Stages of moral development notes semantic scholar. Each level consisted of two stages, leading to six stages in total. Not everyone reached the highest stages in kohlberg s theory. Each new stage replaces the reasoning typical of the earlier stage. At this stage, children see rules as fixed and absolute. Kohlberg, who was born in 1927, grew up in bronxville, new york, and attended the andover academy in massachusetts, a private high school for bright and usually wealthy students. Stages of moral development, comprehensive theory developed by lawrence kohlberg in 1958 based on jean piagets theory of moral judgment. Kohlberg has focused on moral development and has proposed a stage theory of moral thinking which goes well beyond piagets initial formulations. According to kohlbergs moral development theory, individuals who reach the. Many people never enter into this level of moral development 5. At stage 2, children are no longer so impressed by any single authority.
Stages of moral development according to kohlberg summary at stage 1 children think of what is right as that which authority says is right. Kohlbergs stages of moral development simply psychology. Lawrence kohlberg s stages of moral development lawrence kohlberg s theory of moral development is an adaptation of the developmental theory of jean piaget. 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. Kohlberg defined three levels of moral development.
Preconventional morality stage 1 obedience and punishment the earliest stage of moral development is especially common in young children, but adults are also capable of expressing this type of reasoning. During the preconventional level, a childs sense ofmoralityis externally controlled. Kohlberg s research yielded three levels of moral development. Level of moral development as a determinant of preference and. These three levels are further subdivided by kohlberg into two sta ges, yielding the six stages of moralcognitive development which are repro duced in table 1. Moral and ethical choices rise above the laws of society, and individuals look within themselves for the answers rather than basing moral decisions on external sources of authority. Kohlberg identified three distinct levels of moral reasoning. Postconventional moral reasoning is associated with increased. Social contract the person understands that values and laws are relative and that standards can vary. Moral development and the social environment universitat konstanz. Lawrence kohlbergs stages of moral development wikipedia. These three levels of moral reasoning can be objectively assessed by the defining issues test dit2.
According to the theory, moral reasoning develops in six stages, each more adequate at responding to moral dilemmas than the one before. This research was supported by the center for urban education and by nichd grant hd 02469 01 to the third author gary kippel and joan lerner carried out. Doing the right thing is obeying authority and avoiding punishment. Lawrence kohlberg 1958 agreed with piagets 1932 theory of moral development in principle but wanted to develop his ideas further he used piagets storytelling technique to tell people stories involving moral dilemmas. Lawrence kohlbergs stages of moral development constitute an adaptation of a psychological theory originally conceived by the swiss psychologist jean piaget.