The Psychological Mechanisms of Internalizing Moral Values

Apart from the quantitative peculiarities, the present study seeks to deal with not only the analysis of the content but also the mechanisms of internalizing moral values in main psychological approaches. The psychoanalytical approach considers this process as something originated in social pressures for doing the actions which are sociallyaccepted and takes identification and formation of super-ego or the motivation to avoid losing parents’ love as the main mechanism. According to socio-cognitive approach, moral norms are essentially considered to be an external and social phenomenon and amongindividuals’ actions through such experimental processes as punishment, self-organization, and sympathetic feeling. From the cognitive-developmental viewpoint, moral values is a system of argument in perceiving social relations. The main mechanisms of thevery process comprises cognitive conflict, assimilation and accomndation, adaptation and equilibration. The cognitive-emotive approach explains the moral internalization as a change through regulatory techniques, cognitive processing, and individual’s efficientmotivation. Although all approaches put emphasis on the interactions of crucial internal and environmental determinants, the extent to which they participate in the process of internalization is different. The psychoanalytical and cognitive-social approaches consider the role of socio-external phenomena more effective and cognitivedevelopmentaland cognitive-emotive approaches give more importance to the internal determinants.