By the end of this chapter, students should be able to:
- Describe Jean Piaget’s theory of moral development.
- Describe Lawrence Kohlberg’s 6 stages of moral development.
- Discuss the connection between moral development/cognitive development and moral development/epistemological development.
- Critique Kohlberg’s theory.
- Discuss sex differences in moral reasoning and Gilligan’s alternative theory of moral development.
- Compare moral rules, social conventions, and personal preferences.
- Explain how researchers use the social-cognitive domain model to explain parent-adolescent moral disagreements.
- Outline the factors that help determine the amount of prosocial behavior exhibited by an adolescent. How does prosocial functioning change from childhood to adulthood?
- Be familiar with parental strategies that encourage adolescent children to behave morally.
- Know the four ways that peers can shape an adolescent’s moral behavior.
- Discuss the role and the importance of religion in the typical teenager’s life; and, the relationship between religiosity and moral behavior.
- Describe the reasons that many researchers believe that television viewing inhibits moral development.
- Contrast the inculcation, moral development, values clarification, analysis and action learning methods of moral education.
