Kohlberg

• Background

  Is it due to nature or nurture?

  Morality relates to how we interact with others

  Moral development refers to the way children begin to construct, cognitively, a system of beliefs about this

  Kohlberg was inspired by Piaget- provided a three level, six stage sequence of development
• Level 1 - Pre conventional morality

  Age 4-10

  Stage 1 - punishment and obedience orientation - doing what is right because of fear of punishment

  Stage 2 - self interest orientation (Hedonistic) - doing what is right for personal gain, perhaps a reward

  Authority is outside the individual and reasoning is based on the physical consequences of actions
• Level 2 - Conventional morality

  Age 10-17

  Stage 3 - good boy good girl orientation - behaves well to please others

  Stage 4 - law and order orientation - doing what is right because it is your duty and it helps society

  Authority is internalised and reasoning is based on the norms of the group to which the person belongs
• Level 3 - Post conventional morality

  18+

  Stage 5 - Social contract or legalistic orientation - emphasis on legal point of view but with emphasis on changing law in terms of rational considerations

  Stage 6 - universal ethical principles orientation - doing what is right because of our inner conscience

  Individual judgement is based on self chosen principles and moral reasoning is based on individual rights and justice
• Aim

  To gather further support for his view of moral development

  To show that people go through stages of moral development

  To find out if people at stage 6 go through stage 5 or whether these are two alternative orientations
• Method

  Longitudinal study - 12 years

  Same group of boys

  Presented with hypothetical moral dilemnas

  Cross cultural

  American : 75 boys, ages 10,13,16 followed up in 3 year intervals until ages 22-28

  Cross cultural : Atayal (Malaysia) and Taiwanese

  Chinese interpreter interpreted responses

  Boys ages 10-13 asked about theft of food

  Also studies cultures including Mexico, Turkey, Yucatan, GB and Canada
• Procedure

  Semi structured interview - 45 mins

  Presented with hypothetical moral dilemnas in form of short story

  Answers score manual and then compared to moral development stages

  Aspects assessed included the motivation to obey rules and the value of human life
• Procedure - 2

  American: value of human life tested by asking : Aged 10: 'Is it better to save the life of one important or lots of unimportant people?' Aged 13,16,20,24: 'Should the doctor mercy kill a fatally ill woman requesting death because of her pain'

  Different cultures: Taiwanese boys, aged 10-13 told a story about broke man who's wife is starving : 'Should he break in and steal some food? Why?'
• Results

  Participants progress through one stage at a time

  Not all participants progressed through all stages

  Individual reasoning changes over time
• Results - Cross cultural

  Taiwanese boys aged 10-13 tended to give classic stage 2 responses

  Middle class urban boys aged 10 in the US, Taiwan and Mexico showed to be the same level of maturity

  Mexico and Taiwan - same results except that development was slower

  Middle class children were found to be more advanced in moral judgement than matched lower-class children
• Conclusions

  Moral development occurs in the same sequence regardless of where a child grows up - individual go through stages one at a time

  Nature of this sequence is universal therefore is not significantly affected by social, cultural or religious background

  Middle class children move more quickly and further through the stages compared to working class children

  Some individuals may never reach the final stage
• Strengths

  Longitudinal study

  Cross cultural

  Qualitative

  Standardised
• Weaknesses

  Cross cultural - costly, language barriers

  No quantitative data

  Lacks ecological validity