An understanding of emotional and moral development has helped me to better understand several of my life events. Lawrence Kohlberg's first level of moral development, called the Pre-conventional Level, applies clearly to my fear of punishment after breaking and friend's mother's china. Similarly, my decision to be kind to an unpopular friend can be seen to relate to Piaget's Autonomous Stage. My tendency to introversion can also be understood as an emotional need to reduce fear in my environment.

             At age six, I ran away from home for three hours. I went over to play at a friend's house, where I started to play with china that my friend's mother had received as a birthday gift. While playing, the box fell, and much of the china was broken. I recall a number of feelings from this incident, including self-conscious emotions like fear, shame, guilt, anxiety, self-criticism, and fear of discipline. .

             In this incident, my behavior and thoughts are clearly synonymous with Lawrence Kohlberg's first level of moral development, called the Pre-Conventional Level. In this level, lasting up to age nine, children tend to see an action as immoral or immoral based on its consequences. In Stage One (Obedience and Punishment Orientation), children focus on whether external authorities consider something as wrong in determining morality. Children often say that something is wrong if it is associated with punishment. In Stage Two (Individualism and Exchange), children begin to see moral behavior in light of their own best interests. They can take other's views into consideration, and morality is often based on a "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" sense of values (Munsey, 1980). .

             My fear of discipline is most similar to Kohlberg's Stage One (Obedience and Punishment Orientation). After breaking the china, I remember feeling clearly that my actions were wrong because I would be punished.