Kohlberg

aim

Kohlberg wanted to provide research that would pick up his theory of moral development inspired by Piaget.

Sample (from the US)

75 boys aged 10-16 until they were 22-28 years of age (he followed the same boys for 12 years)

strengths and weaknesses of longitudinal studies

strengths

accurate since same people are being followed

reduces effects of participant variables

can show development of individuals and how these differ by gender, culture, environment, etc

weaknesses

takes a long time

people may drop out at any point

procedure

  1. every boy was presented with moral dilemmas every 3 years during this time
  1. using the answers the boys gave, Kohlberg ranked them in six categories 91 being the least morally developed to 6 being the most) if about 50% of their responses to any of these moral concepts fall into that stage
  1. this formed his theory of stages of moral development

which places around the world did Kohlberg collect data in?

Taiwan

Turkey

Mexico

Malaysia

Canada

Uk

US

strengths and weaknesses of cross-cultural studies

strengths

good population validity

eliminates ehtnocentrism

findings

pre-conventional

  1. Obedience and punishment orientation: The child is responsive to cultural norms but able to behave in an immoral way if authority structure is missing
  1. Self-interest orientation: The child behaves in a self-centred way

conventional

  1. Conformity to expectations and rules 'good boy good girl': Child is now seeking approval from others and begins to consider the intention of the act
  1. Authority and social order orientation: The child sees right behaviour as duty to show respect and maintain social order

post-conventional

  1. social contract orientation: Child now does what is right based on law plus personal values and opinions. Sees laws as changeable.
  1. Universal ethical principles: Child now bases judgment on universal human rights of justice, equality, reciprocity and respect for the individual

evaluation

ethics

how, in terms of ethics, can Kohlberg's research be criticised?

harm may have been experienced through being given troubling dilemmas

how, in terms of ethics, can Kohlberg's research be defended?

consent was gained by the boys every 3 years

had the right to withdraw every 3 years by nit answering questions

the names of participants were left confidential

participants knew the true aim of the study and were not lied to

reliability

internal reliability: was the procedure standardised and replicable

procedure was very standarised (e.g. same dilemmas being given every 3 years)

standardised by ensuring 50% of answers must fit in a stage to deem the boy in that stage

external reliability: was the sample large enough to suggest a consistent effect?

75 is quite a large sample size so able to establish a consistent effect

further samples within the other countries

validity

internal validity: was it an accurate measure of moral development?

possible social desirability bias

possible demand characteristics

extraneous variables (education, upbringing, etc)

the dilemmas may have instead been testing intelligence

external validity: can the sample be generalised from?

wide range or cultures used so generalisable to other places

only male participants used

external validity: does a person's response to a moral dilemma reflect how they would act in this situation if it happened for real?

how you respond to a hypothetical dilemma may not be how you respond if you were actually in the scenario

ethnocentrism

on what grounds can Kohlberg's research be accused of cultural bias?

Kohlberg was accused of cultural bias as assumed moral development would be the same for everyone based just off the US sample

how might Kohlberg claim that his research is not ethnocentric?

He did however repeat the study in several other places (Taiwan, Turkey, Mexico, Canada, and UK)

background

  1. The psychodynamic perspective would explain morality in terms of the development of a superego
  1. The behaviourist perspective can explain morality in various ways but one would be as a consequence of children
  1. Jean Piaget put forward a cognitive account of moral development to do with the ways in which children think. He theorised that there were two levels of moral thinking:

heteronomous moral thinking weights the outcome of the action to determine how bad it is. The higher the magnitude of the consequences, the worse the action is and the worse the person should be punished

autonomous moral reasoning takes into account the intent of the person committing the action. The worse the person's intentions were, the worse they should be punished for their actions