Moral development

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Moral development is a field of psychology. Social psychologists such as Martin Hoffman and Jonathon Haidt base it from social and emotional developments that are a product of biology, such as empathy. Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg and Carol Gilligan have cognitive-developmental approaches to moral development; to these theorists morality forms in a series of constructive stages. Moral identity theorists, such as William Damon and Mordecai Nisan, see moral commitment as arising from the development of a self-identity that is defined by moral purposes: this moral self-identity leads to a sense of responsibility to pursue such purposes. Psychoanalysts such as Sigmund Freud believe that moral development is the product of aspects of the super-ego as guilt-shame avoidance.