Kohlberg - 1968 Flashcards
What is Kohlberg’s aim?
to find evidence that supports his theory of moral development - that there are distinct levels and stages to moral development
What is the method?
longitudinal study (+ self report)
Why is this study longitudinal?
it follows the same group of boys for a long period of time (12 years)
How often were the boys interviewed?
every 3 years
Why is this study a self-report?
data was gathered through interviews
How old were the boys that were studied at the start and end of the study?
start: 10-16
end: 22-28
What is a strength of the method?
- not affected by individual differences
- valid reasoning and insight
What is a weakness of the method?
- takes a long time to get results
- there are EVs that cannot be controlled e.g., traumatic life experience that may effect moral development
What is the sample?
75 American boys (+ boys from other cultures: GB, Canda, Taiwan, Mexico, and Turkey)
What are all the cultures tested?
- America
- Great Britain
- Taiwan
- Mexico
- Canada
What is a strength of the sample?
lots of cultures tested
What is a weakness of the sample?
- cultural bias - cultures studied still had a western tilt = still ethnocentric
- gender bias - no females = androcentric
- relatively small sample
- lacks population validity
What is the procedure?
- participants presented with hypothetical moral dilemmas in the form of short stories
- 25 moral concepts
What are some examples of the moral concepts that were within the hypothetical moral dilemmas?
- motive given for rule obedience or moral action
- value of human life
What is an example of the type of question asked (over time)?
age 10: “is it better to save the life of one important person or kill a lot of unimportant people?”
age 13,16,20 & 24: “should the doctor ‘mercy kill’ fatally ill woman requesting death because of her pain?”
How did the moral dilemmas carry a cultural tilt?
Taiwanese boys aged 10-13 were asked about a story involving the theft of food and young boys in the other cultures were tested in a similar way
What are the key findings?
- boys demonstrated each stage of moral reasoning one at a time and always in the same order
- progress through the stages increased with age
- not all participants progressed to stage 6 - US boys (age 16) stage 6 was rarely used
- middle class children were found to be more advanced in moral judgement than matched lower class children
- no important differences between religions
What type of data was collected?
qualitative
Why is the data qualitative?
interviews
What are the strengths of qualitative data?
provides reasoning for behaviour and opinions on morality
What are the weaknesses of qualitative data?
- subjective interpretation
- analysis and comparisons are harder to establish
What are the conclusions of this study?
- there is an invariant developmental sequence in an individuals moral development
- findings support Kohlberg - stages one at a time in the same order
- cultural universality of the stages BUT rate of progression is effected by culture
What are the ethical issues within this study?
- lack of informed consent - children at the start of the study
What are the issues with validity within this study?
- lack ecological validity - dilemmas were hypothetical and not applicable to IRL moral dilemmas
- lack population validity (sample)
How is this study unreliable?
dilemmas are not cross-culturally standardised - differences in dilemmas e.g., only Tai boys were asked about theft of food
Is this study reductionist or holistic and why?
reductionist - places all morality on hypothetical dilemmas - oversimplifies complex cognition
Is this study deterministic or free will?
free will - can choose how they react to the moral dilemmas
Is this study scientific?
No
- qualitative data
- subjective interpretations = lack causality
Is this study nature or nurture?
Nurture - born as amoral therefore life experience forms morality
