Moral Development in Children: Factors and Effects

This article discusses the factors that affect the moral development of children, including social behavior, social economic status, and biology. It explores the effects of empathy, family stressors, and socialization on children's behavior. The article also highlights the role of nurture and nature in shaping children's social lives.

Running head: SOCIOLOGY
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SOCIOLOGY
Chapter 14- Moral Development
In moral development of a child or children, many factors affect in the development of
the key characteristic of a person. The three questions in the moral development and
judgment of children growth are;
1) What leads to a child social behavior?
According to the writer, the origin of altruistic pro-social and antisocial behavior are
entrenched in the capacity of a child to feel sympathy and empathy or not. Empathy is one
response to another’s emotional condition or state. If a child is raised in an environment
where he there is sadness and poverty then he or she will feel empathetic to the other. The
experience of empathy will be seen if the child feels sad upon seeing the condition of the
other (Dishion, & Patterson, 2015).
2) Do social economic status affect children antisocial behavior?
It is believed that incomes and economic status in families affect the social behaviors of
the children. Children from low income families tend to be more aggressive and antisocial
than children from prosperous backgrounds. The pattern tends to change when families move
in income status and the children become more social and more proud to be around people.
The reason for the antisocial behavior in children are due to family stressors such as illness,
domestic violence, divorce, separation and neighborhood violence (Eisenberg, et al, 2015).
The research shows that impoverished families tend to be more rejecting and cold to others.
They tend to be threatening, erratic, harsh in disciplining and lax in supervision of their kids.
The antisocial behavior is because low income neighborhoods lack job opportunities,
appropriate mentors and less constructive activities such as sports and clubs to engage kids
and the youth. The research also shows that antisocial behavior run in families due to
composition of genetics.

SOCIOLOGY
3. Is there a relationship between biology and socialization?
According to researchers, it is hard to separate specific cultural, biological and
familial factors and the effect to antisocial behavior development in children. Parental
treatment of their children especially in their early and teenage years affect the antisocial and
aggressive behaviors in children. Intervention studies in children shows that with anti –social
behavior are very serious and aggressive. Children with antisocial behavior also participated
in the intervention measures (Garbarino, 2017). The antisocial children were more likely to
bully and be aggressive to others. Effects such as bullying show that socialization play an
important and fundamental role in development of antisocialism. There are some biological
factors that affect the socialization of the children.
Conclusion
According to hypothesis by Kohlberg, the changes in antisocial characteristics and
behavior stem from perspective taking and cognitive advances. The conscience involves
standards in moral standards and feeling of guilt. Neurological, hormonal and genetic
characteristics may have a high risk of developing a child into an anti-social behavior
(Sluckin, 2017). While this is entirely true, whether a child becomes antisocial and aggressive
in nature will depend on extensive factors such as their personal experiences in the social
world. Sociologists say that both nurture and nature play a crucial role in social lives of
children.

SOCIOLOGY
References
Dishion, T. J., & Patterson, G. R. (2015). The development and ecology of antisocial behavior in
children and adolescents. Developmental psychopathology: Volume three: Risk, disorder,
and adaptation, 503-541.
Eisenberg, N., Spinrad, T. L., & Knafo‐Noam, A. (2015). Prosocial development. Handbook of child
psychology and developmental science, 1-47.
Garbarino, J. (2017). Children and Families in the Social Environment: Modern Applications of
Social Work. Routledge.
Sluckin, A. (2017). Growing up in the playground: The social development of children. Routledge.