Developing Moral Behaviors in Children and Adolescents: Psycho-Quranic Perspective

Abstract

The term moral behavior is very vague and not very clear. It differs from culture to culture and within the same culture it may also differ. Not only this, the concept of moral behavior also differs from person to person depending upon her/his sociocultural background, personality, and personal experiences. There are some behaviors which are considered as moral at some place while not at other places. However, there are some behaviors which are considered as moral in most cultures throughout the world. The examples being helping others, being kind to others, being honest with others, etc. The implied notion of good is always related to moral behavior. It means that moral behavior is mostly seen as good behavior by people at large. There is another term morality close in meaning to moral behavior. But both these terms are different. The term morality is associated with cognitions and thought process while the term moral behavior is associated with people's conations/actions. The term morality is often associated with the value laden word values.Morality refers to a doctrine or system of beliefs, values, or principles that govern human conduct in two ways: by prescribing positive behaviors that benefit others and by proscribing negative actions that harm others. The former set of behaviors, often called prosocial behaviors, include sharing, helping, and comforting. In terms of moral judgment, these actions are viewed as good and ought to be carried out. The latter type of actions, often referred to as inhibitory or negative morality, include violations of others' rights and welfare, such as hitting, harming, and otherwise injuring others physically or psychologically, actions viewed as bad which one ought not to do.It has been continuously observed the blame game approach followed by people in general. They often blame the West and the media for all human social and problems related to moral decline in behaviors without reflecting on what we are doing in our day to day practice.Psychologists believe that like most other behaviors, moral behaviors are also learned by children and others. The sources of learning are varied. The most influencing source of any learning is parents to whom children hold on to both physically and emotionally. Other sources of learning are neighborhood, school, peers, books, other people's behaviors, media and society at large. The learning of nature morality is a function of child's age. One of the most important and influential theory of moral development was given by an American Psychologist, Lawrence Kohlberg in 1973 . His theory is a stage theory and he posits that moral development takes place in stages. There are three broad stages of moral development and each stage has three sub stages which makes the total stages as six. It is shown as below in a diagram.Kohlberg posits that most people reach stage 4 by mid -20s and stage 5 emerge at 20-22 years but majority of people do not reach this stage. In his research stage 6 was not included as he did not interview people of this age group understanding their moral development. Kohlberg's theory gave a scientific direction to the understanding of moral development. However, his theory has been criticized on the following grounds.* His theory focused on understanding moral thoughts not moral behavior* It is being criticized as being gender biased by Gilligan who argued that Kohlberg underplayed a care perspective which is an important component of morality among females.Gilligan (1982) asserts that men and women differ in terms of moral development on the following grounds. She raised her concerns in a book named In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development.William damon 's modelDamon is an educationist in the USA and has worked on human development. He has worked on personal development and moral commitment at all ages of life. He has worked on how character develops in people, sense of purpose in life, and the importance of family bond community relationships. …