Moral and ethical development

Kohlberg’s 6 stages of moral development

By adapting the work of Piaget, Psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg demonstrated how moral development coincides with a young person’s cognitive stages of development. At each stage of moral development, a young person becomes more adept at addressing moral dilemmas.

Kohlberg was interested in how participants in his studies reasoned through different moral dilemmas. Their responses helped form Kohlberg’s six stages of moral development. In general, stages 1-3 are more aligned more with concrete thinking, or more of a self-focused point of view. Stages 1-2 are considered preconventional, as the child might act in such a way to avoid punishment or gain rewards. In stages 2-3, a child becomes more conscious and respectful of social systems and relationships. During the teen year’s a young person’s thinking becomes more abstract, they start realizing that viewpoints and needs of others also exist. They can reason about entities that aren’t directly visible such as other institutions, societies, and cultures. In stages 5-6, teens may reach a level of “post conventional” thinking; they may start to question social systems and issues in society they feel are unfair.

Critique of Kohlberg

Other researchers such as Carol Gilligan, have critiqued Kohlberg’s stages of moral development as he did not include girls or women in his research. In regards to gender, Gilligan found that girls and women tended not to go beyond stage 3 in moral development. Boys and men were more likely to go to stage 4. Gilligan’s findings do not suggest that women and girls are inferior in cognitive and moral development. Instead, she concluded that men tend to favor a justice orientation towards morality; women may be more likely to focus on caring, empathy, and interpersonal connection. In addition, Gilligan noted that people tend to act before they think. To that end, there may be little correlation between moral reasoning skills and prosocial behavior, or behavior intended to voluntary help others.

Morality and the default mode of the brain

The default mode of brain function is associated with introspection and mindfulness. In default mode, we may be engaged in thoughts that are not associated with immediate external environment.

The following moral reasoning skills are associated with the thinking that happens in default mode:

• Empathy

• Self understanding

• Abstract thinking

• Memory

• Divergent thinking

Some research evidence on the default mode of the brain suggests that there may be a connection with moral reasoning and emotion (CITE; Katie’s lecture, 2017). However, emotions may come before reasoning. For instance, a reflective pause after a particularly emotional experience may active the default mode of the brain. Researchers have begun exploring how our brain’s default mode might be impacted by technology, especially social media. Some research evidence has shown that social media use may activate parts of the brain that are externally focused, rather than the default mode that is centered on the internal (Katie’s lecture; CITE).

However, researchers have found some benefits of social media use. For example, the ability to connect across geographic and cultural boundaries is seen as a way to promote social reflectiveness and social responsibility (Katie’s lecture, 2017; other research)