts to convey a message that a person’s mentality is not only primordial, but is also created in a process potentially known as the struggle
Kohlberg, Lawrence. "Moral Stages and Moralization: The Cognitive-Developmental Approach." Moral Development and Behavior. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1976.
At the pre-conventional level, behavior is motivated by anticipation of pleasure or pain. The child is aware of cultural rules and labels of good or bad and right or wrong. (1) The subject interprets the labels in terms of the physical consequence, such as punishment or reward. (3) The child has an extreme self-interest. The first level of moral thinking is generally found at the elementary school level, before the age of 9. This level is divided into the following two stages. (2)
In this paper I will be determining the moral development stages in which the individuals I interviewed belong. I chose four individuals all from different backgrounds of life, male and female, with their ages ranging from
The first two stages of Kohlber’s moral development fall under “Preconventional Morality” which is the first level (Williams & Arrigo, 2012). These stages focus on children from ages one to ten (Williams & Arrigo, 2012). I basically agree with the concept of these stages because young children are clearly responsive to learning right and wrong through the use of some form of punishment (Williams & Arrigo, 2012). However, these two initial stages (punishment and obedience orientation & instrumental purpose and exchange orientation) must have competent authority figures, which are normally going to be the parents for children those ages. In the absence of competent authority figures, which is realism for many children, I believe these two
In examining the Freudian view of human development, the main characteristic of human development is one of a primitive and sexual nature. Freud defines the id as a unconscious part of the mind focused on the primitive self and is the source of the demands of basic needs. Freud explains that the mind of an infant consists only of the id, driving the basic needs for comfort, food, warmth, and love. In later stages of early development, as a child’s mind begins to grow, the ego is formed. The ego is defined as the connection between consciousness and reality that controls one’s thought and behavior. In late pre-school years a child begins to develop what is called a superego. At this stage values are internalized, and the complex connection between the id, ego, and supere...