Adolescent, the stage of development that follows the onset of puberty and a child develops into an adult. This can be a difficult and very confusing stage for boys and girls due to the many developmental changes they go through, both physically and emotionally. One of the changes that occurs during the period of adolescence, according to developmentalist Lawrence Kohlberg, was that boys and girls develop a moral code that guides the decisions they make and therefore guides their lives. Kohlberg placed these levels of moral code into three categories known as; preconventional level, conventional level, and postconventional level. This paper is going to address the three levels of moral code, according to Kohlburg, and their effect on adolescence. …show more content…
These questions challenged their thought process and they had to make a decision or form an opinion according to the hypothetical dilemma. The most famous sample question on the moral judgment test: A woman was near death from cancer. One drug might save her, The druggist was charging…ten times what the drug cost him to make. The…husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money but he could only get together about half of what it cost. [He] asked the…druggist to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said NO! Heinz broke into the man’s store to steal the drug…Should he have done that? Why? (Belsky, 2010). It was the answers given to this question that he used to develop his theory of moral reasoning and placed the answers in the three categories of preconventional, conventional, and …show more content…
The answer to the question above can be answered by simply saying, don’t steal because it’s wrong. The conventional stage of moral reasoning is largely based on popular opinion of society. This is the level that most adults are. Conventional stage of moral reasoning is also classified as the stage of being a “good person”. This can be looked at as a good husband, which in this case would steal the drug to help his wife, or a good member of society, therefore not steal at all. The postconventional stage of moral code surpasses society’s rules. This is also considered the highest level of moral reasoning. Postconventional stage of moral reasoning says that although it is wrong to steal, human life matters above all. Therefore, sometimes rules must be broken to protect the welfare of people. The postconventional stage of moral reasoning would even go as far to say that he is obligated to steal the drug to save a human
moral decisions, we will be analyzing why this scenario poses a dilemma, possible actions that
The purpose of this paper is to find evidence of Kohlberg 's and Piagets moral stages for adolecents. We are going to ask a teenager a series of different questions in an interview in order to find out where exactly they fit in Kohlberg’s and Piaget’s moral stages and if the fall in the one designated for teenagers, Postconventional and Autonomous morality respectivly. According to these theorist, adolescents are starting to form their own ideas of what is right and wrong and using their ideals to see what they would do in certain situations.
Addiction is one of the hardest difficulties to overcome, yet people often find themselves caught in the world wind of addiction. We all ask the question to what makes a person an addict, or why is it so hard for drug addicts to overcome this problem. However, can we say that getting a hold of drugs is much easier in today’s society, or is it made available to easily. In this day and age, heroine seems to be a major epidemic; furthermore, opiates have been around for centuries. Therefore, people have been battling addiction for as long as opiates have been around. In Drugstore Cowboy, the film takes a look into the life of four people who rob drugstores in order to support
For my self-assessment, I chose to discuss the Middle Childhood, Adolescence, and Young Adulthood life stages. The theories of human behavior that will be discussed are Erikson’s Psychosocial theory, Kohlberg’s theory of moral reasoning, and Albert Bandura’s social learning theory. I chose these life stages because they are the stages where I have experienced many events that have shaped me into the person I am today. There are a number of factors that have played a role in my development over a period of time and I will discuss them throughout my paper.
Drugs are used to escape the real and move into the surreal world of one’s own imaginations, where the pain is gone and one believes one can be happy. People look on their life, their world, their own reality, and feel sickened by the uncaringly blunt vision. Those too weak to stand up to this hard life seek their escape. They believe this escape may be found in chemicals that can alter the mind, placing a delusional peace in the place of their own depression: “Euphoric, narcotic, pleasantly halucinant,” (52). They do this with alcohol, acid, crack, cocaine, heroine, opium, even marijuana for the commoner economy. These people would rather hide behind the haze than deal with real problems. “...A gramme is better than a damn.” (55).
Drug in the American Society is a book written by Eric Goode. This book, as the title indicates, is about drugs in the American Society. It is especially about the misuse of most drugs, licit or illicit, such us alcohol, marijuana and more. The author wrote this book to give an explanation of the use of different drugs. He wrote a first edition and decided to write this second edition due to critic and also as he mentioned in the preface “there are several reason for these changes. First, the reality of the drug scene has changed substantially in the past dozen or so years. Second much more information has been accumulated about drug use. And third, I’m not the same person I was in 1972.”(vii). The main idea of this book is to inform readers about drugs and their reality. In the book, Goode argued that the effect of a drug is dependent on the societal context in which it is taken. Thus, in one society a particular drug may be a depressant, and in another it may be a stimulant.
Typically, almost everyone in the world has taken drugs at some point in their life. Whether it be over the counter medication or prescription drugs. People get sick, they have illness, allegories, sexually transmitted diseases or other aches and pains. As you may already know, there is medication for each aforementioned problem. This is called drug use, which is using drugs for its intended purpose. However, the real dilemma happens when people began to misuse and abuse drugs.
The first criminological theory, that explains behavior of the drug sellers, is the theory of Differential Association. Differential Association, termed by Edwin Sutherland, argued that persons engage in delinquent behavior because they learn it from society and they engage in it when it benefits them. By this, he is saying that an individual will be a criminal if they experience an excess of criminal definitions over conventional definitions. Sutherland discovered that Differential Association is developed through various stages and he explains such development with the use of nine propositions. (Lily et al. 2011, 48) Such propositions are as follows: (1) criminal behavior is learned, (2) it...
Lawrence Kohlberg conducted research on the moral development of children. He wanted to understand how they develop a sense of right or wrong and how justice is served. Kohlberg used surveys in which he included moral dilemmas where he asked the subjects to evaluate a moral conflict. Through his studies, Kohlberg observed that moral growth and development precedes through stages such as those of Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. He theorized that moral growth begins at the beginning of life and continues until the day one dies. He believed that people proceed through each stage of moral development consecutively without skipping or going back to a previous stage. The stages of thought processing, implying qualitatively different modes of thinking and of problem solving are included in the three levels of pre-conventional, conventional and post conventional development. (2)
The ability to interpret the morally correct (morally good) resolution to a moral, when confronted by a moral dilemma, can be a very difficult task. Ethics is the search for universal objective principles for evaluating human behavior, good or bad. In societies, ethics are developed by their religious beliefs, government, and through experience. Social ethics serve as the premise for morality. Humans through ethics create morality, a personal or social code of conduct. The principles for one's morality are founded by the ethical standards of their society. Through experience, education, religion, and morality humans develop morals based on social and religious ethics. Morals give humans the ability to distinguish the morally right/good decision to make when confronted with a moral dilemma. However, in some instances we are confronted with a morally problematic situation in which it is difficult to distinguish the morally correct solution. For example, we'll consider the morally problematic situation faced by the Smith's. The Smith family is like any average, American, middle-class family of Catholic faith. One night Jim, the Smith's eldest son who had jus graduated from college, went out to a bar for a friend's birthday. Later, in the morning hours, Jim decides that he should go home. Jim decides to drive home even though he was very intoxicated. On his way home Jim runs a red light proceeding to smash into a car, instantly killing the driver. Jim leaves the scene, of which there were no witnesses, and hurries home. His parents tell him to stay at the house while they attempt to resolve and analyze the situation. The next day, a couple of police officers arrive at the house and ques...
Kohlberg, L. (1984). The psychology of moral development: the nature and validity of moral stages. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
“Different cultures have different moral codes”, James Rachels discusses in his article Why Morality Is Not Relative? (Rachels, p. 160). A moral code is a set of rules that is considered to be the right behavior that may be accepted by a group of individuals within a society. Each culture tends to have their own individual standards and moral codes. Moral codes are guidelines laid out by a cultures ancestors. Standards are guidelines set forth by the individual themselves. Standards and morals don’t always have to be the same, but there are instances where they are. The moral codes claim what is “right” and what is “wrong”. Moral codes outline what behaviors individuals are supposed to make. These codes are basically laws, but specifically
No matter which culture is examined, there are many different aspects to the well-being of the teenager. Many important aspects of well-being concern physical traits or habits, such as hygiene, body weight, and appearance (Feldman, 2012). Other aspects of well-being involve cognitive development, such as an adolescents ability to perform in school or think in shades of gray. The final aspect of well-being examines social and personality development, for example, how teenagers socially interact, their emotional state, and abuses of illicit substances (Feldman, 2012). In all of these aspects, an adolescent can find their identity and a sense of well-being, but they can also experience Erikson’s definition of crisis. That is why the adolescent age group must strive to maintain a strong sense of well-being while searching for their identity.
Drug laws are a highly controversial issue in several countries because there are many arguments for and against the legal prohibition of drugs. The main question that I will be focusing on is: Is the recreational use of illegal drugs, for pleasure or change, morally wrong or morally permissible? In order to analyze the debate over the morality drug use, it is required to take into consideration the various arguments that are established. Mainly arguments about the morality of humans using drugs for recreational use, along with utilitarian arguments over whether legalization or drug prohibition would be an improvement on the drug-related harm in our society. Utilitarianism is a great moral theory to use in evaluating this subject because it can
Adolescence the most important life course in the adolescent’s human development, during this stage many juveniles experience different emotions, transitions and cognitive dissonance. Juveniles experience many changes thought this age especially many physical changes in which their might experience confusions. One important theory concern is Erik Erikson theory of human psychosocial development. This theory states that human development must meet eight stages in order to transition into the next stage. According to Cvanaugh, and Kail (2014) argued that “adolescents face a crisis between identity and role confusion.” (p.240). In addition, adolescent’s experience many biological, physiological and cognitive changes that affect thee adolescent’s