Kohlberg’s levels of moral reasoning (Year 13 Booklet 7)

What are the 2 cognitive explanations of offending?

• Cognitive distortions

• Levels of Moral Reasoning

What is the Heinz dilemma?

• Heinz’s wife is dying from a cancer

• A local chemist has discovered a drug that might save her

• The chemist is charging 10x the production cost of the drug

• This is a lot more than Heinz can afford, as he can only raise half the money

• Heinz asks the chemist if he can have the drug for cheaper or pay the rest off later as his wife is dying

• The chemist refuses, saying he discovered the drug and is going to make money from it

• Heinz considers stealing the drug

Define moral reasoning

Process by which an individual uses their own value system to decide if an action is right or wrong

What are Kohlberg’s stages of moral reasoning?

• Level 1 Pre-conventional

• Level 2 Conventional

• Level 3 Post-coventional

Outline the pre-conventional stage

• Moral decisions are based on consequences of following or breaking rules (Reward and punishment based morality system)

• Children are at this level as don’t have personal code of morality

Outline the conventional stage

Beginning to internalise moral standards as we accept social rules

Outline the post-conventional stage

Understanding universal ethical principles, viewing laws as tools not absolute didictates

Which stage did Kohlberg suggest criminals were stuck in? Why?

• Pre-conventional level of moral reasoning (Stage 1 and 2)

• Adults stuck at this level may commit crime to seek rewards if they think they can get away without being punished

(Supporting evidence) What research did Kohlberg et al.(1973) conduct and what did they find?

• Procedure: Gave moral dilemmas to violent youths and non-violent youths to compare their moral development

• Findings: Found significantly lower moral development in violent youths, effect persisted even when social background was controlled

(Limitation) How does Langdon et al. counter Kohlberg’s research?

• Suggest that the correlation between moral reasoning and criminality is due to a 3rd factor variable

• Langdon et al. proposed intelligence is a bigger predictor of criminality than moral reasoning

• People with lower IQ more likely to have lower moral reasoning ability

(Supporting evidence) How did Palmer and Hollin (1998) support Kohlberg’s moral explanation?

• Procedure: Compared 126 offenders with 210 female and 122 male controls on moral reasoning test (SRM-SF: moral dilemma-based test)

• Findings: Found the offenders showed less mature moral reasoning

(Limitation) How might individual differences be a limitation of this explanation of offending behaviour?

• Level of moral reasoning may depend on type of offence

• Reid (1982) found people who offended for financial gain and people who thought they would evade capture showed more pre-conventional moral reasoning than people who committed impulsive crimes

• So limited explanation of offending