Eisenberg provided a stage theory of moral understanding, which in congruence with the cognitive theories of Piaget and Kohlberg, is based on the idea that morals develop as a maturational process alongside other cognitive skills. The first stage is ‘self-centered’, whereby the child’s main concerns (up to 7 years of age) are themselves; however later on, empathy develops and, by the age of 16 years, the individual’s helping behaviour is based on strongly-internalised beliefs and values.
However, much like other stage theories, this can be criticised for being both reductionist and deterministic, as it does not take into account individual differences with regard to the sequence and completion of the stages. That is, some people may not progress through all the stages, some may ‘skip’ a stage and some may even regress. Going against this criticism, however, Eisenberg suggested that children can reason from several different levels (even those above their age) if they have the cognitive capability to do so.
In contrast with Piaget and Kohlberg’s theories, Eisenberg believed that children have a more advanced capability for moral understanding and justification of moral behaviour than previously thought. This is an advantage as the aforementioned theories are frequently criticised for undermining children’s abilities. Also in contrast to Piaget and Kohlberg, Eisenberg presented participants with much simpler dilemmas, in which there is a simpler child character.
This may increase internal validity, because it is impossible to assess a child’s moral understanding by presenting them with a dilemma which they do not fully comprehend. The theory states that a child will be empathetic only when they understand another’s distress and feel concern about it (Eisenberg, 2000). This is an important element of the theory, and is supported by Caplan and Hay (1989), who found that persoanl distress alone is insufficient for pro-social behaviour to take place.
They found that young children (in the ‘self-centered’ level) were often upset by the distress of another child but did not offer to help. This supports the theory as the lack of ability to be concerned caused the children not to take action. Gender differences are not accounted for by Eisenberg’s theory. Feshbach (1982) found that males are less empathetic than females at any one point in their life. Eisenberg et al. (1991) suggested, however, that this difference may be explained by the fact that girls’ cognitive maturation is faster than that of girls.
Cross-cultural differences have also been found in Eisenberg’s theory, which may be criticised for being eurocentric. Research has found that European children changed from hedonistic to needs-oriented reasoning, as suggested by Eisenberg, but research in collectivist cultures, such as Israeli kibbutzim, has found that children there tend to emphasise communal values in their morals. This indicates that it is not only cognitive ability that influences pro-social behaviour, but also the society in which the child lives.