Kohlberg proposed that people's decision and judgements about right and wrong can be identified in his stage theory of moral development- the higher the stage the more sophisticated the reasoning
Kohlberg et al. used a moraldilemma technique and found criminal offenders tend to be at the preconventional level- non-criminals progress to the conventional level and beyond
Preconventional level is characterised by:
a need to avoidpunishment and gain rewards
less mature, childlike reasoning
Offenders may commit crime if they can get away with it or gain rewards (e.g. money, respect)
Research shows that offenders are often self-centred (egocentric) and display poorer socialperspective-taking skills
Individuals who reason at a higher level tend to sympathise more and exhibit behaviours such as honesty, generosity and non-violence