Strengths And Weaknesses Of Moral Psychology

FINAL PAPER
1. What is the discipline of moral psychology and what has this field contributed to our understanding of the way in which humans produce and consume moral knowledge? Assess the strengths and weaknesses of this field of study.
Source: Arnett, Jeffrey Jensen. Human Development: A Cultural Approach. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2012. Print.
The discipline of moral psychology investigates human functioning in moral contexts. It looks to uncover the psychology behind moral and immoral acts. This field has contributed tremendously towards my understanding of how humans produce and consume moral knowledge. Since the discipline of moral psychology is very broad with many contributors, I will focus on Kohlberg’s moral

One of the weaknesses is that Kohlberg’s theory may have not taken into account gender and societal differences. Kohlberg conducted his research using mostly white men and boys. The results obtained from the research, can be absolutely applied to white men, however, women were not fairly represented therefore, their development might be different because they are more caring and base their moral reasoning on personal relationships more than men who focus more on justice and equity aspects. Additionally, Kohlberg did his research mostly in the western culture which is strongly biased towards individualism and the results might be different in a non-western culture that may be community oriented rather that individualistic (he did some research on collectivist cultures). The post-convectional stage is the most controversial in that it appears mostly in societies that value individualism as a result; one can say that the theory is biased against collectivist culture. Additionally, Kohlberg’s findings on the stages can differ from actions of people where researchers have found that sometimes people act “lower” than their supposed moral stage. This is evident in the issue of drinking and driving where adults choose to do what is best for them rather than doing what is legally right, and what is best for