Kohlberg Moral Development

I found it difficult to find a doll that completely depicted my personality, physique, and my flair for life. However, I did find the closest doll that resembled me is a “Bratz” doll. The Bratz dolls are a line of sassy yet contemporary dolls that have different styled dolls to help children relate to their own personality and ethnicity. Out of the five Bratz dolls, I chose I resemble Cloe the most. According to the Bratz website in the about us section, Cloe loves her friends more than anything, and enjoys things like shopping, photography, and social media. This section also states how Cloe’s motto is “Live. Love. Laugh.” and her nickname is “Angel”. She has curvy features and bright blue eyes, like I do, and a relatively small frame. While

To better understand Kohlberg’s theory, we need to discuss the three levels in his proposed moral reasoning developmental theory. Kohlberg proposed that there are three levels and that each level is divided into two stages for a total of six stages (Hyde & Else-Quest, 2013, p. 43). Beginning with the pre-conventional morality level, Level I, Stage 1, applies mainly to preschool age children, as it states that these children obey rules simply to avoid punishment (Hyde & Else-Quest, 2013, p. 43). According to Hyde and Else-Quest (2013) during Stage 2 of Level I as the children progress, they also obey to get rewards and share so they can get returns. In Level II, or conventional morality, Stage 3, referred to as good-boy/good-girl orientation, they conform to rules that are defined by others’ (Hyde & Else-Quest, 2013, p.43). Kohlberg proposed in Stage 4, or authority orientation, that children are forming a rigid conformity to the rules of society, have a law-and-order mentality and tend to avoid censure for rule breaking (Hyde & Else-Quest, 2013, p.43). During Level III, Stage 5, the social contract orientation begins, this is when they develop a more flexible understanding of how to obey rules, and begin to understand their necessity as they relate to the

This was a social norm, in my gender role as a young girl. As a young girl I began to understand the concept of being a girl and eventually as a woman. When I was a child, my parents bought me toys as most parents do. I had dolls and tea sets and made bracelets and necklaces. In doing these things I was being programmed to slowly understand my gender constancy, or the knowledge that my gender is a permanent part of my self identity (Hyde & Else-Quest, 2013). When my parents gave me these so-called girl type toys to play with, they were inadvertently programming me to understand my gender identity and slowly grasp the concept of gender constancy. These two pieces of gender development correlate the discussion of moral reasoning and gender schema that I discussed