th the arnate acts in onary, light. sation ension roking vewere eds for t that vealed) Lindex tion of names ject as found eep in dicated tienced object . Ifyou robably es, such, ome of mation >k; also, ounding field of scussion ing and dyst and ghtened nd styles ‘ects should rlopmental Reading 19 How Moral Are You? 148 Graig, G., & Dunn, W. (2007). Understanding human development, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Ginzburg, H., & Oper, 8. (1979). Piaget's theory of intellectual development, Englewood Citi Nj: Prentice-Hall. Piaget, J & Inhelder, B. (1969). The psychology ofthe child. New York: Basic Books. Rivera, S., & Zawaydeh, A. N. (2007). Word comprehension facilitates object individuation in 10-and L1-month-old infants. Brain Research, 1146, 146-157, Scher, A., Amir, T, & Tirosh, E, (2000). Object concept and sleep regulation. Pecaptucl and Motor ‘Skills, 91(2), 402-404 Shinskey,J., & Munakata, ¥. (2008). Are infants in the datk about hidden objects? Developmental Science, 6, 273-282, Reading 19: HOW MORAL ARE YOU? Kohlberg, L. (1963). The development of children’s orientations toward a moral order: Sequence in the development of moral thought. Vita Humana, 6, 11-33. Have you ever really thought about how moral you are compared to others? ‘What are the moral principles guiding your decisions in life? Experience should tell you that people’s morality varies a great deal, Psychologists generally define morals as those attitudes and beliefs that help people decide the difference between and degrees of right and wrong. Your concept of morality is deter mined by the rules and norms of conduct that are set forth by the culture in which you have been raised and that have been internalized by you. Morality is not part of your standard equipment at birth: You were probabiy born without morals. As you developed through childhood into adolescence and adulthood, your ideas about right and wrong developed along with you. Every normal adult hhas a personal conception of morality. But where did your morality originate? How did it go from a set of cultural rules to part of who you are? Probably the two most famous and influential figures in the history of research on the formation of morality were Jean Piaget (discussed in Reading 18) and Lawrence Kohlberg (1927-1987). Kohlberg’s research at the University of ” Chicago incorporated and expanded upon many of Piaget's ideas about intel- lectual development and sparked a new wave of interest in this topic of study. Kohlberg was addressing this question: “How does the amoral infant become capable of moral reasoning?” Using the work of Piaget as a starting point, Kohlberg theorized that the uniquely human ability to make moral judgments develops in a predictable way during childhood. He believed that specific, identifiable stages of moral development are related and similar in concept to Piaget's stages of intellec- tual development. As Kohlberg explained, “The child can internalize the moral values of his parents and culture and make them his own only as he comes to relate these values to a comprehended social order and to his own goals as a social self” (Kohlberg, 1964). In other words, a child must reach a certain stage of intellectual ability in order to develop a certain level of morality. With these ideas in mind, Kohlberg set about formulating a method for studying children’s abilities to make moral judgments, From that research grew his widely recognized theory of moral development. I |144 Chapter V_ Human Development THEORETICAL PROPOSITIONS When Kohiberg asserted that morality is acquired in developmental stages, he was using the concept of stage in a precise and formal way. It is easy 10 think ‘enearly any ability as occurring in stages, but psychologists draw a clear distin tion between changes that develop gradually over time (such as a person's hheight) and those that develop in distinct and separate stages. So when Kohlberg referred to “structural moral stages in childhood and adolescence,” he meant that (a) each stage is a uniquely different Kind of moral thinking and not justan increased understanding of an adult concept of morality; (b) the stages always ocuur in the same step-by-step sequence so that no stage is ever skipped and there is rarely any backward progression; and (c) the stages are prepotent, mean ing that children comprehend all the stages below their own and perhaps have some understanding of no more than one stage above. Children are incapable of understanding higher stages, regardless of encouragement, teaching, or Tearing. Furthermore, children tend to fonction at the highest moral stage they have reached, Also implied in this stage formulation of moral development is the notion that the stages are universal and occur in the same order, regardless “of individual differences in environment, experience, or culture, Kohlberg believed that his theory of the formation of morality could be explored by giving children at various ages the opportunity to make moral judgment, Ifthe reasoning they used to make moral decisions could be found to progress predictably at increasing ages, this would be evidence that his stage theory was essentially correct. METHOD Koblberg's research methodology was really quite simple, He presented chik dren of varying ages with 10 hypothetical moral dilemmas. Fach child was interviewed for 2 hours and asked questions about the moral issues presented ” in the dilemmas, The interviews were tape-recorded for later analysis of the moral reasoning used. Two of Kohiberg’s most widely cited moral dilemmas were as follows: “The Brother’s Dilemma, Joe’s father promised he could go to camp if he eared the $50 for it and then changed his mind and asked Joe to give him the money he hhad earned, Joe lied and said he had only earned $10 and went o camp using the bier $40 he had made. Before he went, he told his younger brother, Alex, about the money and about lying to their father. Should Alex tell heir father? (p- 12) The Heinz Dilemma. In Busope, @ woman was near death from a special kind of aoe con There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her, Iewas a form Ofradium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug wa expensive to make, but the druggist was charging 10 times what the drug cost him, erg’s stages omales. The (1982). She think about aking moral elationships, others, and Reading 19 How Moral Are You? 149 the importance of the connections among people. She called this foundation upon which women’s morality rests a cave orientation. Based on this gender difference, Gilligan has argued that women will score lower on Kohiberg’s scale because the lower stages deal more with these relationship issues (such as Stage 3, which is based primarily on building trust and loyalty in relation- ships). Men, on the other hand, Gilligan says, make moral decisions based on issues of justice, which fit more easily into Kohlberg’s highest stages. She contends that neither of these approaches to morality is superior, and that if women are judged by Kohlberg to be at a lower moral level than men, it is because of an unintentional gender bias built into Kohlberg’s theory. Other researchers, for the most part, have failed to find support for Gilligan's assertion, Several studies have found no significant gender differences in moral reasoning using Kohlberg’s methods. Gilligan has responded to those negative findings by acknowledging that although women are capable of using all levels of moral reasoning, in their real lives they choose not to do so. Instead, women focus on the human relationship aspects discussed in the preceding paragraph, This has been demonstrated by research showing how girls are will- ing to make a greater effort to help another person in need and tend to score higher on tests of emotional empathy (see Hoffman, 1977, for a more com plete discussion of these gender issues). Kohlberg’s early work on the development of moral judgment continues to be cited in studies from a wide range of disciplines. One area of research that relied on Koblberg’s study examined the effects of women's alcohol abuse during pregnancy on their children’s moral development (Schonfeld, Mattson, & Riley, 2005). Although evidence is clear that alcohol abuse during pregnancy suppresses intelligence scores in exposed children, this study also found that “Children and adolescents with histories of prenatal alcohol exposure demon- strated lower overall moral maturity compared with the control group. Accord- ing to Kohlberg's stages of moral development, the [alcohol exposed] group was primarily concerned with minimizing negative consequences to self (ie., Stage 2), whereas the control group demonstrated concern for others and what is socially normative (i.e., Stage 3)” (pp. 580-551). Another study citing Kohlberg’s theory examined the accuracy of eyewitness testimony given by children (Bottoms et al., 2002). Children between the ages of three and six participated in a play session with their mothers, Half of the children were told not to play with certain toys in the room. However, when the researcher left, the children’s mothers urged them to play with the “forbidden” toys but to “keep ita secret.” Later the researchers interviewed the children and asked if they had played with the prohibited toys: “Results indi- cated that older children who were instructed to keep events secret withheld more information than did older children not told to keep events secret. ‘Younger children’s reports were not significantly affected by the secret manipu- lation” (p. 285). Often, children ate told by adults to keep secrets about the adults’ illegal or injurious activities. Understanding when their understanding of the use and meaning of secrecy may play an important role in the use of150 Chapter V_ Human Development child eyewitness testimony in legal proceedings (see Reading 16 on Loftus's research on eyewitness testimony earlier in this book) CONCLUSION Dialogue and debate on Kohlberg’s work has continued to the present (eg., see Goodwin & Darley, 2010) and shows every sign of continuing into the future. Its ultimate validity and importance remain to be clearly defined. However, few new conceptualizations of human development have produced the amount of research, speculation, and debate that surrounds Koblberg’s theory of moral development. And its usefulness to society, in one sense, was predicted by Kohlberg in this quote from 1964: i j Although any conception of moral education must recognize that the parent cannot escape the direct imposition of behavior demands and moral judgments upon the child, it may be possible to define moral education primarily as a matter of stimulating the development of the child’s own moral judgment and its control of action .. ,. [1] have found teachers telling 13-year-olds not to cheat “because the person you copied from might have it wrong and so it won't do you any good.” Most of these children were capable of advancing much more mature reasons for not cheating . . . . Children are almost as likely to reject moral reasoning beneath their level as to fail to assimilate reasoning too far above their level. (p. 425) Schwartz-Kenney, B., & Thomas, S. (2002). Children's use of seeres} Bottoms, B., Goodman, in the context of eyewitness reports. Law and Human Behavier, 26, 285-313. 4 Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Prychological theory and women's development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, ] Goodwin, G. P. & Datley, J. M. (2010). The perceived objectivity of ethical beliefs: Poychologicil findings and implications for public policy. Review of Philasophical Paychology 1, 161-188. * Hotoany ML, (1977). Sex difeences in empathy and related behavior. Poll Buln 84, 712-722, : Kohlberg, L. (1964). Development of moral character and moral ideology. tn H. Hoffman’ L. Hoffinan (Bds.), Review of child development research (Vol. 1). New Yorks Russell Sage Foundation. Kurtines, W. (1986). Moral behavior as rulegoverned behavior: Person and situation effect moral decision making, Journal of Personality and Social Pachology, 50, 724-791, : Schonfeld, A., Matson, S,, & Riley, E. (2005). Moral maturity and delinquency after prenatal alcohol exposure, Jounal of Studies on Alcohol 66(4), 845-554. Snarey, J. (1987). question of morality. Pychological Bulletin, 97, 202-282. Reading 20: IN CONTROL AND GLAD OF IT! Langer, E. J., & Rodin, J. (1976). The effects of choice and enhanced personal fesponsibility for the aged: A field experiment in an institutional setting. Journal of 3: Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 191-198. Control. This seemingly small psychological concept may be the single mos important influence on all of human behavior. What we are talking about] here is not your ability to control the actions of others but the personal power] you possess over your own life and the events in it. Related to this ability are!