kolhberg

• Developmental psychology focuses on how people change as they get older
• This study examines how childrens sense of right and wrong change as they get older
• Kohlberg aimed to investigate the development of moral reasoning in children in order to create a series of stages that could apply to all
• kohlberg used longitudial studies as he re-interviewed the same ppts over 12 years
• kohlberg used semi- structured interviews with 10 or more open ended questions
• kohlberg used content analysis going through the qualitative data from the interview responses and identifiying themes
• kohlbergs research has many features of a case study - longitudinal and multiple methodologies
• kohlberg studied 75 american boys from the age of 10-16 and again between 22 and 28
• he also studied people from :

  • great britain
  • canada
  • taiwan
  • mexico
  • turkey
• by studying people from multiple countries, kohlberg could do cross cultural comparisons
• to assess moral thinking, kohlberg created nine hypothetical moral dilemmas that presented a conflict between two moral issues
• each child was asked to discuss three of these dilemmas prompted by 10 or more open ended questions
• the responses were analysed and general themes were identified that were the basis of the stages of moral development
• the children were assessed with a similar interview every 3 years and changes in their moral reasoning was recorded
• kohlberg compared his findings with those from different cultures to see if there were cultural differences
• kohlberg was able to identify differences in the moral reasoning to develop a stage model of moral development
• he found moral development is broadly split into 3 stages:

  • preconventional
  • conventional
  • postconventional
• each stage can be seperated into 2 sub stages giving 6 stages in total
• kohlberg found that younger children thought at the preconventional stage and as they got older their reasons for moral decisions became less focused on themselves and more on relationships with others
• the final level of development is related to moral principles
• preconventional morality is based on its actions and direct consequences
• conventional morality is an individual will assess morality by comparing it to societys views
• postconventional morality is judged on abstract concepts that may conflict societys views
• kohlberg concluded that these stages were universal and all people would pass through them
• the only difference between people is the speed at which they progress through the stages
• kohlberg argues that each step of the stages represent a better cognitive organisation and each stage builds on the one before
• each stage becomes more equilibrated
• a strength is this study has good population validity as ppts were used from 6 countries
• a weakness is the sample in the usa were 75 males and not declared in the other countries which can be seen as unrepresentative especially to women
• a strength is kolhberg used culturally specific dilemmas for the taiwan ppts to ensure their relevance and increase internal validity
• a weakness is kolhberg used interviews which can lead to social desirablity that lowers the internal validity
• a weakness is the study might lack ecological validity as they werent real life scenarios and consequences so answers may differ
• a strength is kolhberg used the same nine moral dilemmas with the same set of questions to ensure internal reliability
• a strength of conducting a longitudinal study with his usa ppts that ensured consistency
• a weakness is ppts werent asked about the same dilemma at the same ages and taiwan had culturally specific dilemmas so there could be inconsistencies
• used children under the age of 16 so he may have lacked valid consent
• children under the age of 16 are seen as vunerable and it is unclear if there were any significant considerations over causing distress
• risk of harm over the nature of the dilemmas
• ppts may have felt stress or anxiety over giving correct answers
• it can be claimed that the ethical costs are minimal and the importance of the findings improving moral development outweigh them