Social cognitive theory of morality

The social cognitive theory of morality attempts to explain how moral thinking, in interaction with other psychosocial determinants, govern individual moral conduct. Social cognitive theory adopts an "interactionist" perspective to the development of moral behavior. Personal factors of the individual, such as individual moral thought, emotional reactions to behavior, personal moral conduct, and factors within their environment, all interact with, and affect each other. Social cognitive theory contests, in many ways, with the stage theories of moral reasoning. Social cognitive theory attempts to understand why an individual uses a lower level of moral reasoning when they are, theoretically, at a higher level. It also attempts to explain the way social interactions help to form new, as well as change existing, moral standards. The influence of modeling and other such social factors are explored as functions of growth and development. Albert Bandura also believes that moral development is best understood by considering a combination of social and cognitive factors, especially those involving self-control. Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development Theories grounded in the belief that different types of moral thinking appears in a sequence, from one way of thinking to another, invariantly, are considered stage theories. Both Kohlberg and Piaget's theories about the development of moral reasoning argue that development occurs in stages and that less complex reasoning strategies from lower stages are abandoned in favor of the more complex strategies from the next. In essence, a preference for higher levels of moral thinking is the underlying proposition of stage theories, although what makes higher level moral thinking superior to lower level moral thinking is unclear. However, stage theories tend to downplay the effect of social learning on the individual and the influence the environment can have in certain situations of moral reasoning.