kohlberg

back ground - theory of moral development.

kohlberg believed that children’s thinking about moral decisions changes as they ages this is due to them maturing. he identified three stages, preconventional, conventional, post conventional. each stage has two stages and can be identified with dilemmas

aims

kohlberg sought further support for his theory with particular focus on whether everyone went through stage 5

method - design

longitudinal and cross cultural study using two quasi exps.

american longitudinal

iv- age

dv- stage of moral development

cross culture

iv- culture

dv- stage of moral development

sample - longitudinal study

75 American boys from chicago aged 10-16 at the start and 22-28 at the end. from a spread of high and low ecological backgrounds and a wide spread of religions.

cross culture sample

boys from uk, canda, mexico,turkey and two small villages in taiwan and malaysia

materials

moral dilemas related to 25 moral concepts e.g the value of life.

longitudinal - procedure

1. the boys assesed at either 10,13,16 years old then retested every 3 years until they are 24

2. boys level of moral development assesed by moral dielemas e.g the heinz dielema

3. boys asked open questions about the dilemas

4. questions ajusted based on preivous responses.

5. the oral interview took about 45 mins and covered nine dilemas

cross culttrue procedure

1. boys from two villages in malaysia and twain where tested

2. boys where asked about a story involving the theft of food

longitudinal results

1. responses on the moral issue of vaule of human life from two boys were analysed tommy aged 10 mixed up value of human life with property owned by a person = stage one

2. richard aged 24 argued for absolute values of justice = stage 6

3. both boys showed progression of moral reasoning. though tommy was slower despite being a bright boy iq 120

cross culture results

1. at aged ten stage 1 reasoning is most common in all counitres

2. at aged 16 in th usa the order was reversed stage 5 being the most comon followed by 4,3,2,1,6

3. similar results were found in mexico, taiwan but development was slower,with stage 3 being ther most comomn at aged 16

4. villages in yucatan and turkey showed steady progress but stage 1 was the most common

5. stage 6 was rarely found in any culture

6. middle class children were more advanced than lower class children

conclusions

1. moral reasoning develops with ages in a fixed and invariant sequence of stages

2. similar in all countries but at different rates

research method and techniques

s - longitudinal designs mean that participant variables are controlled e.g so that aspects of participants personality would not affect differences in the development of moral reasoning between boys

w - in longitudinal studies participants often drop out over time e.g kohlberg’s original sample was 84 however 9 boys dropped out by the time the data was analysed this may bias the sample

validty

s-kohlberg’s aim was to asses moral reasoning not moral behaviour so he was testing what he intended to showing high internal validity

w - however, what people belive about wjat right and wrong does not predict what they acttuly do thus his study is low in ecological validty.

reliablity

s- kolhberg prodcued a complex system to turn qualitative data into quantitative data to make the classifcation of moral development relable this provides good interater reliability

sample bias

w - this research is biased towards men i.e androcentric since the dilemmas were written by a man based on a pricabple of jusctice favoured by man and tested pon a sample of men/boys thus kohlbergs study provides evidence for only one kind of moral reasoning