Kohlberg

• Background: What did studies of moral character show?

  • There were no personality traits, psychological dispositions or entities which correspond to words like honest, service and self control  
• Background: What did other psychologists believe about moral development?

  Freud: 

  • Morality develops at the end of the phallic stage 
  • Child identifies with the same sex parent and begins to internalise their values and morality, the superego (moral principle) develops from age 5 

  Skinner (behaviourist): 

  • Morality develops from the learning process (reward and punishment) 

  Piaget (cognitive): 

  • Child goes through stages of moral development and believed that they do not have the cognitive capacity to behave in a moral way until they successfully reach a certain stage in development   
• Background: Why did Kohlberg disagree with Piaget?

  • Kohlberg was influenced by Piaget but disagreed the process was complete by early adolescence  
• Background: What did Kohlberg believe?

  • Not everyone will reach final stage 
  • Some people will remain at a far lower stage 
  • Cannot miss a stage out 
  • May progress through stages at different speeds 
• Background: What are the stages in the preconventional level?

  1. Punishment and obedience orientation - rules are kept to avoid punishment
  2. Self interest - the "right" behaviour is that brings rewards
• Background: What are the stages in the conventional stage?

  3. Good boy, good girl orientation - "good" behaviour is what pleases others - conformity to goodness

  4. Law and order orientation - obeying the law is important
• Background: What are the stages in the post-conventional stage?

  5. Social contact orientation - "right" is what is democratically agreed upon

  6. Conscience and ethical principles orientation - moral action is taken based upon self chosen principles
• What are the aims?

  • Kohlberg aimed to find evidence to support his theory of moral development  
  • To show how, as young adolescents develop into young manhood, they move through the distinct levels and stages of moral development proposed by Kohlberg in his theory of moral development  
  • To study moral development in other cultures using hypothetical moral development  
• What is the method?

  • Longitudinal – follows the same group of boys for 12 years  
  • Self report – each ppt had a semi-structured interview with 10 dilemmas to solve  
  • Cross cultural  
  • Quasi experiment:  

  IVs – age and culture 
• What is the sample?

  • 75 American boys aged 10-16 at the start of the study and were followed at 3 year intervals through to ages 22-28 
  • Moral development was also studied in boys of other cultures including Great Britain, Canada, Taiwan, Mexico and Turkey 
• Procedure: What were the participants presented with?

  • Participants were presented with hypothetical moral dilemmas in the form of short stories to solve 
  • The stories were to determine each participant’s stage of moral reasoning for each of 25 moral aspects 
• Procedure: What questions were the American boys asked?

  • Tested value of human life by asking  
  • Aged 10 –  “Is it better to save the life of one important person or a lot of unimportant people?” 
  • Aged 13,16, 20 and 24 – “Should the doctor ‘mercy kill’ a fatally ill woman requesting death because of her pain?”
• Procedure: What were the Taiwanese boys asked?

  • Taiwanese boys aged 10-13 were asked 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 some food? Why?” 
  • Young boys in Great Britain, Canada, Mexico and Turkey were tested in a similar way  
• What were the findings in regards to stages?

  • 50% of each 6 stages a participant’s thinking was at a single stage regardless of the moral dilemma and participants showed progress through the stages with increased age  
  • Not all participants progressed through all stages and reached stage 6 
  • Participants progressed through stages one at a time in the same order  
  • Once a stage was reached they either stopped or moved upward to the next stage 
  • A child at an earlier stage tends to move forward when confronted with views of a child one stage further along and they seem to prefer this next stage 
• What were the cross cultural findings?

  • Mexico and Taiwan showed same results except development was a little slower  
  • At age 16, stage 5 thinking was much more noticeable in the US than Mexico or Taiwan 
  • 2 isolated villages in Mexico and Turkey showed moral thought increased steadily from 10-16 
  • Trends for lower class urban groups were intermediate in the rate of development and middle class were found to be more advanced in moral judgement 
  • No differences in moral thinking development between religions 
• What were the conclusions?

  • Moral development is universal and applies to all boys across cultures 
  • Young boys go through distinct levels and stages of moral development  
  • There are no cross cultural differences