Elliot Turiel's Social Domain Theory Of Moral Development

Adolescents are perceived by adults to be immoral and always going astray while never following the rules around them. There are many reasons for why this perception is created. Many of which are started because adolescents have not fully developed but are in the process of developing. They have not found out how complex systems of morality, social conventions, and personal domains interact with themselves and the world around them. By conducting immoral behaviors and experiencing harm themselves, adolescents learn how to be a fully functional moral person. This is part of the normal development process. This process can become disrupted when adolescents engage with a group of people who are constantly making immoral decisions. If adolescents are surrounded by people who make a plethora of bad decisions, then they will likely make more than what is useful for their own development. Through this excess exposure, their increase in immoral decisions making will hinder growth rather than contribute to it. This paper will focus on what happens to

The development theory asserts there are three domains that people develop beginning in their early childhood years all through their adolescent years. The three domains are the moral one (decisions about harm, welfare, and rights), the social conventional domain (understanding the conventions upheld by institutions and people on a broad scale), and the personal/ psychological domain (conceptions of the self/individual as well as other’s individual selves). These domains will each be prioritized in any given situation or context. Children and adolescents will prioritize different domains throughout development so in a given context they might employ a different domain than one they used when they were younger, thus