Cognitive-development theorists such as Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg perceive moral judgement to be the …show more content…
aimed to investigate the development of sympathy, moral emotion attributions, and moral reasoning in children from two different cultures: Chile and Switzerland. The choice to compare a Western country (Switzerland) with a Latin American country (Chile) was decided due to the notion that the moral development of children may differ due to the differences of social and cultural norms. The samples were drawn from a kindergarten and elementary school in Zurich, Switzerland, and Santiago De Chile, Chile. Focusing on the development of sympathy and moral attributions, the study was taken with a sample of 176 middle class children aged 6 and 9 years old. The two age groups were chosen due to a body of empirical evidence that suggests there to be a normative developmental increase in this age (Einsberg, Spinrad, & Sadovsky, 2006). Further research suggests childhood to be the most critical period of moral development. Inhibitory control begins to form at infancy (Bruner, 1974), and by the age of 3 a child will have acquired the proper ability to control their actions (Hughes, 1998). Further advancements around this age include a newly formed capacity to understand what is deemed as “right” and “wrong” (Stipek, Gravinski & Kopp, 1990), and as a consequence early concepts of moral rules are formed. Similarly, previous studies indicate there to be both normative