HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

MORAL DEVELOPMENT
This model was developed by Lawrence Kohl Berg. He was an American Psychologist and his
work is mainly basing on Piaget’s approach. His moral development levels are therefore highly
related to cognitive development. To Kohlberg moral development occurs in its fullest when
individuals internalize values and develop behavior that is controlled by internal factors. As
children and adolescents development, their moral thoughts become more internalized. Kids
need to be exposed to the external structure so that they can internalize the same to be their own
in late life.
 Kohlberg develop his theory to show how people are at making moral decision.
 He came up with three levels and each has two stages.
 In each level he came up with what makes a person to come to certain level of decision-
making.

LEVL 1: PRE-CONVENTIONAL (2 STEPS)

A general accepted view (what is done or considered acceptable) it’s the lowest level of moral
development. There is no internalization of values; moral reasoning is controlled by external
rewards, obedience and punishment.
STAGE 1 - Punishment and obedience reasoning orientation
Here there is a desire to avoid punishment, fear of superior and a belief in the superior
powers of Authority. Moral reasoning is based on dos and don’ts.
What is right – sticking to rules backed by punishment, obedience for its own sake,
people do not do their work.
STAGE 2 – Individual and purpose – instrumental relativist orientation
Moral thinking is bases on records and self-interest of children follow rules only when
they serve their own needs. They therefore do only that which is fair. (serves one’s needs
and interests e.g. political).

LEVEL 2 CONVENTIONAL REASONING

At this stage moral reasoning is internalized and individuals abide by external (standards of
others) e.g. parents or social members.
 STAGE 3 – Interpersonal norms (good girl/boy orientation)
Individuals’ values thirst, caring and loyalty to others. They strive to uphold the good
boy/girl orientation. There is a lot of conformity to please.
What is right? – people live by other people’s expectations, also being good is important
and means having good motives, showing concern to others, loyalty, gratitude in mutual
relationship.
Reasons for doing it. To be a good person in his/her or others peoples’ eyes. Above all,
desiring to maintain rules and authority even when they took much.
STAGE 4 – Social systems morality – conscience
Moral judgement is based on understanding the social order, law, justice and duty. This
marks a shift from conforming to the social system when one own needs are met while
meeting needs of others.
What is right? – Fulfilling duties to which one has agreed, upholding laws, contributing
to ones society group or institution.
People who are morally developed and have changed things that were wrong in their
systems.
Reasons for doing? – To keep the institution as a whole. To meet one’s defined
obligation – what’s required to me – to avoid blame down in the system in any one did it.
LEVEL 3 POST CONVENTINAL REASONING – PRINCIPLED
Morality is completely internalized ad is most based on others standards individual explore
options and decide on a personal moral code.
Stage 5 community rights vs. individual rights (social contact, individual rights/legalistic).
One understands that values and laws are relative and vary from one person to another.
What is right? – People being aware of others values and opinions. Such values are relative to
one’s group. The greatest good for the greatest majority is the general rule.
Reasons for doing it? – Obey a rational reason; one belief in validity of true moral principles
and he/she is principally committed to them.
STAGE 6 UNIVERSAL ETHICAL PRINCIPLES
It’s the operation of moral development. And individual develops a moral standard based
on universal moral rights – persons rely a lot on their conscience even though at times
decisions may involve personal risks.
 What is right? – individual choose to be ethical just, and believe in equality for all and
respect for human beings. One obeys laws that follow these principles.
Reasons for doing it? As rational reason one beliefs in validity of true moral principles
and he/she is principally committed them.
NB- majority fall in stage 4 when they start having responsibility. However, their environment
may disadvantage some people.
THE COUNSELLING IMPLICATION OF KOHLBERGS’ THEORY
 It helps the therapist to understand when individual’s thought processes are in terms at
decision-making.
 The therapist is able to make sense whether there is co-relation between moral and
cognitive development
 The therapist/counselor is able to know how the family/environment reinforces behavior
that antisocial.
 It helps us to be non-judgemental to our clients i.e the level of attainment of moral
development
 It helps us to know what moral choices that a client has to make, with a view of being
emphatic.
 It makes one help clients make sense of moral behavior that he/she can cope with feelings
that go with fear, shame, guilt, anger etc.
DEVELOPMENT TASKS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD AND INFANCY
These tasks are- biological base
 Psychological base
 Cultural base and all have
 Educational implications
1. Learning to walk 9 -15 months bones, muscles, nerves of legs and trunk are equal to the
task. The child learn to walk with stimulation/assistance from other people. From here
the child can learn to run, jump and skip.
2. Learning to take solids. The baby’s digestive system develops and is ready to digest
and assimilate a variety of foods and his/her teeth develop so that he/she can handle
solids during the 2nd year. The sucking and nursing ceases. The way a child is treated
during the weaning period, the schedule on which he/she is fed and the age and
suddenness of weaning all have profound effects upon his/her personality. These are
 great variations in washing and feeding development of children in different cultures and
this may account for the characteristic personality differences of people of difference
cultures.
3. Learning to take talk. Nature of talk – learning to make meaningful sounds and to
communicate with other people through use of these sounds.
BIOLOGICAL BASIS
The nerves and muscles of the speaking apparatus are already fairly developed at birth. The
newborn child makes the vowel sounds a,e,(eh), the back consonants g,k,x and the guttural
sounds ch,r.
PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS
An infant accidentally utters a variety of meaningless sounds. From these people around him
select certain ones to repeat regularly in certain situations until the child learns to associate
certain sounds to certain situations.
Human infants develop a repertory of sounds without having to learn them. People around an
infant teach him/her to attach meanings to these sounds. Baby learns long by responding to
his/her own sounds repeated by others between 12 – 18 months, the child utters a special sound
in a special situation – taken from adult language or influenced by it. The single word sentences
then appear e.g koo.
At this stage, the child has the central idea, and his/her own repertory of sound to draw from in
fashioning. Between 18th – 5 years is time for baby talk – distinguished by omission or
consonants. Substitutes one consonant for another. 3 rd year- expansion of vocabulary, past
tensed formations are tried albeit wrongly e.g. in I went to the shop I ridded a motor car. Speech
is a means of expressing feelings and child with delayed or inadequate means of expressing
his/her feelings may become maladjusted for this reason.
4. Learning to control the elimination of body wastes.
Nature of task – to learn to urinate and defecate at socially acceptable times and places.
the development of nerves that govern voluntary urination is not complete until
somewhere between 2 – 4 years. Early toilet training requires great effort, on the part of
the parents, a good deal of systematic training, including punishment before the child can
group the meaning and social significance of what is being done to him/her. Toilet
training is the first moral training a child receives. The stamp of this first moral training
probably persists in the child’s later character.
CULTURAL BASES – middle class/lower class training – to make children careful self-
controlled, foresight and self -dependent.

5. Learning sexual differences and sexual modesty

To learn to polarity of sexes, to behave accordingly – boy/girl. To attend great attention
to sexual organs (her/his and other people’s).
The kinds of sexual behavior he/she learns, his/her attitudes and feelings he/she develops
about sex in these early years probably have an abiding effect upon his sexuality
throughout life.

6. Achieving physiological stability.

The body temperature fluctuates widely under slight stimuli. Salt, sugar content water
content of body basal metabolic rate, heart rate change with changes in diet and external
conditions.

7. Forming simple concepts

8. Learning to relate – oneself emotionally to parents, sibling and others people-the way
himself/herself emotional to other people will have a large part in determining if he/she
will be friendly, cold, outgoing or introversive in social relationship in later life.

9. Learning to differentiate right from wrong.

Developing a conscience – the child departs from the Dawrinian and Freudian Hedonism
of infancy of pleasure and pain. He/she learns good and bad. He/she introjects the values
of his/her parents (warning and punishing voices of his/her parents). Thus he/she
develops the bases of his/her consciousness upon which a latter structure of values and
moral character will be built.

DEVELOPMENTAL TASKS OF MIDDLE CHILDHOOD BETWEEN 6 -12 YEARS.

The period is characterized by these great out ward pushes e.g. peer group, physical thrust into
the world of play and work. The mental thrust into the world of the adult – with logic and
symbolism.
Nature of task – the child learns the physical skill necessary for games and physical activities
that are highly valued in child hood i.e. throwing and catching, kicking tumbling, swimming and
handling of simple tools.
Biological bases – this is the period of general growth of muscle and bone with neural
maturation.
Psychological bases – the peer group rewards a child for success and punishes him through
disdainbale indifference for failure in him/her task. Boys are expected by the society to be better
at the physical tasks than girls.
Children also learn to build wholesome attitude towards self as growing organisms: - e.g. care of
body, cleanliness, safety, and a wholesome attitude towards sex.
 Learning to get along with agemates. This is development of social personality.
 One learns to make friends and get along with enemies.
 He/she must make a place for himself/herself amongst his/her peers all more or less
completing for attention of one mother person, father person – teacher or adult
supervision.
 The child must learn to get more satisfaction from his/her social life with his/her
agemates.
 The child learns ways of approaching strangers – shy, bold standoff, friendly.
 He/she learns to play pair
 Mother approval tendency diminishes were to be replaced by peer approval tendency.
The child also learns an appropriate masculine or feminine social role: - the child learns to be a
boy or a girl
Developing fundamental skills in reading, writing and calculating. Children learn to read and
write, calculate by age 12 because the nervous system has grown and is ready to permit it.
Developing concepts necessary for everyday living
The task is to acquire a store of concepts sufficient for thinking effectively about ordinary
occupational civic and social matters.
Developing a conscience morality and scale of values.
The child develops an inner moral control, respect for moral rules and the beginning of a rational
scale of values.
Jean Piaget-
A child learns that rules are necessary and useful to the conduct of any enterprises from games to
government and thus learns a morality of “co-operation or agreement” the child becomes morally
autonomous. The child is learning responsibility – it knows this goes and this does not.
Achieving personal independence
The child learns to make plans, and act on the present and immediate future independently of
one’s parents and other adults. The child can make choices for himself/herself. The child of 12
does not want to look like his/her mother when he/she grows up. He wants to grow up and be
like the movie star, the athlete he/she has seen etc. pilot.
Developing attitudes towards social groups and institutions, e.g. race, colour, political party,
economy social classes occupational groups etc,

DEVELOPMENTAL TASKS OF ADOLESCHENTS 12 -19 YEARS

 Physical and emotional maturation and the sex glands ripen and sex differences widen.
 The boy becomes ready for manhood, the girl womanhood and vocational interests come
to the forth, reflection on problems of good and evil.
 Major goal is to learn to look upon gives as men and girls as women, learn to work with
others for common purpose.
 Disregarding personal feelings and learn to lead without dominating.
 Sex attraction becomes dominant, and slowly developing boy or girl may be dropped out
a social group whose pace of physical development is more rapid.
Gang age:
 Adult social skills are learnt here e.g dancing, social games, convincing and group
approval is very vital here. Girls mature more socially rapidly than boys.

If this stage is negotiated badly it means are unhappy adult life.

Accepting one’s physique and using the body effectively the goals to tolerant is to become proud
or tolerant one’s body, to care and protect it.
Achieving emotional independence of partners and other adults. Goal.
 To become free from children dependency on parents.
 To develop affection for parents without dependence upon and to develop respect for
older adults without dependence onto them.
Adults who have failed in this task are dependent people after still tied to their parents, unable to
make up their minds and also unable to move freely in the adult society.
Achieving assurance of economic independence, to feel able to make living if necessary and
children should grow up.
Selecting and preparing for an occupation.
Goal: to choose an occupation for which one has the necessary ability. To prepare for this
occupation. Preparing for marriage and family life.
Develop intellectual skills and concepts necessary for civic competence.
Brain and nervous system reach maturation at this age. Goal: to develop concepts of law,
government, economics, language skills.
Desiring and achieving socially acceptable behavior. Acquiring a set of values and an ethical
system as a guide to behavior.

DEVELOPMENTAL TASKS EARLY ADULTHOOD

This is whereby people experience life of being themselves in: -
 Selecting a mate
 Learning to live with a marriage partner
 Starting a family and rearing children
 Managing a home and getting started in an occupation
 Taking on civic personality and finding congenial social group.

DEVELOPMENT TASKS OF MIDDLE AGE

 Achieving adult civic and social responsibility
 Establishing and maintaining an economy standard of living, assisting teenage children to
become responsible and happy adults.
 Developing adult leisure time activities plus relating oneself to one’s spouse as a person.
 To accept and adjust to the physiological changes of middle age, for women-
The Graflan follicles cease to open;
 The mucus membrane is no longer replaced periodically
 Menstruation gradually ceases and the ovaries become connective tissue. Women suffer
and dangerous age and do me. Adjusting to aging parents,

DEVELOPMENTAL TASKS OF LATER MATURITY

Adjusting to decreasing physical strength and health
Adjusting to death of spouse and explicit affiliation with one’s age group.
Establishing satisfactory physical living arrangements.