OCR Psychology For A Level Book 1 sample

Psychodynamic perspective You can read more detail about the psychodynamic perspective on pages 342–343 and you will also study a case study by Sigmund Freud starting on page 280. Briefly, Freud’s view was that development is the result of the interaction of three components of personality – the id , the ego and the superego . Moral development follows the same principles as the development of any aspect of our personality. Freud considered the ego to be the rational element of personality, the one that interacts with reality and has to balance the demands of the other two components. The id is the most primitive part of personality and the only one present at birth. Its main goal is the immediate gratification of impulses, with no heed paid to either reality or morality. In complete contrast, the superego is not innate but the outcome of psychosexual development by the age of about five or six years. The boy (Freud said little about girls’ development) is confronted with sexual feelings for his mother, along with hostility towards his main rival for his mother’s love – his father. The boy also experiences great anxiety at the prospect of being castrated by his father as a punishment. The boy resolves this so-called Oedipus complex by identifying with his father, which means that he internalises parental authority and discipline (and cultural rules of behaviour) – the rewards and punishments for good and bad behaviour that were previously in the hands of his parents become part of the boy’s superego. Moral development depends on superego strength. A weak superego leads to immorality because it is not able to provide suitable rewards ( self-esteem ) for good behaviour and punishments (guilt) for bad. However, an overly harsh superego brings its own problems, such as mental disorders that are the result of overwhelming guilt and constant failure to achieve moral perfection. According to developmental psychologists, there are many ways in which children are much more than just ‘small adults’, including in how they think about moral problems and in growth of facial hair. Are dishonest, cheating and lying people born or made? The message of Hartshorne and May’s research (see facing page) is that no one is naturally moral or immoral, not when we behave so inconsistently in different situations. This is a conclusion a behaviourist would agree with. Because moral behaviour depends upon the external reinforcements we have experienced, nurture is clearly the primary influence. Therefore, it is no surprise that our behaviour varies from situation to situation. The psychodynamic approach emphasises the contribution of nature – we are all born with an id as well as with the capability of developing an ego and superego. However, the exact progress of an individual’s psychosexual development is influenced by environmental factors (a classic example being the harshness of parental discipline). Nevertheless, these factors do not make the superego develop or not develop; they merely influence the extent to which it develops. Can you identify any differences in the type of moral reasoning each child appears to be engaging in below? What is the basis on which each child makes a moral judgement? Finn’s sister decides to take a chocolate biscuit from the tin without asking mummy. Finn is outraged and says, ‘That’s really naughty because when I did it mummy told me off.’ Imogen is doing a test in class and thinks, ‘I’d really like to copy Amber’s answer, but if I do and anyone finds out, they won’t like me any more.’ Sabitha sees a necklace she would like but she doesn’t have enough money. Her friend Denis suggests they steal it. Sabitha tells herself, ‘It would be morally wrong for me to steal the necklace. If we all went round doing that, then society would fall apart.’ Stage theories in developmental psychology One of the pioneers in understanding the way children develop is Jean Piaget . His major contribution was to argue that children don’t become adult thinkers by gaining more and more knowledge – the actual way that they think changes. For example, very young children think that, when you pour liquid from a wide glass into a thin glass there is actually more liquid because it comes up to a higher level. Kohlberg was inspired by Jean Piaget’s ‘structured’ theory of cognitive development. In core study 3 you will see how Kohlberg used Piaget’s idea of a stage theory of development. Stage theories acknowledge that psychological processes are truly developmental. Moral thinking does not arrive fully formed at birth or shortly afterwards, just waiting for the right circumstances to be expressed. Rather, it evolves over many years through the child actively interacting with his or her complex social environments. The concept of stages recognises that psychological development does not occur ‘smoothly’ or seamlessly through gradual changes. Instead, it features several distinct and sudden shifts from one state to another. In other words, development is made up of qualitative rather than quantitative changes. This means that a later stage of moral thinking represents a completely different way of thinking about right and wrong from an earlier stage. Progression from one stage of moral reasoning to another is marked by a qualitative change in how the child thinks about moral problems: they don’t just think about them more ‘deeply’ or more ‘intelligently’ or more anything. This is one reason developmental psychologists believe that children are behaviourally and psychologically not just ‘undeveloped adults’. background 195 A level only Key theme 2: Moral development