At this stage, infants often play alone and rarely play with their peers. When playing, the rules of the game or the requirements of adults are not binding on them. They play games at will, only follow their own wishes to implement the rules of the game, and don't know the results of the game. They play their own games and ignore each other at all. They ignored the rules and suddenly declared success, cheering and clapping. It is often puzzling that adults suddenly feel happy when they see their children around them. Piaget thinks that this is a self-centered action stage, which is called "simple personal rules stage". This is because children in this period have no real social interaction and social cooperation, and they can't really distinguish their own affairs from other people's affairs.

Children at this stage do not understand and pay attention to the requirements of adults or the surrounding environment because of the limitations of understanding. Sometimes it seems that they have accepted the guidance of adults, but they often want to do it themselves. Sometimes it shows disobedience, stubbornness and even resistance to the demands of adults or peers. Therefore, don't interfere with children's activities at this stage, but give patient and specific guidance. In Piaget's view, only when children are aware of the code of conduct that should be followed in game activities can rules become children's code of conduct, otherwise, it is just a simple rule.

2. Authority stage (6-8 years old)

Children at this stage believe that authority and the orders of elders should be respected. They believe that obeying the orders of adults is the right behavior, otherwise it is the wrong behavior; Listening to adults is a good boy, but not listening to adults is a bad boy. They also obey the rules or requirements set by the surrounding environment, thinking that these rules or requirements are immutable and no one can violate them. If they violate these regulations, they have made a big mistake.

Piaget did an experiment to let children judge the situation of a dilemma story. The story is: "On Sunday afternoon, my mother was tired and asked girls and boys to help her with housework. The girl was asked to dry a stack of dishes, and the boy was asked to get some firewood. But the little boy went out to play. Mom makes girls do two things. What did the girl say? " Piaget asked 150 children aged 6 to 12. Therefore, most children tend to obey authority and think that adults' orders are correct, so it is correct and should be obeyed for mothers to ask girls to do two things.

Piaget and his collaborators have pointed out through a lot of research that 7 years old, 10 years old and 13 years old are the periods of children's fair judgment, showing obedience, equality and justice respectively. Young children still don't understand the concept of justice. They regard the right and wrong of adults as right and wrong, and their standard of quality depends on obedience and disobedience. They think obedience is a good behavior, and acting according to their own wishes is a bad behavior. They can't tell the difference between obedience and justice, disobedience and injustice. For them, justice has not been distinguished from obedience, so children's fair judgment is characterized by obedience to adults. This is the characteristic of the authority stage.

In practical work, primary school teachers reflect that students in grade one and grade two like to "complain", which is a concrete manifestation of children's moral concept of obeying authority, because they need to find adults when they encounter difficulties, especially let teachers judge them. Because the development of children's moral concept at this stage is absolute respect and obedience to authority, their moral education should mainly rely on the specific guidance of teachers, without forcing peers to help each other; Their study and activities are mainly organized by teachers, so there is no need to overemphasize the role of classes. At this stage, the exemplary role of teachers is particularly important.

3. Reflexive stage or equivalent stage (8- 10 years old)

At this stage, children no longer regard adult orders as absolute obedience, nor do they regard moral rules as immutable. They have realized the relationship between their peers. The so-called moral code of conduct is just a social product agreed by peers to protect their own interests. Therefore, for them, rules are only used to coordinate their actions. There is a "reversible relationship" between peers before the rules. I ask you to obey, and I must obey.

Mutual respect and restriction between peers inevitably produces the concept of equality. They are no longer simply obeying the orders of adults, and they are no longer satisfied with simply obeying the rules, but demanding equality among their peers. Or take the story of a mother letting her children do housework as an example. They don't think that their mother's orders are correct like children aged 6 to 8. At this time, children demand equality. For example, it is unfair to think that a mother allows a boy to play while a girl does two things. What are the reasons for promoting the development of children's view of justice from obedience to equality? Piaget believes that adult role models may have an impact on children's view of justice. Because the cultivation of a sense of justice is based on self-discipline. In addition, children's social communication and cooperation also promote the development of children's view of justice from obedience to equality.

Because children at this stage neither obey authority nor obey rules mechanically, they have realized the relationship between peers. Therefore, teachers should pay attention to positive guidance and reasoning in moral education, take educational measures to treat all students equally, and avoid coercion, repression or partiality. At the same time, starting from this period is a good opportunity to cultivate and form class collectives and Young Pioneers collectives, and it is also a good opportunity to cultivate children's autonomy, self-care ability and collectivism.

4. Justice stage (11-12 years old)

At this stage, children's moral concepts tend to be fair. The so-called justice is to recognize true equality, unlike the previous stage, which was only satisfied with formal equality. The so-called real equality is to make appropriate treatment according to everyone's specific situation. For example, Piaget did an experiment: "On a holiday afternoon, my mother took her children for a walk by the river. At four o'clock, she gave each child a burrito. They each ate their own burritos, but the little brother didn't eat them and accidentally fell into the river. How will mom handle this? How about another one? Brother, what will they say? " Piaget asked the children aged 6 to 14, and the younger children argued that they should not be given him again as a punishment. Older children advocate giving him another burrito so that everyone can have one (equality); Older children also advocate giving him another one, but this is because the younger brother is still young and should be taken care of. This is fair and just. Older children have been able to judge moral problems according to their own values. They have been able to judge right and wrong with the new standards of justice, and realize that when judging right and wrong according to the standards, they should first consider some specific situations of others and make their own moral judgments from the perspective of care and sympathy. In Piaget's view, the sense of justice is a real moral relationship out of concern and sympathy for people. Therefore, the sense of justice is an advanced form of the concept of justice, which is essentially "a kind of advanced equality". From Piaget's research results, most children whose thinking has developed to the stage of formal operation can hold a fair attitude in their fair judgment.

Caring for peers and sympathizing with others is the foundation of all noble moral qualities. It's hard to imagine that a liar has cheated other people's property and will have sympathy and care for the deceived. Therefore, the ideological and moral education in schools should focus on the development of children's moral concepts at the just stage of112 years old, and carry out altruism and collectivism education.

(B) Kohlberg's theory of stages of children's moral development

The American developmental psychologist Kohlberg (1927-1987) is a follower of Piaget's theory on the development of moral cognition, and on this basis, he further revised, refined and expanded it, and put forward his own stage model of children's moral cognition development according to the thinking structure of children of different ages. Kohlberg, like Piaget, admits that moral development has a fixed development order, from special to general, from self-centered and caring for direct things to caring for the interests of others based on general principles; Everyone agrees that moral judgment should be based on general cognitive development; Both emphasize the role of social communication in moral development. The difference between the two lies in the research methods first. Piaget studied the development of children's moral cognition by talking with children in a binary story, while Kohlberg used nine dilemma stories with conflicting moral values to let children and teenagers judge right and wrong, good and evil and explain the reasons. For example, the story of "Hindes stealing medicine":

"There is a woman in Europe who has cancer and is dying. The doctor thinks that only one medicine can save her. This is a radium agent recently invented by a pharmacist in this city. It costs a lot of money to make this medicine, and the pharmacist's fee is 10 times the cost. He spent 200 yuan as radium agent, and he received 2000 yuan. Hindes, the husband of the sick woman, borrowed money from acquaintances everywhere, and only borrowed 1000 yuan, which is only half of the medical expenses. Hindes had to tell the pharmacist that his wife was dying, and asked the pharmacist to sell it to him at a lower price, or allow him to take credit. But the pharmacist said,' No! I invented this medicine only to make money. Hindes had no choice but to pry open the door of the drugstore at night and steal medicine for his wife. "After telling this story, the examiner asked the subjects a series of questions: Should this husband do this? Why do you say it should be? Why not? Should the judge sentence him? Why? Wait a minute.

Kohlberg carefully studied the subjects' statements and divided them into 30 different moral concepts, such as right and wrong, rights and obligations, responsibility, reward and punishment, moral motivation and behavioral consequences. According to the reaction of children and adolescents of different ages, Kohlberg divides children's moral development into three levels and six stages:

1. predetermined level

This level of moral concept is purely external or pre-moral level. Children obey the rules made by authoritative figures in order to escape punishment or get personal rewards. It includes two stages:

The first stage: punishment and obedience orientation

Children at this stage judge the quality and severity of behavior according to the consequences of behavior. They obey authority or rules only to escape punishment. Think that the praised behavior is good and the punished behavior is bad. They have no real concept of norms. Children at this stage think that stealing drugs is not good for Hindes, because "stealing drugs will lead to prison". Even if some children support Hindes to steal drugs, the nature of reasoning is the same. If someone says, "He can steal medicine because he will be scolded by his brother-in-law."

The second stage: pure hedonism or instrumental orientation

At this stage, children obey the rules in order to get rewards or meet personal needs, and occasionally include actions to meet the needs of others. They believe that it is right to serve others if the actor finally benefits. Interpersonal relationship is regarded as a low-level reciprocal relationship in the field of trading. Children no longer regard rules as absolute and fixed things. They can judge the severity of the wrong behavior partly according to the intention of the actor. Some children think: "Hindes's wife often cooks and washes clothes for him, so Hindes is right to steal medicine." Others think: "It is wrong to steal medicine. Because it is natural to do business, pharmacists can't make money. "

Kohlberg believes that most children under the age of 9 and many teenagers commit crimes, which belong to the first level in moral understanding.

2. Custom level

Children at this level will abide by the norms established by parents, peers and social collectives in order to be appreciated and praised, or to maintain social order, or to conform to the level of conformity. They can all obey the existing social order and have the inherent desire to maintain this order; The rules have been internalized, and it feels right. Therefore, the value of behavior is based on the degree of compliance with the rules of maintaining social order.

The third stage: good boy orientation

Children at this stage respect most people's opinions and established role behaviors, avoid criticism to win appreciation, and attach importance to obedience and being a good child. The moral behavior in children's mind is the behavior of relying on others, helping others or being appreciated by others. They hope to maintain a good and harmonious relationship between people, hope to be regarded as good people, and demand that they live up to the expectations of their parents, teachers and friends and maintain mutual respect and trust. At this time, children have been able to evaluate behavior according to their motives and feelings. When teenagers at this stage read the story of Hindes stealing drugs, some said that "stealing drugs is wrong, and good children don't steal", or emphasized that "Hindes loved his wife because he had no choice but to steal, which is understandable".

The fourth stage: authority and social order orientation

At this stage, the focus of children's attention is to maintain social order, and everyone should bear social obligations and responsibilities. Judging the quality of an act depends on whether it meets the standards of maintaining social order. When answering Hindes's question, the teenagers at this stage sympathize with him, but at the same time think that he should not break the law and must pay back the pharmacist's money and go to jail. They think that if everyone breaks the law, society will be in chaos. Others think that pharmacists should not be punished by law for getting out of the ruins.

Kohlberg believes that most teenagers and adults have this level of moral reasoning ability.

3. Post-customization level

The characteristic of this level is that moral behavior is dominated by social responsibility and universal moral standards, and moral standards have been internalized into their own internal moral order, also known as the principle level.

The fifth stage: the orientation of social contract

Moral reasoning at this stage is flexible. They think that the law is to make people live in harmony. If the law does not meet the needs of the people, it can be changed through consultation and democratic procedures. They believe that the behavior that reflects the wishes of the majority or the greatest social welfare is a moral behavior. The standard of justice produced in accordance with democratic procedures is acceptable, and laws that are imposed on others or harm the rights and interests of the majority are unfair and should be rejected. When the teenagers at this stage answered Hindes's question, the person who advocated "should" steal drugs said: "Of course, the act of breaking the window into the store is not allowed by law, but it is understandable for anyone to steal drugs under such circumstances." People who "think" that they shouldn't say it, "I know it's understandable to steal drugs illegally, but a proper purpose doesn't prove that the means are harmless. You can't say that Hindes's stealing medicine is completely wrong, but in this case, you can't say that his behavior is correct. " It is immoral for Hindes to steal medicine, but his intentions are good.

The sixth stage: conscience or principle orientation

They believe that abstract moral standards and universal justice principles applicable to all situations should be the basis of moral judgment. Deviation from one's own moral standards or principles will lead to guilt or self-condemnation. In the reaction to the Hindes incident, people think that drugs should be stolen, because when one has to choose between serving the law and saving lives, saving lives is a more correct and noble principle than stealing drugs. Those who advocate "no" believe that there are many cancer patients and limited drugs, which are not enough to meet all the people in need; The correct behavior should be considered "right" by everyone. Hindes should not act according to emotion or law, but should act according to what a conceptually just person should do in this situation.

Kohlberg believes that only a few people can reach the third level after the age of 20.

Kohlberg identified three levels and six stages of children's moral development. The division of each stage not only considers whether children choose to obey or need, but also depends on children's explanation and fairness of this choice. Kohlberg believes that the order of moral development is fixed, but not all people reach the same level of development at the same age. In fact, many people will never reach the highest level of moral judgment.

(C) Tao Bo's social behavior theory

American psychologist Staub put forward a theory of social behavior in 1978, 1980 and 1984 to explain how prosocial behavior comes into being. This theory combines value orientation with other factors, trying to form a comprehensive moral behavior theory.

As early as 1960s, a young woman was killed in the street center of a residential area in new york. At that time, at least 38 onlookers witnessed the attack. Although the attacker spent more than half an hour, no one came out to help, and no one even called the police. This amazing non-intervention seems to be inconsistent with the principles of humanitarianism and help advocated by society, which has aroused the concern of relevant parties in society.

Psychologist Stubb once assumed that in the process of helping others, at least two factors are crucial, namely, the ability to put yourself in others' shoes and mastering the knowledge or skills to help others effectively. Staub believes that if this assumption is correct, children should be trained to put themselves in others' shoes and appropriate skills to enhance their willingness to help others. Staub then designed five scenarios: ① A child fell from a chair in the next room; A child wants to move a chair that is too heavy for him; (3) A child is distressed because the building blocks are taken away by another child; (4) A child is standing in the middle of the road where the bicycle is speeding; A child fell and got hurt. And adopt the methods of performing games (or role-playing) and "inducement" to enhance children's willingness to help other children with difficulties. The experimental research is divided into four groups. One group is the role-playing method, the other is the "induction" method, the third group is the simultaneous application of the two methods, and the last group is the control group. They are playing all kinds of games that have nothing to do with helping others.

In the performance game group, every two children are required to perform a situation. One child plays the needy and the other plays the helper. The experimenter first describes a situation that needs help. So the child who plays the role of "helper" is asked to do all kinds of help actions he can think of immediately, and then the experimenter describes some other situations that need help and asks to act them out truthfully. Finally, the two children exchange roles to help the children automatically figure out or the experimenter reveals various possible ways, including direct intervention, verbal comfort to the victim, and asking others for help.

The activities of the induction group are the same as those of the performance group, except that the children are asked to tell orally how to help. Then, the experimenter pointed out other suitable methods to help children with difficulties, such as improving their positive emotions or reducing their pain and discomfort.

In the performance game group and the induction group, children train in two ways. After actually doing all kinds of help activities, the experimenter also thinks that it will have a positive effect on children with difficulties.

In order to understand the direct effect of various experimental methods, each child who participated in the experiment was taken to a room with various toys to play with. After a brief conversation with the children, the experimenter ran to the next room to "see a girl playing there" and then announced that she (the experimenter) would leave for a while. Less than two minutes after the experimenter left, the subjects heard a loud noise in the next room, followed by crying and sobbing for about 70 seconds. In fact, there is no one in the next room, and the painful voice is made from a pre-made tape, but from the subject's point of view, there is a child in the next room asking for help, and there is no one else to help. What should the subjects do?

Staub divides children's reactions into three types: if they run to the next door to help, they are actively helping; If they report what happened to the experimenter in the next room, it is voluntary report (indirect help); It will be of no help if no efforts are made to provide direct or indirect assistance.

Staub's experimental results show that the performance game group has the best effect, and the effect can last at least one week. This shows that the performance game method can not only stimulate children's empathy, but also cultivate their skills of helping others, and become an effective method in children's education. However, the effect of induction method is not significant, which makes children a little "rebellious", indicating that the pressure of forcing children to "get better" obviously poses some threats to children's freedom, so children respond with resistance.

After many educational experiments, Tao Bo put forward a new theory of social behavior. The main points of this theory are:

1. Most people's actions have a purpose, and the purpose is the final state that individuals pursue. Different purposes, different ways of behavior. When the purpose is in a potential state, it is arranged according to its value or importance to the individual, so it also means that it is associated with various beliefs or motives. Purpose can be activated under the action of internal and external conditions. If there are multiple purposes, conflicts may occur, accompanied by the motivation to resolve conflicts. Pro-social value orientation is the personal purpose of altruism and not hurting others. Staub's research found that the stronger a person's social value orientation, the more likely he is to activate the purpose of helping others and make more helpful behaviors. But personal characteristics and environment will also affect the choice of purpose. For example, a study shows that subjects who are asked to give a report to the public are unlikely to help those who fall on the road and need help when they are late. Being late strengthened his attention to the speech, and his purpose was in a highly active state, covering up another purpose caused by the situation. It can be seen that the degree of purpose activation is related to the importance of purpose.

2. Prosocial behavior has three motive sources that affect the choice of purpose: one is the motive source of altruistic and selfless behavior, which aims at helping others and takes others as the center; Second, the moral orientation centered on rules is the motive source, which aims to adhere to the rules or principles of behavior; The third is empathy. The first two are collectively called social value orientation. People with altruistic orientation are more likely to be activated by specific situations, so they are more likely to help others. People with moral orientation will generally help if they conform to norms or principles. If they think the other person deserves it, they won't help, at least they won't hurt others.

3. The sensitivity of empathy can usually encourage beneficial behavior. It depends on three conditions: ① primitive empathy, that is, the emotional response caused by other people's anxiety; (2) The positive evaluation of others means that the other party deserves sympathy and help; 3 self-concept, that is, having an exact understanding of who you are, is likely to respond to people similar to yourself. Self-concept affects empathy, which is an extension from self to others to some extent. Without an accurate self-concept, it is difficult to expand the boundaries of self in a beneficial way.

4. The transformation from motivation and purpose to action is also influenced by other factors, among which ability plays a major role. If a person doesn't feel the possibility of achieving the goal, not only will he not take action, but even the goal cannot be activated. There are three kinds of abilities that are very important, namely, ① the general estimation ability to successfully achieve the goal; (2) under certain conditions, the ability to formulate action plans to produce action guidance and the ability to make quick decisions in an emergency; (3) Special skills to act in a certain way, such as swimming, are necessary to save drowning people. In addition, if opportunities may be missed or the needs of others are not obvious, the ability to make decisions quickly and perceive the needs of others is also important. However, these are all for motivation, and there is no source of motivation. It's just that they can't produce altruistic behavior.

Tao Bo's social behavior theory fully reveals the internal mechanism of helping others (such as value orientation, purpose conflict, empathy and ability), and provides a method or idea to analyze and predict prosocial behavior. However, there are many specific problems that restrict each other and still need to be studied.

(D) Borovic's "motivation circle" theory.

Borovic (ливовиц, 1908- 198 1), a psychologist in the former Soviet Union, paid attention to children's "motivation" in the process of long-term research on students' learning and disciplinary behavior motivation. This theory holds that: "people's personality characteristics and qualities, experiences and values, world outlook and beliefs, and role models all depend on people's motives and needs. Therefore, the motivation-need area can become the center, and the rest of the personality characteristics form a structure around it. The dynamic circle is a complex structure. Some of the motivations involved are not only different in content, but also different in randomness and embodiment. Motivation can be random, directly presented, mediated by usual intentions, intentional or unintentional. Various motives have different positions in the pedigree structure. In the motivation structure, there are accidental and situational motivations, as well as stable and frequent motivations. Among the stable motives, some motives often control and inhibit other needs and intentions. "

Borovic believes that motivation is the product of combining with the active object, and it develops in different levels. Students' motivation is developed on the basis of the original needs, such as the need to impress the outside world, the need to learn, the need to play games and so on. It can be divided into two categories: learning motivation (such as learning interest, intellectual activity, enthusiasm, mastering skills, etc. ) and pan-social motives (such as communication, getting praise, occupying a certain position in the group, etc.). ). The former is directly related to learning activities, while the latter reflects the relationship between students and the surrounding social environment and directly affects students' moral development. Motivation circle theory especially emphasizes the role of pan-social motivation (especially moral beliefs, ideals and world outlook) in the formation of morality and personality, and links it with social relations system, which has important theoretical significance for promoting the study of moral structure.

Motivation circle theory holds that personality (personality) is a complete structure centered on "motivation-need" and surrounded by various personality qualities. Personality quality is the unity of relatively stable motivation and behavior style mastered to satisfy motivation. Any quality (such as diligence, integrity, honesty, organization, etc.). ) is an integral part of a complete personality, and its nature is explained by the "motivation-need" in its formation. People's personality tendency and moral outlook depend on the dominant and random motives that dominate the whole motivation circle to a great extent. Its highest development form is the beliefs and ideals that teenagers begin to form, which can make people more conscious and positive. Because the emergence of new demands can lead to the formation of new qualities, they advocate that moral education is the cultivation of demands first, and it is particularly important to strengthen the cultivation of collectivism, moral ideals, moral beliefs and world outlook from adolescence.

Western psychologists have also done a lot of research on children's motives. The fundamental difference between activity-motivation cycle theory and western motivation theory lies in the explanation of the causes of motivation and the driving force of motivation development. Generally speaking, from the standpoint of humanistic philosophy, western researchers believe that human needs are the fundamental driving force to generate motivation and promote its development, and despise human activities. Bao Ruoweiqi believes that people's needs are the cause of motivation, but needs are generated in activities. People move in the environment, just like the earth moves in the solar system. Man can't be regarded as the source of power any more than the earth can be regarded as the center of the solar system. It is the change of activity that leads to the change of motivation, not the other way around.