Criticism on Moral Development Theories of Piaget,...

Criticism on moral development theories of Piaget, Kohlberg, and Bandura and providing a new model for research in Iranian students moral development Hossein Lotfabadi, Ph. D.1 Abstract Its been years in the psychology and assessment of moral development that theories of genetic epistemology and social behaviorism (which are based on Piaget, Kohlberg, and Banduras approaches) have been in the center of attention for the psychologists and education experts and have been used by the educational counseling centers and other psychology centers in Iran. Therefore, there have not been a suitable theory and proper native assessing tools made in our country in the field of moral development. The main issue is that the theoretical foundations†¦show more content†¦The mentioned attitude pays no attention to the eternal moral foundations, to the moral motives and emotion, to faith and cultural morality, to the moral behavior and objective reactions, and the mental structure of the people in the rest of the world. Investigating the moral development theories among Western psychologists brings us to the conclusion that we can divide them into three groups. A group of th e Western psychologists (such as Lorenz, 1983; Goodall, 1990; da Waal, 1991 1996; Raine, 1997; Hoffman 2000; Haidt, 2001) believe the roots of moralities and social behavior to be in the human biological evolution history. Another group (including the psycho-analysts such as Freud, 1925/1961, and social-learning theory-makers such as Bandura, 1977) believe moralities to be compatibility with social norms. The third group, is the one whose viewpoints have been considered more than any of the other two groups, who state that morality is fundamentally the amount of cognitive development. Jean Piaget and (1932/1965) and Lawrence Kohlberg (1976), more than any other psychologist, represent this group. The though foundations of some other psychologists (such as Gilligan, 1982; Rest, 1986) who have conducted more recent studies about moral development as well can be considered in this