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

I couldn’t find a perfect match, Cloe exemplifies some of my strong personality traits, lives by some of the same moral values, and has my flair in her personality.
Keywords: Social norm, sexualization, gender, schema, moral reasoning

I May Be a Brat
Cloe, a Bratz doll found at many retail chain stores has some notable features to include; gorgeous long blonde hair, an oversized head with big blue eyes, perfectly thin brown eyebrows, luscious lips, diva-like makeup, a curvy body with a skinny midriff, perky chest, and lean runway model legs. In the picture, Cloe is wearing a skimpy outfit, which includes a starry crop top with a kiss on it, a short pink sheer mini skirt, and mid-calf heeled boots.
I choose the Barbie doll template for my doll because I am a tall, curvy female with a curvaceous chest and have very little muscle definition. To make the template resemble me, I had to change the proportions. I had to make the hips slightly wider and make the chest larger and seem less perky. I don’t have that “perfect” stomach or flawless skin, as it appears Bratz dolls have. My doll has natural look make up, revealing my freckles on my face and not so perfectly thinned eyebrows. To best resemble my personality and wardrobe, my doll is dressed in a fun, yet comfortable outfit for the summer, with her hair up in a relaxed sloppy bun. She has on a royal blue flowy tank top, grey capri pants, simple jewelry, and a pair of sandals. Seraphine is the name of my doll I created, because just like my friends, her friends view her as a sweet, kind, caring, and honest friend who usually has a smile on her face. The natural look of my doll, Seraphine, and her curvy but proportionate features, provide a close comparison to who I am.
When speaking about gender identity development, I can relate to Kohlberg and his understanding of Moral Development to better understand how children develop over the course of their childhood (Hyde & Else-Quest, 2013).

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

social order (Hyde & Else-Quest, 2013, p.43). Finally, is Level III, Stage 6, this is where Hyde & Else-Quest discuss the morality of individual principles and conscience. This simply states that they conform their behavior to a few internal principles, justice and equality, to avoid being socially condemned, and they may violate society’s rules (Hyde & Else-Quest, 2013). This theory summarizes the development of moral reasoning, and the stages that children go through and the progression through time.
When I was growing up, the different types of people I chose to spend my time with directly affected my cognitive development, specifically my moral reasoning. When you have peer pressure to conform socially to the specific behavior of your friends, this can conflict with certain stages of moral reasoning. Certain friends in my life, who inadvertently altered my development in moral reasoning, have affected my perception of what my gender’s behavior was. This negative influence changed my gender schema, or the way I process information on the basis of gender (Hyde & Else-Quest, 2013, p.48). I believe the gender schema theory has a close tie to moral reasoning as they can both influence each other. The gender schema is specific to the types of information that you have been exposed to, by your friends and specifically your family (Hyde & Else-Quest, 2013). In my specific case, my friends had a more dramatic effect on my gender schema when I was younger. As I matured, my parents and my family provided me with more valid information and aided in the further development of my schema and my moral reasoning.
When we think of toys as children or at least when I did, I thought of dolls.

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

previously.
These Bratz dolls are cute and have lots of flair, but the image they project may be damaging to the social norms that tweens, people usually between the age or 10 and 12, or young teenagers judge themselves by. The bodies of these children depict a perfect form, and could seem unattainable to a young teenager lacking in self confidence. These seemingly perfect dolls have no body fat, wrinkles, deformities, or have anything physically abnormal about them. According to Hyde and Else-Quest (2013) these dolls depict a common form of sexualization. Bratz dolls are being inappropriately used as sexual objects, by sexually objectifying these dolls and selling those to younger children, it might change their perception and outlook on how they view women; this could effectively cause them confusion in understanding their gender identity. We as consumers, parents, teachers, and family, need to monitor what we allow our children to read, watch, and have as toys. The long-term negative effects that a sexualized doll, or an unattainable figure, can have on the young moldable minds of our youth could be devastating. In closing, be a good parent, teacher, friend, or a close family member and make sure you know exactly what the young children closest to you are idolizing.