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A personal essay on drink and driving
A personal essay on drink and driving
Comparison and relationship between moral development and psychological
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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 …show more content…
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
Rest, J., Narvaez, D., Thoma, S., & Bebeau, M. (1999). DIT2: Devising and testing a revised instrument of moral judgment. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91(4), 644-659.
Crandell, Thomas. Crandell, Corinne Haines. Zanden, James W. Vander. (2009). Human Development. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Graham, Jesse and Johnathan Haidt. 2011. The Social Psychology of Morality: Exploring the Causes of
Kohlberg’s theory of moral development shows the different stages of morality as people change as they get older (McLeod). He had three levels which broke down his stages
In Kohlbergs moral stages five & six people begin to understand morals and social good then moral reasoning. Basic human rights become important as well as principles.
Theories abound around how people develop emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. This essay will examine the theories of five leaders on the subject of development.
Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development is three levels consisting of two stages in each. Kohlberg’s Theory explains how a human’s mind morally develops. Level one is typically common in younger children. The two stages in level one are pre-conventional stages. Stage one is obedience and punishment driven; one will judge an action by the consequences given. Stage two is out of self interest. Level two is mostly common in teenagers. The stages in this level
They are able of solving problems using reasoning and logic. They can organize facts and events in mature fashion and figure out possible moves and their outcomes. They can also deal with proportions and analogies and reflect on their own thinking. One of the major themes of development is moral development. The most influential research on development was done by Lawrence Kohlberg. It was influenced by Piaget’s cognitive developmental approach. Kohlberg divided Moral development into 6 stages. The first stage is called Preconventional level. During this stage individuals recognize labels of “good” and “bad”, right and wrong, but do not interpret these labels in terms of social standards. The next stage is called Conventional level. During this level individuals make moral judgments based on expectations, whether the expectations are coming from family or society. This level of morality is shown mainly by adolescents and adults. The next level is the post conventional level. During this stage individuals accept and stand by society’s rules and laws but tend to view them in terms of the underlying principles. Individuals may also follow personal ethical principles. This is where they take into account human rights or life and
Lawrence Kohlberg conducted research on the moral development of children. He wanted to understand how they develop a sense of right or wrong and how justice is served. Kohlberg used surveys in which he included moral dilemmas where he asked the subjects to evaluate a moral conflict. Through his studies, Kohlberg observed that moral growth and development precedes through stages such as those of Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. He theorized that moral growth begins at the beginning of life and continues until the day one dies. He believed that people proceed through each stage of moral development consecutively without skipping or going back to a previous stage. The stages of thought processing, implying qualitatively different modes of thinking and of problem solving are included in the three levels of pre-conventional, conventional and post conventional development. (2)
The moral development of children can depend on many factors. Parenting and upbringing of the child, their environment, social environment, gender, and race are all aspects that can contribute to how a child develops their moral standards and expectations. Many psychologists have tried for several years to develop a theory of how morality is developed. One in particular is Lawrence Kohlberg (1958). His moral development theory is based on the cognitive development of children and it is thought that moral development proceeds and changes as cognitive development occurs (Arnett, 2012).
Batson, D., Thompson, E. (2001). Why Don't Moral People Act Morally?. Current Directions in Psychological.10 (1), 54-57.
Kohlberg, L. (1984). The psychology of moral development: the nature and validity of moral stages. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
Craig, G. J., & Dunn, W. L. (Ex.: 2010). Understanding human development (2nd Ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.
Part One:The criticisms of Kohlberg's moral development stages seem to center around three major points, his research methods, the "regression" of stage four, and finally his goals.The first criticism that I would like to address is that of his research methods. Kohlberg is often criticized for not only his subject selection, but also the methods by which he tries to extricate data from those subjects. His initial study consisted of school boys from a private institution in Chicago. The problem with this is fairly obvious, that this does not represent a significant portion of the population to allow for generalized conclusions. In other words, how can we test some boys from Chicago and ascertain that this is how all people develop worldwide?I believe that the answer to this criticism comes from the theory that it relates to.
There are many theories associated with developmental psychology, which studies the scientific process and cause of human development over the course of our lives. Developmental psychologists study a wide range of theoretical areas, such as biological, social, emotional, and cognitive processes (McLeod, S. A., 2012). Two theories of developmental psychology that I will be discussing will be the theory of moral development by Lawrence Kohlberg, and Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development.