Influence of Freud and Piaget

Human morality has been an issue in philosophy since the days of Aristotle;
the topic was first studied by psychologists in the early twentieth century. At this time, both Sigmund Freud and Piaget addressed the issue of children’s
moral development.
Freud proposed that children around four years of age assimilate the
morals and standards of their same-sex parent, resulting in the onset of the
child’s superego, which is the storehouse for one’s conscience. Thus, children
have a rudimentary sense of right and wrong based on the morals of
their parental figure. Since Freud’s concept was based on his theory of
psychosexual development, it was discredited by his European colleagues
for most of his lifetime. Thus, his theory of moral acquisition has not generally
been the basis of research on the development of morality.
Piaget began observing children when he was giving intelligence tests in
the laboratory of Alfred Binet. He observed that children do not reason in
the same way that adults do. Thus, by questioning Swiss schoolchildren
about their rules in a game of marbles, Piaget adapted his theory of cognitive
development to moral development. Lawrence Kohlberg elaborated on
Piaget’s theory by studying children’s, as well as adults’, reasoning concerning
moral dilemmas. Kohlberg is still generally considered the leading theorist
of moral development. 547