in Jean Piaget’s theory of moral development, the stage during which the child, approximately 6 to 10 years of age, equates morality with the rules and principles of his or her parents and other authority figures. That is, the child evaluates the rightness or wrongness of an act only in terms of adult sanctions for or against it and of the consequences or possible punishment it may bring. Also called heteronomous morality. See also immanent justice; moral absolutism; moral realism. Compare autonomous stage; premoral stage.