Kohlberg Flashcards
Kohlberg procedure
- Every boy was presented with moral dilemmas every 3 years during this time.
- Using the answers the boys gave, Kohlberg ranked them in 6 categories (1-least morally developed, 6-most morally developed). If about 50%/60% of their responses to any of these moral concepts, they fall into that stage.
- This formed his theory of stages of moral development.
Background: the Heinz dilemma
THE HEINZ DILEMMA
In Europe, I woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that might save her that was recently discovered but it was expensive to make and the druggist charged $4,000 for a small dose. The sick woman’s husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow money and tried every legal means but he could only get $2,000. He told the druggist his wife was dying and asked if it could be sold cheaper or let him pay later. The druggist said ‘no, I discovered the drug and I’m going to make money from it’. Heinz gets desperate and considers breaking into the mans store to steal the drug for his wife.
Kohlberg
How do two perspectives explain morality and moral development?
Jean Piaget’s account of moral development.
Psychodynamic perspective: norms defined by community and society are internalised. Once internalised, they unconsciously influence emotions such as guilt or shame (Freud).
Behaviourist: children’s behaviours are based on the observation of models behaviour and observation of models being punished, leading to them avoiding that behaviour.
Jean Piaget said:
As children grow up they all (universal) pass through the same stages of moral development.
Stage 1: children under 8 believes that anyone who breaks the rules are bad despite their intentions.
Stage 2: children over 8 learn to see things from others point of view and the ideas of good and bad are more complex.
Kohlberg based his theory about stages of moral development on Piaget’s ideas.
Aims
He wanted to provide research that would back up his theory of moral development inspired by piaget.
Research method
Longitudinal study.
USA sample
75 boys aged 10-16 until they were 22-28.
He followed the same boys for 12 years.
Strengths and weaknesses of longitudinal studies
Strengths:
Following the same participants over time reduces the effects of participant variables.
Can show development of individuals and how these differ by gender, culture and environment.
Weaknesses:
Time consuming
Retention rate
Generalisable sample
Other countries
Malaysia, Taiwan, Mexico, Canada, Turkey, UK
Strengths and weaknesses of cross-cultural research.
Strengths:
It’s not ethnocentric
It’s generalisable
Comparisons can be made to help generalise the results.
Weaknesses:
Expensive, time consuming
Same procedure is often not appropriate for different cultures.
Kohlberg’s stages of moral development
Pre-conventional
Conventional
Post-conventional
Conclusions
- stages follow an invariant developmental sequence (one at a time in the same order).
- Does not skip steps
- The sequence is universal
- each step of development is a better cognitive organisation than the last
Ethics upheld and broken
Upheld:
Right to withdraw: didnt have to answer his questions
Deception: participants knew the true aim of the study and were not deceived
Names were kept confidential
Informed consent- consent gained by participants each time.
Internal and external reliability
Internal:
Standardised- all boys given the same dilemmas and questions to participate every 3 years.
At least 50% of answers needed to fit in one stage.
External:
75 male participants from USA.
Other countries had a relatively large sample.
Unlikely to be a one-off.
Internal (construct), external (population), external (ecological) validity.
Construct: Repeated measures design was used so there’s no participant variables. Demand characteristics (they know the aim of the study), social desirability bias. Upbringing, education. Could be testing linguistic understanding or intelligence.
Population:
He did the study in 6 other countries but he only used boys.
Ecological:
Fight or flight mechanism hasn’t been initiated so they can’t truly know how they’ll react.
Ethnocentrism
His research could be accused of cultural bias because he said his theory was universal based on just the USA evidence.
It could be seen as not ethnocentric because he did the study in 6 other countries not including the USA so the results can be generalised to a range of cultures.
