The development of conscience, or moral development, involves the formation of a consistent value system on which to base decisions concerning behaviors. Conscience is generally concerned with individuals making distinctions about "right" and "wrong," or "good" and "bad." Morality refers to the agreement of a group about the rightness or wrongness of certain behaviors. Values are underlying assumptions about standards that govern moral decisions.

Although morality has been a topic of discussion for religious leaders since the beginning of human civilization, the scientific study of moral development did not begin in earnest until the late 1950s. Lawrence Kohlberg (1927-1987), an American psychologist, was one of the first people to develop a theory of moral development. Kohlberg was influenced by the work of Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget. Piaget showed that children go through different developmental stages, from concrete to abstract, in learning to reason. Kohlberg took the idea of...