D - Kohlberg Flashcards
Aim
- In this study Kohlberg aimed to find evidence to support his theory of moral development.
Background
- The earliest major psychological study of moral character was conducted by Hartshorne and May (1928-30). The study focused on a variety of virtues including honesty, service (altruism or generosity), and self-control. Their findings showed there were no personality traits, psychological dispositions or entities which correspond to words like honest, service and self-control.
- Kohlberg was inspired by Piaget’s pioneering effort to apply a structural approach to moral development rather than linking it to personality traits. He therefore expanded on Piagetian notions of moral development and saw moral development as a more gradual process than Piaget. He provided a systematic three-level, six-stage sequence of development which reflected changes in moral judgement throughout the lifespan. Specifically, Kohlberg argued that development proceeds from a selfish desire to avoid punishment (personal), to a concern for group functioning (societal), to a concern for the consistent application of universal ethical principles.
- Over the years Kohlberg gradually elaborated a typological scheme which described general structures and forms of moral thought which can be defined independently of the specific content of particular moral decisions or actions.
- The typology contains three distinct levels of moral thinking, and within each of these levels distinguishes two related stages,
Kohlberg’s theory of moral development - Everyone progresses through the levels and stages in order.
Method
- This was a longitudinal study which followed the development of the same group of boys for 12 years by presenting them with hypothetical moral dilemmas, all deliberately philosophical, some of them found in medieval works of casuistry. The aim was to show how, as young adolescents develop into young manhood, they move through the distinct levels and stages of moral development proposed by Kohlberg in his theory of moral development.
- Kohlberg also studied moral development in other cultures using hypothetical moral dilemmas. This study therefore has a cross-cultural element.
Sample
- 75 American boys who were aged 10-16 at the start of the study were followed at three-year intervals through to ages 22-28.
- Moral development was also studied in boys of other cultures including Great Britain, Canada, Taiwan, Mexico and Turkey.
Procedure
Using 75 American boys
* Participants were presented with hypothetical moral dilemmas in the form of short stories to solve.
* The stories were to determine each participant’s stage of moral reasoning for each of 25 moral concepts/aspects.
* Aspects assessed included:
- Motive Given for Rule Obedience or Moral Action
- The value of human life: tested by asking the participant:
Aged 10: “Is it better to save the life of one important person or a lot of unimportant people?”
Aged 13, 16, 20 and 24: “Should the doctor ‘mercy kill’ a fatally ill woman requesting death because of her pain?”
Using different cultures
* Taiwanese boys, aged 10-13, were asked about a story involving theft of food: “A man’s wife is starving to death but the store owner won’t give the man any food unless he can pay, which he can’t. Should he break in and steal some food? Why?”
* Young boys in Great Britain, Canada, Mexico and Turkey were tested in a similar way.
Results
- Taiwanese boys aged 10-13 tended to give ‘classic’ Stage-2 responses.
- Middle-class urban boys aged 10 in the US, Taiwan and Mexico showed the order of use of each stage to be the same as the order of its difficulty or maturity.
- In the US, by age 16, Stage-6 was rarely used. At age 13, the good-boy, middle stage (Stage-3) was not used.
- Mexico and Taiwan showed the same results except that development was a little slower.
- At the age of 16, Stage-5 thinking was much more salient in the US than either Mexico or Taiwan.
- Results for two isolated villages, one in Yacatan, one in Turkey, also showed that moral thought increased steadily from ages 10-16 though it had not achieved a clear ascendency over preconventional thought.
- Trends for lower-class urban groups were intermediate in the rate of development between those for middle-class and for village boys. In these three divergent cultures therefore, middle-class children were found to be more advanced in moral judgement than matched lower-class children.
- No important differences were found in the development of moral thinking among Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims or Atheists.
Conclusions
- There is an invariant developmental sequence in an individual’s moral development.
- Each stage of moral development comes one at a time and always in the same order.
- An individual may stop at any given stage and at any age.
- Moral development fits with Kohlberg’s stage-pattern theory.
- There is a cultural universality of sequence of stages.
- Middle-class and working-class children move through the same sequence but middle-class children move faster and further.
- This 6-Stage theory of moral development is not significantly affected by widely ranging social, cultural or religious conditions. The only thing that is affected is the rate at which individuals progress through the sequence.
Method Evaluation
P- A strength of a quasi-experiment is that there is no manipulation, participants fall naturally into the conditions.
E- This means that it is possible to look at something that would be unethical or impossible to manipulate.
E- In this study the researches investigated the impact of age and culture on moral development. They waited for the American boys from10 years old to turn 3 years older before they collected data, researchers cannot force age/experience on people.
P- A weakness of quasi-experiment is that there is a lack of controls over extraneous variables.
E- As participants naturally fall in to the conditions extraneous variables such as individual differences can stop the researcher measuring the impact of the IV.
E-In this study the researcher looks at the impact of culture on moral development. However, the results may tell us more about individual differences of the participants e.g. the amount of communication/discipline from parents regarding what is right or wrong
P- A strength of using a semi-structured interview is that it includes both open and closed questions.
E- This enables the researcher to gain quantitative data (nominal data) from the closed questions and the use of open questions and probing enables a fuller picture to be painted- increasing internal validity, the researcher is measuring what they set out to measure.
E- Participants were given dilemmas and asked whether the people discussed should/shouldn’t have behaved in a set way. Participants were then probed to gain greater insight to the reasons for the answers that then was used by Kohlberg to determine the level of moral development.
P- A weakness of using semi-structured interview is that participants may answer questions in a social desirable way.
E- This means that participants may provide responses that make them look good in the eyes of others.
E- In this study the boys may not be providing their own reasoning for why behaviour should/shouldn’t happen in the dilemmas but ones that they think make them look good to the person asking them the questions.
P- A strength of using a longitudinal study is that it enables the researcher to collect data over a period of time.
E- This enables the researcher to gain insight into how behaviors develop over time.
E-In Kohlbergs study, the American boys were interviewed from 10-16 years old every 3 years, given dilemmas and asked for reasoning behind there answers. This enables Kohlberg to monitor their moral development over time.
P- A weakness of using a longitudinal study is that data collection takes a lot of time.
E- As data is collected over a period of time and on more than one occasion, data collection takes time and therefore money.
E- In this study the American boys were studied for 12 years and data was collected every three years. Therefore analysis and conclusions couldn’t be drawn until after this period.
Data
P- A strength of qualitative data is that it is detailed.
E- This enables the researcher to gain a fuller picture of what is being studied, as descriptive data can provide reasoning. And therefore the researcher is more likely to measure what they set out to measure.
E-Kohlberg used open questions in his interviews and collected qualitative data. This enabled him to gain greater insight into the thought process of the participants given moral dilemmas such as the Heinz dilemma.
P- A weakness of the qualitative data is that analysis can be subjective.
E- This means that the researchers own personal opinions and predictions could influence how the data is anaylsed, therefore open to researcher bias.
E- Kohlberg had developed his stages of moral development prior to the study and aimed to provide evidence of this within the study. Therefore, he may have subjectively analysed the reasoning provided by the boys to fit this theory.
Ethics
P- This study could be considered ethical as informed consent was given.
E- Informed consent refers to a participant understanding what will happen within the study and why the study is being carried out then agreeing to take part in the study.
E- By participants answering the interview questions they are agreeing to take part in the study. The dilemmas provided provide insight as to what the researcher was looking at and the repetition (every 3 years) ensured participants knew what was happening.
P- This study could be considered unethical as protection from harm may be an issue.
E-Protection from harm refers to the responsibility of the researcher to sure the participant is not harmed physically or psychologically by the participation in this study.
E-Although it may not have been stressful to answer the questions on the dilemmas in years to come when the lads had grown in cognitive and moral development they may be embarrassed of their previous responses.
Reliability
P- This study is high in external reliability.
E- This means that the study could be repeated using the same or similar sample and the results checked for consistency, this is due to the high level of standardization.
E- In Kohlberg the American boys would be given the same dilemas e.g. at 13 years of age ‘Should the doctor “mercy-kill”a fatally ill woman requesting death because she is in pain?’. This means the study was and could be repeated.
P- This study is low in external reliability.
E- This means that it may not be possible to repeat the study in exactly the same way to check the consistency of the results, this is linked to lack of standardization.
E- In Kohlbergs study the questions were adapted based on the previous answer. For example, if the participant said Heinz should steal the drug then the next question would be ‘If Heinz doesn’t love his wife, should he steal the drug for her?’. But of the pts doesn’t favour stealing then the question would be ‘Does it make a difference whether or not he loved his wife’. Not all particiants had the same experience and there for hard to repeat in the exact same way.
Validity
P- This study is high in internal validity.
E- This means that controls have been put in place to ensure that the researcher is measuring what they set out to measure.
E- The participants in Kohlbergs study were presented with the same moral dilemas at the same age. From the age of 13 years all pts were asked ‘should the doctor “mercy-kill”a fatally ill woman requesting death because she is in pain?’. This stops the researcher measuring the difference in question rather than the differences in moral development between pts e.g. social classes.
P- This study is low in ecological validity.
E- This means that the study does not reflect real life situation and therefore the results cannot be generalized beyond the study.
E-Kohlberg gave participants moral dilemas and they were asked to give comment on whether behaviours should/shouldn’t occur. What participants suggest should happen and how they would actually behave if put in that situation may be very different.
Sampling Bias
P- The sample is representative.
E- This means it includes a good cross-section of the characteristics found in the target population and therefore the results can be generalized.
E- Kohlbergs study is cross-cultural and therefore he collects data on moral development from a number of different cultures e.g. America, Canada, GB, Mexico and Turkey. This means the results can be generalized to a number cultures.
P-The sample is bias.
E- This means the sample does not represent a good cross-section of the characteristic found in the target population and therefore the results can be generalized.
E-Kohlberg only studies moral development in boys, this means the sample is androcentric and therefore we cannot generalize the results and support for Kohlbergs theory of moral development to girls.
Ethnocentrism
P- This sample is not ethnocentric.
E- This study and the results considers a number of cultural backgrounds and therefore results can be generalized to more than one cultural group.
E- Kohlbergs study is cross-cultural and therefore he collects data on moral development from a number of different cultures e.g. America, Canada, GB, Mexico and Turkey. This means the results can be generalized to a number cultures
P-This sample has an element of ethnocentrism.
E- This means that it studies a narrow range of cultures and therefore the results cannot be generalised to all cultural backgrounds.
E- Although Kohlberg’s study is a cross-cultural study it does not study all societies. For example it does not look at the moral development of boys in Vietnam or Australia and therefore results cannot be generalised to these cultures.
