How does this tie in to your moral
development?
• What are morals?
• What are your morals?
• Where did they come from? List 5 sources
that you think your morals came from.
Moral Development in
Adolescents
So far we have
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Cultural and Ethnic identity
Religious identity
Sexual identity
What others think about you
What you think of yourself
What true colour and love language you
are
• What Myers Briggs says
Remember Kohlberg
Level One:
Pre-conventional Morality
Stage 1: Punishment-Obedience
Orientation
Stage 2: Instrumental Relativist
Orientation
Level Two:
Conventional Morality
Stage 3: Good Boy-Nice Girl
Orientation
Stage 4: Law and Order
Orientation
Level Three:
Post-Conventional Morality
Stage 5: Social Contract
Orientation
Stage 6: Universal Ethical
Principle Orientation
Identification With Role Models
• The first positive role model that any child should
have is a parent.
• Many parents fail to realize the value of modeling
positive behavior to their children. They may try to
instill certain standards of behavior in their children,
but children are more likely to imitate the behavior
they observe in a parent than to listen to any
regulations that a parent hopes to impose. As a child
grows into adolescence, his role models may be as
diverse as musicians, friends or even politicians.
While his choice of role models may appear to be
reckless or misguided, he is likely to seek role
models who demonstrate behavior that is consistent
with the types of behavior modeled by his parents or
caregivers.
Peers
• Peer pressure is often considered to be a
negative force in the life of a teen. Indeed,
most teens will not choose to engage in
negative behaviors such as smoking or
premarital sex unless coaxed to do so by her
peers. Still, peer pressure often exerts a
positive influence on the life of a teen. Often,
teens will provide support to one another in
times of stress. For example, if a teen is
considering committing suicide, her friends
will usually be the first to tell her that life is
worth living.
Impulsiveness
• Teens may engage in a variety of destructive
behaviors simply as a result of impulsiveness.
Lacking a knowledge of consequences that is
reinforced by solid experience, teens may
engage ill advised behaviors such as driving
while intoxicated or experimenting with drugs.
Since adolescence is a time of dramatic
hormonal changes, teens may be heavily
influenced to give into sexual urges if they are
given the opportunity to do so.
Assumption of Responsibility
• A teen is more likely to assume responsibility for his own
behavior if his parents allow him to make choices instead
of pressuring him to respond to mandates. Parents must
also take an active interest in discussing the importance
of responsibility to an adolescent. For example, if a
young teen wishes to go on a date with a boy she is
interested in, her parents should agree with her upon a
curfew that she should observe. If she fails to arrive
home in time, the parents should question her about her
behavior. The only way she will learn to take
responsibility for her behavior is if she is forced to be
held accountable for how she behaves.
Developing a Sense of Duty
• Feeling a sense of duty is different from accepting
responsibility. Duty often requires a teen to take
proactive measures in a greater social context. Teens
reach an advanced moral level once they are responsive
to their greater duties within society. For example, once
a teen begins to question the ethics associated with
misdemeanors he has committed, he may begin to
reevaluate his own patterns of behavior. Rather than
simply taking responsibility for the role he plays in
society, he may attempt to modify his behavior out of a
sense of moral duty. Instead of simply saying, "I did it,"
he will begin to say "It is not right for me to do it again."