Kohlberg

• What was Heinz moral dilemma 


  Heinz wife was dying and a new drug will save her. the chemist was charging 10 times the price to make the drug. He could only raise half the money and asked the chemist if he could pay later he said no. So at night Heinz broke into the chemist and stole the drug.
• Aim

  To investigate development of moral reasoning through adolescence and early childhood
• Second Aim


  To assess the extent to which these changes hold true in a range of cultural context.
• Research Method 


  Interviews
• Research Design 


  Longitudinal (12 years and revisited every 3)
• Participants with America


  75 American Boys who were aged 10-16 at the start through to the age of 22-28
• Participants with different cultures

  Taiwanese Boys aged 10-13. Other young boys in Great Britain, Canada, Mexico and Turkey.
• Procedure for American Boys 


  Participants were presented with hypothetical moral dilemmas in a from of short stories. This established their stage of moral reasoning for each of the 25 moral concepts/aspects.
• What did the aspects include for American Boys


  Rule of Obedience or Moral Action

  Value of human life : by asking the participant

  10 - better to save on important person or a lot of unimportant people

  13,16,20,24 - Should a doctor 'mercy kill' a fatally ill woman requesting death because of her pain.
• Procedure for Taiwanese Boys 


  10-13 - were asked about a story involving theft of food " a man's wife is starving to death but the store owner won't give the man any food unless he can pay, which he can't. Should he break in and steal the food. Why?
• Procedure of other young boys


  Was tested similarly to the Taiwanese boys but as a cross sectional study but not a longitudinal (snapshot)
• Results

  He suggested 3 levels and 6 stages to moral development
• 3 levels to moral development


  Pre-conventional morality

  Conventional morality

  Post-conventional morality
• Stages in Pre-conventional level


  1)Obedience and punishment orientation

  2)Self interest orientation
• Stages in the conventional level

  3)Good boy/girl orientation

  4)Law and order orientation
• Stages in the Post-conventional level


  5)Social contract orientation

  6)Universal principles
• What did he suggest about the stages

  He stated not all participants over the study period progressed through all the stages and reached stage 6

  At the age of 16, stage 5 was more present in US boys than Mexico or Taiwan.
• Conclusions

  Everyone goes through a series of stages in which moral reasoning develops from pre-conventional based on democratic rules but also personal conscience

  Although variations of rate of development people growing up in a range of cultural contexts go through the same stages

  The middle class more faster and further through the stages
• Background

  His work was inspired by Jean Piaget who proposed intellectual development in different stages. But disagreed that moral reasoning was completed by adolescence but it continues into young adulthood.