Kohlberg

• What are the 3 levels of P.I.G.L.S.U

  1. pre-conventional (ages 4-10)

  2.conventional

  3.post-conventional
• What are the 2 stages in the pre-conventional level

  1. Punishment and obedience orientation

  2. Instrumental-relativist orientation
• What are the 2 stages in the conventional level

  3. Good boy-good girl orientation

  4.law and order orientation
• What are the 2 stages in the post-conventional level

  5. Social contract orientation

  6. Universal principles orientation
• Which stage is not featured within everyone's moral development

  Stage 6- Universal principles orientation
• Outline the background research to Kohlberg’s study on the child as a moral philosopher (4)

  •Kohlberg’s inspiration – Piagets theory of moral development, based on a social-cognitive and social-emotional perspective.•Piagets belief about children’s morality aged 10 and under and when he believes morality fully develops.•How Kohlberg disagreed and what he believed in relation to the development of morals.•What Kohlberg proposed in relation to the development of morals- briefly outlined the 3 level sequence.Kohlberg was inspired by the work of Piaget and his theory of moral development in children. Piaget placed a structural approach on moral development suggesting that individuals morality develops from a social- cognitive and social-emotional perspective.However Piaget believed that children younger than 10 are focused on authority rather than evaluating their actions based on their own morals, but that it is around this age that children start to develop their moral compass, which is developed by adolescence.However, Kohlberg disagreed with Piaget and believed that moral development continued into early adulthood.This prompted Kohlberg to develop a three level, six stage process of moral development to explain how moral development progresses through these stages and evidenced this theory in his longitudinal study of moral reasoning.
• What was the aim of Kohlberg's study?

  The aim of the study was toinvestigate development in moral reasoningthroughout adolescence and early adult heard. A secondary aim was to assess the extent to which these changes hold true ina range of cultural contexts.
• Research method in Kohlberg's study? (2)

  -Longitudinal studyfollowing the moral development of thesame group of boys for 12 yearsby presenting them with hypotheticalmoral dilemmas.-A secondary aim was to assess the extent to which these changes hold true in arange of cultural contexts.
• Describe the moral dilemmas in Kohlberg's study?

  These are all the deliberately philosophical and aim to show how, as young adolescents develop into young adulthood, they move through distinct levels and stages of moral development proposed by Kohlberg's theory of moral development.
• Sample


  in Kohlberg's study75 American boyswho were aged 10-16 at that start of the study. They were followed atthree year intervalsthrough to ages 22-28.Moral development was also studied in boys fromGreat Britain, Canada, Taiwan, Mexico and Turkey.
• Procedure (75 American boys)

  in Kohlberg's studyParticipants were presented withhypothetical moral dilemmasin the form of short stories to solve. The stories were to determine the participants’ stage of moral reasoning for each of the 25 moral themes. These were delivered byinterviewing participants individually every three years (for 12 years).Each dilemma involved options with different moral applications, and once the participant understood the dilemma they were asked what the character in the dilemma should do.
• Give some examples of the hypothetical dilemmas given in Kohlberg's study

  •Aged 10: "Is it better to save the life of one important person or a lot of unimportant people?"

  •Aged 13, 20 and 24: "Should the doctor 'mercy kill' a fatally ill woman requesting death because of her pain?"
• Procedure (Other cultures)


  in Kohlberg's studyTaiwanese boys, aged 10-13, were asked about a story involving theft of food. They were asked “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 some food? Why?” Young boys in Great Britain, Canada, Mexico and Turkey were also tested in a similar way.

  The method for this wascross-sectionalinstead of longitudinal, meaning there wasno follow up for these participants. Cross-sectional studiescompare different groups of participants of different ages. This is another way ofstudying developmental changesbut in a way that is much quicker than longitudinal studies. Although they are quicker validity may be affected by extraneous variables, such as individual differences such as age group.
• Results (75 American boys)

  in Kohlberg's study•Participants progressed through the stages as they got older.Some participants hadnot reached the final stage of moral developmentby the end of the study.•Stages were always passed through stage by stage and in thefixed orderand the participants never went back to a previous stage. For example, no stage 4 adults had previously been through Stage 6, but all Stage 6 adults had passed through at least Stage 4.Kohlberg also found when children are confronted with the views of a child one stage further along, they seemed to prefer this next stage and to move forward.
• cross cultural similarity result

  in Kohlberg's study•Middle-class urban boys aged 10 in the USA, Taiwan and Mexico showed the order of each stage to be the same as the order of its difficulty or maturity.
• cross cultural difference result

  in Kohlberg's study•At the age of 16, Stage 5 thinking was more prevalent in the USA than either Mexico or Taiwan - this stage was reached by participants in these two countries at a later age.
• Conclusions in Kohlberg's study (4)

  oThere is an invariant developmental sequence in an individual’s moral development.oEach stage of moral development occurs one at a time and always in the same order.oThere is a cultural universality of sequence of stages.oThis six stage theory of moral development isnotsignificantly affected by widely ranging social, cultural or religious conditions. The only thing that is affected is therateat which individuals progress through the sequence.
• Can you make one other conclusion of your own based on Kohlberg's findings?

  Kohlberg disagreed with Piaget that children were capable of evaluating actions from a set of independent principles of morality by early adolescence, as Kohlberg found that some participants had not reached the final stage of moral development based on universal principles by the end of the study. This suggests that moral development continues into adulthood for some individuals.
• Practical applications in Kohlberg's study

  Kohlberg's use of moral dilemmas has been applied to a range of settings where ethical behaviour is considered important. These range from personal, social and health education (PHSE) at school to military training. In his Just Community Schools, Kohlberg (1975) applied the method to whole-school discipline. The idea is that if staff and students collaborate to put together a system of rules based on ethical principles there will be better student 'buy-in' and more willing cooperation.
• Strength of the research method in Kohlberg's study

  Rich, insightful data which allows us to explore the differences in moral reasoning.
• Weaknesseof the research method in Kohlberg's study

  Risk of socially desirable responses - participants may lie in their responses in order to appear as though they have moral understanding reducing internal validity.
• How is Kohlberg's study scientific?

  Kohlberg believes his research adopts a scientific stance, but the low control over extraneous variables and the subjective interpretation of evidence to support his theory may make it lack some validity and objectivity. You can argue it follows scientific processes of deduction, Kohlberg tested the same theory of cognitive development as Piaget.
• Weakness of the sample in Kohlberg's study

  Androcentric sample - all males meaning their results regarding moral development cannot be generalised to females.
• Strength of the sample in Kohlberg's study

  Cross-cultural sample - the main sample was 75 males from America but further interviews were conducted with males from Great Britain, Canada etc. Which increases the generalisability of the results.
• Weakness of the type of data in Kohlberg's study

  Difficult to draw conclusions, make comparisons and also replicate. This reduces the external reliability is it would be difficult to check for consistency in the results.
• How does Kohlberg's study illustrate the nurture debate?


  morals may develop at a faster rate depending on culture.
• Strength of the type of data in Kohlberg's study

  Participants give full answers to question rather than just selecting from options and therefore the data is more descriptive insightful regarding their moral development.
• How does Kohlberg's study illustrate the nature debate?

  Suggests that within each person an innate predetermined sequence of moral development occurs and as we age we develop morals.
• Strength of the longitudinal study in Kohlberg's study

  Allowed us to monitor and track him all reasoning is changed/improved with age.
• How does Kohlberg's study have low validity?(3)

  -Low ecological validity- as participants were asked about hypothetical moral dilemmas instead of being exposed to real ones. Most of them as we have a real life simpler than Kohlberg's dilemmas.

  -risk of social desirability with the interview questions, may want to appear as though they have morals, particularly when participants are older.

  -Kohlberg made subjective interpretations of the responses made.
• How does Kohlberg's study have high reliability?

  Elements of the procedure were standardise such as participants having three follow-up interviews (3 yearly interviews)
• How does Kohlberg's study have low reliability?

  Qualitative data was gathered through the moral dilemma responses which is difficult to replicate.
• How is Kohlberg's study ethical?

  Study raises very few ethical issues there was no deception or distress, privacy was not invaded and participants were willing to participate.
• Argue whether Kohlberg's Study is ethnocentric?

  All American males were used but Kohlberg did gain later data from a range of cultures to compare moral reasoning cross culturally.
• How does Kohlberg's study illustrate the deterministic debate?

  very much focuses moral development to be biological maturity.
• How does Kohlberg's study illustrate the holistic debate?

  25 moral concepts studied looking at a range of factors of moral developmet
• How is Kohlberg's study useful?

  Enhances our academic knowledge that stages of moral development are invariant (fixed) regardless of culture
• How does Kohlberg's study have limited usefulness?

  we could question how useful the research is as Kohlberg did not enhance our understanding of the cultural reasons for the difference in the speed of progression through the stages of moral development.