
What are the 6 stages of Kohlberg?
Lawrence Kohlberg 6 Stages of Moral Development
- Preconventional level of Moral Development. There’s pre-conventional, which involves Stages one and two. ...
- Stage 2; Individualism and Exchange. ...
- Conventional Level of Moral Development. ...
- Postconventional Level of Moral Development. ...
What are the six stages of moral reasoning?
moral reasoning. Each stage is defined by the reason/motive for your behavior. Level 1: Preconventional: No internalization of morals (reasons are external to the individual) • Stage 1 (Punishment and obedience) • Stage 2 (Individual self-interest) Level 2: Conventional: Intermediate internalizations of morals • Stage 3 (Seeking approval or avoiding disapproval) • Stage 4 (Law and order)
What is Kohlberg theory of moral development?
Kolhberg’s theory of moral development states that we progress through three levels of moral thinking that build on our cognitive development. Lawrence Kohlberg expanded on the earlier work of cognitive theorist Jean Piaget to explain the moral development of children, which he believed follows a series of stages.
What is moral development Kohlberg?
Kohlberg’s theory of moral development is a theory that focuses on how children develop morality and moral reasoning. Kohlberg’s theory suggests that moral development occurs in a series of six stages. The theory also suggests that moral logic is primarily focused on seeking and maintaining justice.

What is the first stage of moral reasoning in Kohlberg's theory?
Obedience and PunishmentStage 1 (Obedience and Punishment): The earliest stages of moral development, obedience and punishment are especially common in young children, but adults are also capable of expressing this type of reasoning. According to Kohlberg, people at this stage see rules as fixed and absolute.
What is the first stage in Kohlberg's theory of moral development quizlet?
The first level of morality, preconventional morality, can be further divided into two stages: obedience and punishment, and individualism and exchange.
What are the 3 levels of Kohlberg's stages of moral development?
He organized his six stages into three general levels of moral development.Level 1: Preconventional level. At the preconventional level, morality is externally controlled. ... Level 2: Conventional level. ... Level 3: Postconventional or principled level.
What are the stages of moral reasoning identified by Kohlberg quizlet?
Terms in this set (4) Stage 1: Moral decisions based on fear of punishment. Stage 2: Moral reasoning guided by self-interest. Stage 3: Moral decisions are guided by conforming to standards of those we most value. Stage 4: Moral reasoning is determined by conforming to social norms.
What are Kohlberg's stages of moral development quizlet?
Terms in this set (6)level 1 (children): Stage 1: Punishment - obedience. ... level 1: Stage 2: Personal Reward. ... level 2 (teens): Stage 3: Mutual Interpersonal Expectations, Relationships, and Interpersonal Conformity (good boy-nice girl) ... level 2 (teens): Stage 4: Social System and Conscience (Law and Order)More items...
What are the 6 stages of Kohlberg?
Kohlberg's 6 Stages of Moral DevelopmentThe full story. ... Stage 1: Obedience and punishment. ... Stage 2: Self-interest. ... Stage 3: Interpersonal accord and conformity. ... Stage 4: Authority and maintaining social order. ... Stage 5: Social contract. ... Stage 6: Universal ethical principles. ... Pre-conventional level.More items...•
What are the stages of moral reasoning?
In Stage six (universal ethical principles driven), moral reasoning is based on abstract reasoning using universal ethical principles. Laws are valid only insofar as they are grounded in justice, and a commitment to justice carries with it an obligation to disobey unjust laws.
What is Kohlberg's theory quizlet?
Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development. stage theory of moral development. presented moral dilemmas and analyzed the moral reasoning in choices. three levels, two stages at each level. fixed order.
What are the stages of moral development discuss each?
The three levels of moral reasoning include preconventional, conventional, and postconventional. Video Player is loading. By using children's responses to a series of moral dilemmas, Kohlberg established that the reasoning behind the decision was a greater indication of moral development than the actual answer.
What does Preconventional mean?
Adjective. preconventional (not comparable) (ethics) Belonging to the earliest of Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development, focusing on self-interest and on obedience for the sake of avoiding punishment.
How many main stages of moral development are there quizlet?
Three levels, two stages within each level.
How many stages of moral judgement did Kohlberg propose?
Building on from the original propositions of Jean Piaget, Kohlberg theorised that humans develop their moral judgements in 6 stages. To confirm his theory, Kohlberg interviewed boys between the ages of 10 and 16. He then analyzed how they would justify their decision when confronted with different hypothetical moral dilemmas.
What is Kohlberg's theory?
Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory claims that our development of moral reasoning happens in six stages. The stages themselves are structured in three levels: Pre-Conventional, Conventional and Post-Conventional. To understand this better, imagine a conflict at school. There is a fight in the schoolyard. Two ninth-graders are beating up Tom.
What is the highest moral principle in the headmaster's philosophy?
He first explains the school rules, and why they exist. He then clarifies that rules are valid only if they are grounded in justice. The commitment to justice carries with it an obligation to disobey unjust rules. The headmaster’s highest moral principle is compassion. He believes that all people should learn to understand each other’s viewpoints and that they don’t feel alone with their feelings. He asks: What are the abstract ethical principles that serve my understandings of justice?
What is the first stage of the story?
Stage 1: Obedience and punishment. At stage one, we make moral judgments based on obedience and punishment. Finn’s sense of good and bad is directly linked to whether he gets punished or not. Finn sees what is happening to his friend and wants to help.
What is the stage 3 of the moral judgment?
At stage three, interpersonal accord and conformity guide our moral judgments. Betty sees the fight and wants to intervene, but when she realizes that all the others are just watching, she decides not to get involved. She wants others to see that she is a good girl, who is conforming with the ethics of the community.
What does Jessy think of the rules at stage 5?
At stage five, we understand rules as a social contract as opposed to a strict order. Jessy, who watches from afar, is not sure how she feels about this. To her, rules make sense only if they serve the right purpose. Obviously, the school rules prohibit fighting, but maybe Tom deserves to finally learn his lesson. Just yesterday he punched a young girl from grade one. She asks herself: Does a rule truly serve all members of the community?
What is Betty's morality?
At the conventional level, Betty responds to peer pressure, and the teacher follows the rules. Their morality is centered around what society regards as right. At this level, the fairness of rules is seldom questioned. It is common to think like this during adolescence and adulthood.
Which philosopher argued that Kohlberg's theory should be modified to focus on the view that the process of moral reasoning?
Carpendale has argued that Kohlberg's theory should be modified to focus on the view that the process of moral reasoning involves integrating varying perspectives of a moral dilemma rather than simply fixating on applying rules.
Who was the first person to claim that morality and logic develop through constructive stages?
Kohlberg followed the development of moral judgment far beyond the ages studied earlier by Piaget, who also claimed that logic and morality develop through constructive stages.
How many stages of moral reasoning are there?
The theory holds that moral reasoning, a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for ethical behavior, has six developmental stages, each more adequate at responding to moral dilemmas than its predecessor. Kohlberg followed the development of moral judgment far beyond the ages studied earlier by Piaget, who also claimed that logic and morality develop through constructive stages. Expanding on Piaget's work, Kohlberg determined that the process of moral development was principally concerned with justice and that it continued throughout the individual's life, a notion that led to dialogue on the philosophical implications of such research.
What is stage 3 of social reasoning?
In Stage three (good intentions as determined by social consensus), the self enters society by conforming to social standards. Individuals are receptive to approval or disapproval from others as it reflects society's views. They try to be a "good boy" or "good girl" to live up to these expectations, having learned that being regarded as good benefits the self. Stage three reasoning may judge the morality of an action by evaluating its consequences in terms of a person's relationships, which now begin to include things like respect, gratitude, and the " golden rule ". "I want to be liked and thought well of; apparently, not being naughty makes people like me." Conforming to the rules for one's social role is not yet fully understood. The intentions of actors play a more significant role in reasoning at this stage; one may feel more forgiving if one thinks that "they mean well".
What is the conventional level of moral reasoning?
The conventional level of moral reasoning is typical of adolescents and adults. To reason in a conventional way is to judge the morality of actions by comparing them to society's views and expectations. The conventional level consists of the third and fourth stages of moral development. Conventional morality is characterized by an acceptance of society's conventions concerning right and wrong. At this level an individual obeys rules and follows society's norms even when there are no consequences for obedience or disobedience. Adherence to rules and conventions is somewhat rigid, however, and a rule's appropriateness or fairness is seldom questioned.
How does knowledge contribute to moral development?
Knowledge and learning contribute to moral development. Specifically important are the individual's "view of persons" and their "social perspective level", each of which becomes more complex and mature with each advancing stage. The "view of persons" can be understood as the individual's grasp of the psychology of other persons; it may be pictured as a spectrum, with stage one having no view of other persons at all, and stage six being entirely socio-centric. The social perspective level involves the understanding of the social universe, differing from the view of persons in that it involves an appreciation of social norms.
What are the critiques of moral choice theory?
Arguments have been made that it emphasizes justice to the exclusion of other moral values, such as caring; that there is such an overlap between stages that they should more properly be regarded as domains or that evaluations of the reasons for moral choices are mostly post hoc rationalizations (by both decision makers and psychologists) of intuitive decisions.
Who believed that the reasoning behind the decision was a greater indication of moral development than the actual answer?
By using children's responses to a series of moral dilemmas, Kohlberg established that the reasoning behind the decision was a greater indication of moral development than the actual answer. Lawrence Kohlberg (1958) agreed with Piaget's (1932) theory of moral development in principle but wanted to develop his ideas further.
Who tested Kohlberg's theory?
However, longitudinal research on Kohlberg’s theory has since been carried out by Colby et al. (1983) who tested 58 male participants of Kohlberg’s original study.
What is the theory of moral development?
Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development. Kohlberg's theory proposes that there are three levels of moral development, with each level split into two stages. Kohlberg suggested that people move through these stages in a fixed order, and that moral understanding is linked to cognitive development. The three levels of moral reasoning include ...
What is moral reasoning based on?
Individual judgment is based on self-chosen principles, and moral reasoning is based on individual rights and justice. According to Kohlberg this level of moral reasoning is as far as most people get.
What are the three levels of moral reasoning?
The three levels of moral reasoning include preconventional, conventional, and postconventional. By using children's responses to a series of moral dilemmas, Kohlberg established that the reasoning behind ...
What did Piaget use to tell people?
He used Piaget’s storytelling technique to tell people stories involving moral dilemmas. In each case, he presented a choice to be considered, for example, between the rights of some authority and the needs of some deserving individual who is being unfairly treated. One of the best known of Kohlberg’s ...
How long was Kohlberg's interview?
Each boy was given a 2-hour interview based on the ten dilemmas. What Kohlberg was mainly interested in was not whether the boys judged the action right or wrong, but the reasons given for the decision. He found that these reasons tended to change as the children got older.
What does Kohlberg say about self?
kohlberg presupposes that self is the ultimate authority, contradicting values of both collectivist cultures and people of faith
What level of reasoning is considered conventional reasoning?
level 2 conventional reasoning (most people 10 and over)
Was Kohlberg ambivalent toward faith?
kohlberg was ambivalent toward faith dn was reworking his stages when he died

Overview
Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development constitute an adaptation of a psychological theory originally conceived by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget. Kohlberg began work on this topic as a psychology graduate student at the University of Chicago in 1958 and expanded upon the theory throughout his life.
The theory holds that moral reasoning, a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for ethical behav…
Stages
Kohlberg's six stages can be more generally grouped into three levels of two stages each: pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional. Following Piaget's constructivist requirements for a stage model, as described in his theory of cognitive development, it is extremely rare to regress in stages—to lose the use of higher stage abilities. Stages cannot be skipped; each provides a new a…
Theoretical assumptions (philosophy)
Kohlberg's stages of moral development are based on the assumption that humans are inherently communicative, capable of reason and possess a desire to understand others and the world around them. The stages of this model relate to the qualitative moral reasonings adopted by individuals and do not translate directly into praise or blame of any individual's actions or character. Arguing that his theory measures moral reasoning and not particular moral conclusio…
Examples of applied moral dilemmas
Kohlberg established the Moral Judgement Interview in his original 1958 dissertation. During the roughly 45-minute tape recorded semi-structured interview, the interviewer uses moral dilemmas to determine which stage of moral reasoning a person uses. The dilemmas are fictional short stories that describe situations in which a person has to make a moral decision. The participant is asked a systemic series of open-ended questions, like what they think the right course of action i…
Critiques
A critique of Kohlberg's theory is that it emphasizes justice to the exclusion of other values and so may not adequately address the arguments of those who value other moral aspects of actions. Carol Gilligan, in her book In a Different Voice, has argued that Kohlberg's theory is excessively androcentric. Kohlberg's theory was initially based on empirical research using only male participants; Gilligan argued that it did not adequately describe the concerns of women. Kohlber…
Continued relevance
Kohlberg's body of work on the stages of moral development has been utilized by others working in the field. One example is the Defining Issues Test (DIT) created in 1979 by James Rest, originally as a pencil-and-paper alternative to the Moral Judgement Interview. Heavily influenced by the six-stage model, it made efforts to improve the validity criteria by using a quantitative test, the Likert scale, to rate moral dilemmas similar to Kohlberg's. It also used a large body of Kohlbergian the…
See also
• Elliot Turiel
• James W. Fowler – Stages of faith development
• Jane Loevinger – Stages of ego development
• Michael Commons – Model of hierarchical complexity
Further reading
• Crain, William C. (1985). Theories of Development (2Rev ed.). Prentice-Hall. ISBN 978-0-13-913617-7.
• Kohlberg, Lawrence (1971). "From 'is' to 'ought': How to commit the naturalistic fallacy and get away with it in the study of moral development". In Theodore Mischel (ed.). Cognitive development and epistemology. New York: Academic Press. pp. 151–284. ISBN 978-0-12-498640-4.