3 Aspects of Morality

In my last post I mentioned that morality is one of four goals to socialization. There are three aspects of morality that help morality be a goal of socialization. They are: moral reasoning, self-evaluation, and a behavioral aspect.

Moral reasoning requires a person's ability to increase and comprehend rules and customs based on a personal standard of good or bad. For example, a child between birth and five doesn't understand death and why a family member is in the coffin, and then placed in the ground. They may want the family member to be placed in the backyard where the child can still play and talk to them. As the child grows older and comes to understand customs they realize the good thing for the family member-the acceptable choice- was to be buried in the cemetery, not their backyard. This helps a child build morality as they understand there may also be religious reasons a person is buried in a cemetery and it builds socialization skills as they understand this is the social acceptable answer to this particular situation.

Moral self-evaluation is an individual's interpretation of success or failure to stick to their own code of conduct and the amount of guilt they feel when they compromise their code. For example, a teenager may use their own code of conduct to decide they're going to go to every football practice of the season. If they don't they may see this as a failure and feel guilt that they compromised their code of moral self-evaluation.

The behavioral aspect of morality is shown in a person's ability to ward off temptation and either act morally or violate their morals. For example, a teenager's religion may have taught them that to participate in under age drinking is morally wrong. However, when at a party with friends and everyone is drinking, the teen has to decide whether they'll ward off temptation and not drink or violate their moral reasoning and drink anyway.

These three aspects of morality are part of what teaches children about socialization because every child has to determine what they think is or isn't morally right or wrong. Once the choice is made it helps children in social situations and helps them learn how to deal with those parts of socialization in their peer groups.