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Kohlberg's theory of moral development
Kohlberg's theory of moral development
Kohlberg's theory of moral development
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As Henry Kravis once said, “If you don’t have integrity, you have nothing. You can’t buy it. You can have all the money in the world, but if you are not a moral and ethical person, you really have nothing. As can be seen by this particular quote, morality is a crucial part of developmental maturity. Throughout human history, communities have been concerned with the type of person that children become. The concept of moral development, specifically in children and adolescents, has been an addressed topic over the last century for the central reason that children impact the future. While parents and teachers alike often focus on teaching children reading, writing, math, computer skills, science, and numerous other subjects to prepare them for …show more content…
Firstly, moral behavior flows from an interest in and concern for other people. Psychologists have long viewed the desire to take part in social interaction, to develop relationships, and have empathy for others as critical to psychological health. In fact, one of the more notable developmental psychologists who studied moral development in children was Lawrence Kohlberg, who expanded upon Piaget’s theory of moral development. Kohlberg discerned that children go through “an invariant developmental sequence consisting of three levels of moral thinking: premoral (or preconventional), conventional, and postconventional, the outcome of which is a sense of justice. Children are believed to pass through each of the stages, but perhaps at different rates” (Wittmer, Petersen, and Puckett, 2013, pg. 362). In the first stage of moral reasoning, children pick up on rules passed through society and worry about whether they will receive punishments if they break those rules. In the second stage, children realize that society’s rules are not the only point of view and instead want the rules to benefit
Morality, which is one’s general standards about right and wrong behavior, also includes prosocial behavior and other traits such as honesty, fairness, and concern about other people’s rights and welfare (Omrod, 2014). Both morality and prosocial behavior involve multiple parts of the brain, emotions and complex reasoning abilities. Some age-typical characteristics for preschool aged children include, some understanding that behaviors causing physical or psychological harm are morally wrong, a sense of guilt and shame about misbehaviors that cause harm to others, also display empathy and sympathy, and children at this age also show an appreciation for the need to be fair.
“Once a teacher has identified an opening in the curriculum for exploring a moral value, the next step is to plan an effective lesson or unit around that value. That means selecting good materials (Lickona, 1991, p. 170)”. I feel this book is exactly that, a riveting story that can expose students to great moral values.
They are able of solving problems using reasoning and logic. They can organize facts and events in mature fashion and figure out possible moves and their outcomes. They can also deal with proportions and analogies and reflect on their own thinking. One of the major themes of development is moral development. The most influential research on development was done by Lawrence Kohlberg. It was influenced by Piaget’s cognitive developmental approach. Kohlberg divided Moral development into 6 stages. The first stage is called Preconventional level. During this stage individuals recognize labels of “good” and “bad”, right and wrong, but do not interpret these labels in terms of social standards. The next stage is called Conventional level. During this level individuals make moral judgments based on expectations, whether the expectations are coming from family or society. This level of morality is shown mainly by adolescents and adults. The next level is the post conventional level. During this stage individuals accept and stand by society’s rules and laws but tend to view them in terms of the underlying principles. Individuals may also follow personal ethical principles. This is where they take into account human rights or life and
Today I will be interviewing Baumeister, Gilligan, and Piaget who are some of the most influential psychologists in the field of moral development. I will be interviewing these three so and I have three critical questions in the field of moral development that I would like each to answer. I will then conclude with a brief summary of the similarities and differences between the psychologists I have interviewed.
The need for ethics and morality in education is more important now than ever before. The emergence of the single and two working parent family have led to the rise of the "latch key" child: the child who basically raises himself due to the absence of parents. Ethics and morality are also necessary in our schools to create individuals who are compassionate towards one another and of the world surrounding them.
There are certain characteristics of parents who influence their children’s moral behavior. The first characteristic are warm and supportive parents, parents who also involve their children in family decisions, parents who models morally thinking and behavior, and finally parents who inform their children of what behaviors are acceptable, expected and reasoning behind. An example of these parents’ characteristics’ can be when a child is upset because their sibling has taken their toy from them. A parent with the above characteristics will talk to the children on their level, ask open-ended questions, and talk about solutions for their issue. The parent will also voice own opinion on what is the acceptable thing to do, and explain why that is. These four characteristics are sort of strategies’ that are excellent for parents to utilize in order to foster their children’s moral development. Parents who are warm and supportive tend to have a secure attachment to their children which is the base for creating a positive parent-child relationship, without that, parents cannot model behavior to the child, as the child will not trust in the parent. By being an informative parent with reasoning, parents teach their children positive socializing and thus an appropriate positive moral behavior. They also provide
The most successful way to instill righteous and moral behavior and thoughts is by demonstrating our respectable interactions and honest problem solving approaches during difficult times of our lives. “As adults we should dare to be adults that we want our children to be”. They learn by watching and are quick to mimic our behavior with their peers outside of home. The author writes that “we should strive to raise children who: engage with the world from a place of worthiness, embrace their vulnerabilities and imperfections, feel a deep sense of love and compassion for themselves and others, value hard work, perseverance, and respect, and also move through our rapidly changing world with courage and a resilient spirit” (214, 218-219). All of these elements will help to transform the way we live, love, and
Lawrence Kohlberg is known for his Theory of Moral Development. The method that Kohlberg used was that of “moral dilemmas”. Kohlberg studied Piaget but developed his own theory. He would give individuals of different ages these dilemmas and survey their answers to see what the reasoning behind their answers were. An example of a dilemma is the “Heinz Dilemma”. In this dilemma there is a man whose wife is very sick and needs a certain type of medication. There is only one man who sells this drug in the area and he is charging more than the man can pay for. The husband of the wife decided to steal the drug in order to save his wife. At the end of this scenario, it asks if the husband should’ve stolen the medicine. This provides an example of how he went about creating these moral dilemmas. They are situations in which there are multiple answers and reasoning that could be provided. There was no “right” answer in the moral dilemma questions (as the answer to each question was solely based off of the individual’s opinion and moral reasoning). The reasoning that the individuals presented help develop levels of reasoning. These levels are also known as stages. In Kohlberg’s stages, sub stages are also included. The stages are: Preconventional, Conventional, and Postconventional. Each stages had two sub stages that helped determine what level of moral reasoning a person was at. In the preconvnetional stage the two sub stages are: Reward and punishment orientation and Naive reciprocity orientation. The preconventional stage begins at about age five and decreases with age. The sub stages in the conventional stage are: Good boy/girl Orientation and Authority and social order maintenance orientation. This stage increases ...
At the pre-conventional level, behavior is motivated by anticipation of pleasure or pain. The child is aware of cultural rules and labels of good or bad and right or wrong. (1) The subject interprets the labels in terms of the physical consequence, such as punishment or reward. (3) The child has an extreme self-interest. The first level of moral thinking is generally found at the elementary school level, before the age of 9. This level is divided into the following two stages. (2)
The moral development of children can depend on many factors. Parenting and upbringing of the child, their environment, social environment, gender, and race are all aspects that can contribute to how a child develops their moral standards and expectations. Many psychologists have tried for several years to develop a theory of how morality is developed. One in particular is Lawrence Kohlberg (1958). His moral development theory is based on the cognitive development of children and it is thought that moral development proceeds and changes as cognitive development occurs (Arnett, 2012).
Kohlberg, L. (1984). The psychology of moral development: the nature and validity of moral stages. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
Part One:The criticisms of Kohlberg's moral development stages seem to center around three major points, his research methods, the "regression" of stage four, and finally his goals.The first criticism that I would like to address is that of his research methods. Kohlberg is often criticized for not only his subject selection, but also the methods by which he tries to extricate data from those subjects. His initial study consisted of school boys from a private institution in Chicago. The problem with this is fairly obvious, that this does not represent a significant portion of the population to allow for generalized conclusions. In other words, how can we test some boys from Chicago and ascertain that this is how all people develop worldwide?I believe that the answer to this criticism comes from the theory that it relates to.
In a society with a vast array of different beliefs and mediums through which these beliefs are presented, children can get lost in an overwhelming sea of influential ideas and concepts not necessarily intended for their eyes and ears. Character education is a concept that calls for teachers and school curriculums to guide students in learning what Edward F. DeRoche and Mary M. Williams (2001, p. 25) described as “core values held sacred by a democratic society.” Parents are generally considered the teachers of morals, but if values like sharing, compassion, and honesty are never enforced or addressed outside the home, these values may never be established as a stable foundation in the child’s mind. Character education’s purpose is to help children choose to be well-mannered, stable, cooperative individuals. Character education is not in every school system, but its support is growing along with the amount of research evidence increasing in its favor (Viadero, 2003). The teaching of values in education has evolved into character education, and today there are different studies, designs, and resources for character education programs in schools to foster moral growth and citizenship in children.
The obedience and punishment orientation is the earliest stage of moral development and is also very common in young children; however, adults are also capable of expressing this stage of reasoning. In this stage, young children perceive rules to be fixed and absolute and that obeying them is a necessary means to avoid punishment (McLeod, S.A., 2013). The individualism and exchange orientation is the second stage of pre-conventional morality. At this stage, children take into account individual points of view and judge their actions based on how they serve individual needs (Cherry, K., 2014, October
A good establishment to one’s moral standards starts from an early stage that requires to be powered by parents. Thus, parents should inspire their ideas of appropriate morals from a very early age. Parental behavior affects the child's personality and the chances of developing moral absence. All parents have a duty towards their children but a number of these parents tend to care about their child’s academic education more than their moral standards; forgetting that it is most importantly to have moral values than to just learn. Parents are their child’s number one teacher they must teach them how life works, because life is not all about teaching them academically but morally as well. Thus, if parents don’t corporate and well-teach their children, they shouldn’t get surprised when their child ignores them or disrespects them. Yet, many of today’s parents seem to only care about their own pleasures rather than their children’s morals. A simple example, are parents who only care about having fun and enjoying their time leaving their kids behind for the nanny. Parents now often don’t have the time or can't be any bothered to spend the...