Moral Development and its Relation to Perspective Taking Ability

An attempt was made to study the relationships between moral development and perspective taking abilities of children at three age levels (i.e., 5-6 years, 8-9 years and 11-12 years). The results indicated that both moral reasoning and perspective taking improved with age. Gender differences were significant for only the cognitive perspec tive taking ability suggesting that girls possess more prosocial characteristics. Multiple correlations indicated that perspective taking abilities have a significant effect on moral reasoning for only the youngest age group. This suggests that perspective taking ability is a crucial mediator for moral development at the initial stages. Hence, perspective taking once acquired increases only slightly to include the areas of perception or cognition, whereas moral reasoning is acquired through slow and successive comprehension of the various moral issues confronted in the course of development.