Identity- Personality and Behaviorist Views in Moral Development

Identity- personality and behavioral ideas of moral development are found in the framework of two different psychological traditions, i.e. behaviorism and psychoanalysis. Behaviorists are intensively objectivistic and focus on visible behavior, whereas psychoanalysts focus on studying unconscious mind and emotions. This basic difference in the subject matter, which has effected methodology, extends to moral development. The present paper examines the nature and process of moral development in the light of these two traditions and reviews the ideas which are found in the framework of these traditions. There is, in fact, a kind of convergence between the new ideas of these traditions; psychoanalysts increasingly show interest in the effect of environmental and cultural factors whereas behaviorists recognize constitutional factors; cognitive, emotional, and personality. A comparison between these two traditions can elucidate the new approaches in the framework of each of the two.