Piaget's Theory

386 Words2 Pages
According to Piaget, morality develops with age meaning that as the child’s theory of mind develops they also develop the ability to make judgement on moral behaviour. Piaget’s theory is centred on stages on what he termed as developmental stages, but in relation to moral development he introduced new concept he termed moral orientation which he divided into two types. He called them the heteronomous and autonomous morality. During the heteronomous period a child follows set rules and they believe that these rules cannot be changed and during the autonomous period the child will start to believe that laws or rules can be changed and they will go on to set their own rules which they can follow and change them if need be (Gross, 2010. The results of the case study in Gross (2010) showed that in pro-social settings, Chinese children regard truth telling less positively and lying more positively in pro-social environment than children from Canada. This reflects the need to keep one’s self in the background takes more precedents than telling the truth. However, the results also show that in both sets of children lying is less desirable in anti-social situations. In other terms, this indicates that in other cultures there is a close relationship between social influence, culture and moral judgement (Gross, 2010). In relation to Piaget’s theory, the case strongly support the heteronomous period in a child. According to Lee et al, (1997) Chinese children are raised in a communist society and are thought respect group values, even if it means personal sacrifice. This is reflected by the results of the case study. The case study also seems to reflect or show Piaget’s autonomous stage. According to the case study both sets of children seem to give their answers according to what they have learnt to be moral through interaction but the Canadian children seem to agree to
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