Between the ages of 5 and 9 years, moral worth is assessed by action, not intent
Piaget and Kohlberg dominate the early literature on the psychology of moral development. Prior to their work, there was a consider-able literature on childhood morality by philosophers and educationalists. However, this was largely concerned with how a child ‘should’ behave and their morality ‘should’ develop. Developmental psychologists were, arguably, the first to examine empirically how morality developed in the real world.
Piaget (1932) based his theory on observations of children playing marbles (the game was far more popular when Piaget conducted his research). He argued that children pass through three stages.
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