Lawrence Kohlberg

Research Methods

• Kohlberg excecuted a longitudinal study from 1958 to 1978

• He used males ages 10-16 at the time the study commenced

• He sampled 72 of them

• When he found was three stages of morality with two stages in each

  • He identified a consistent progression through the stages

  • Economic class affected the speed of progression

Levels of Morality

Level 1: Pre-Conventional Morality

• Right and wrong is determined by rewards and punishments

• Stage 1 involves punishment and obedience

  • Whatever leads to punishment is wrong

• Stage 2 develops the additional idea of rewards

  • The right way to behave is the way that is rewarded

Level 2: Conventional Morality

• The opinions of others begin to matter

• People begin avoiding blame and seeking approval

• Stage 3 sees the development of good intentions

  • Behaving in ways that conform to the good behaviors that others expect of us

• Stage 4 involves obedience to authority

  • There is now an importance of “doing one’s duty”

Level 3: Post-Conventional Morality

• Abstract notions of justice develop

• The rights of others can override obedience to laws or rules

• Stage 5 differentiates between moral and legal rights

  • There is a recognition that rules should sometimes be broken

• Stage 6 involves individual principles of conscience

  • Takes into account the likely views of everyone affected by a moral decision

Validity

• Recall that validity is essentially accuracy

• We should analyze if Kohlberg’s test was constructed in a way to provides an accurate measurement of morality

• We should also question if the test questions predict principled moral behavior

  • Does the test really determine if people would make those decisions in real life?

• There may have been a confounding factor in that participants answered in a way that they felt was expected of them

  • Additionally, participants could have answered knowing that they were ‘supposed’ to answer a particular way, even if they felt the opposite

Carol Gilligan

• Gilligan had a number of criticisms of Kohlberg’s study

• She decided to conduct her own study, sampling only women

• She found that Kohlberg, in excluding women, ruined his generalizability

• Gilligan determined that the results Kohlberg found were not generalizable to women

• Kohlberg was working on the basis of logic, social organizations, and justice

  • He used this because that is how men tend to evaluate moral decisions: by what is expected of them and what benefits them

• Gilligan took an alternate approach of interpersonal relationships

  • Women tend to take a more empathetic look at the situation

  • Women are more likely to disregard institutions and what they are told/expected to do in pursuit of being moral