Piaget's Four Stage Theory Of Moral Development

Jean Piaget is exceptionally known for his contributions to the world of studying developmental psychology, especially in children. He is most known for his four-stage theory on cognitive development, a widespread theory about the development of the human intelligence. His “stage theory” is a form of discontinuous development, which means that opposed to continuous development, it is not an ongoing progression of gradual changes throughout life; rather certain behaviors and skills occur within distinct stages of life. Piaget was curious as to how knowledge grew as we progressed throughout life. Piaget was also known for his theories on moral development in children, he has come up with a three-stage theory and has done several studies to further expand upon his research. Moral development is known to develop throughout childhood as children begin to experience disequilibrium and a decrease in their egocentric ways of thinking. The first stage in Piaget’s theory on moral development is what he calls the Pre-moral stage, children in this stage range from birth to five years of age. Pre-moral children are apart of the sensorimotor and pre-operational stages in life, according to his theory on cognitive development. These children are still

One study in particular is where he would observe children of different ages participating in game play, and would periodically stop them to ask the children to explain the rules of the game; this is how Piaget discovered children’s understanding of rules. After completing this study, he had discovered that children go through four different stages in their development of moral understanding and reasoning as they age. These stages are as follows; motor rules, egocentric, incipient cooperation, and genuine cooperation; they go hand-in-hand with his stages of cognitive development as