Gender Differences in Moral Development By Jordon Ward and Kathryn Shahan We had some technical difficulties with the handouts; we tried to print it with three slides on a page and lines for notes next to each slide, but that made the text so small that it required quite a bit of squinting to read. So instead, we gave y’all a page to take notes on and then a handout of the slides themselves for y’all to use later. And we did our study on Gender Differences in Moral Development, based on the work of Lawrence Kohlberg.

Lawrence Kohlberg Lived 1927-1987 Grew up in Bronxville, New York Attended University of Chicago While doing graduate work, became interested in Piaget’s work and started interviewing children Taught at University of Chicago and University of Harvard Suffered from tropical disease and depression; drowned at age 59 Lawrence Kohlberg was a man who lived from 1927 to 1987, and he grew up in Bronxville, New York. He attended the University of Chicago where he did graduate work in psychology. While doing that, he became very interested in Piaget and began interviewing children. He continued studying children while teaching at the University of Chicago and then the University of Harvard. Later in his life he suffered from a tropical disease and depression which pained him for the last 20 years of his life; eventually at the age of 59 he drowned in a marsh, which some believe may have been a suicidal death.

Kohlberg’s Stages Believed that stages of development extended past Piaget’s Uncovered six stages, first three of which are based off of Piaget’s Divided into three levels of morality with two stages each Each level has a sociomoral perspective Sixth stage was removed in 1975 Potential exists to achieve a seventh stage of moral reasoning, which is rare We mentioned earlier that Kohlberg was interested in Piaget’s works; he believed that the stages of development extended past Piaget’s. Piaget focused on ages between 10 and 12, Kohlberg believed intellectual development (and therefore moral development) continued until at least age 16. Kohlberg then uncovered six stages of development, the first three of which are based off of Piaget’s. He divided them into three different levels of morality with each level containing two stages each. Each level has a sociomoral perspective; which is the viewpoint that a person is coming from in their moral reasoning. Kohlberg eventually dropped the sixth stage of moral development because his interviews did not differentiate well between stage 5 and stage 6 reasoning, so few people scored at stage 6. However, he did say that there is the potential to reach a seventh stage of moral reasoning; this stage comes from a spiritual place that causes people to do what is right due to a feeling of being part of something larger than oneself, such as God or Nature.

Kohlberg’s Stages The stages are qualitatively different The stages are general patterns of thought Children proceed through the stages in order The reasoning from each stage before is integrated into a child’s current stage The stage sequence is universally the same in all cultures Each stage sounds very different; so basically the qualitative focuses of a person’s thought processes are different within each stage. The stages are general patterns of thought, which means given different dilemmas, you will still give similar responses using similar ways of thinking. The stages are in an invariant sequence; one is not skipped. However, not all children reach the highest stages. The stages are hierarchically integrated; each stage builds on the ones that came before. And last, the stage sequence is universally the same in all cultures, which seems questionable because different cultures hold different beliefs, but it is still applicable because it refers to ways of reasoning, not specific beliefs.

Kohlberg’s Stages Level 1: Preconventional Stage 1: Obedience and Punishment Orientation Stage 2: Individualism and Exchange Level 2: Conventional Stage 3: Good Interpersonal Relationships Stage 4: Maintaining the Social Order Level 3: Postconventional Stage 5: Social Contract and Individual Rights Stage 6: Universal Principles Here are Kohlberg’s levels and stages. Kohlberg named the levels preconventional, conventional and postconventional. However, the titles of each stage are not what Kohlberg actually named them; we used the titles in our textbook because they were much simpler to understand than the descriptions that Kohlberg gave. In the upcoming slides, when we define the sociomoral perspective of each level and describe the right thing to do for each stage, that is taken directly from Kohlberg’s chart describing each level and stage in his Theoretical Foundation.

This is an illustration giving a preview of each stage, As you can see by the blocks on the right, the stages are stacked in order because Kohlberg believed that you move through each stage in order. So here’s a quick summary of each stage: in stage 1, the reasoning is “I do it so I don’t get in trouble”; in stage 2, “I do it so I get something out of it”; in stage 3, “I do it so you like me”; in stage 4, I do it because it is the law, and I respect the law”; in stage 5, “I do it because of a social contract we have with each other”; and in stage 6, “I do it because it is the right thing to do”.

Level 1: Preconventional Sociomoral perspective: concrete individual perspective Stage 1: Obedience and Punishment Orientation Doing what is right because authority says that it is right Stage 2: Individualism and Exchange Doing what is right due to fear of punishment Level 1 is the Preconventional level. The sociomoral perspective is the “concrete individual perspective” In this one you come from an egocentric point of view- only considering effects on yourself. So stage 1 is the “Obedience and Punishment Orientation” stage, and in this stage one does what is right because an authoritative figure says that it is right. Doing the right thing for a stage 1 person means obeying authority and not breaking the rules because the authority figures said that it is the right thing to do. And then stage 2 is the “Individualism and Exchange” stage, and in this stage one does what is right because they’re scared of being punished if they don’t. Doing the right thing for a stage 2 person means making sure everything is fair in order to benefit yourself, because doing differently would not benefit yourself (for example, being punished).

Level 2: Conventional Sociomoral perspective: member-of-society perspective Stage 3: Good Interpersonal Relationships Doing what’s right because of expectations of others and caring for others Stage 4: Maintaining the Social Order Doing what’s right in order to fulfill your role and obligations in society Level 2 is the Conventional Level. The sociomoral perspective of this stage is the member-of-society perspective, which means that you’re coming from the viewpoint of wanting good for society as a whole. Stage 3 is “Good Interpersonal Relationships”, in which you do what’s right because of expectations of others and caring for others. Doing the right thing for a stage 3 person means living up to expectations and maintaining healthy relationships. Stage 4 is “Maintaining the Social Order”, in which you do what’s right in order to fulfill your role and obligations in society. Doing the right thing for a stage 4 person means following the roles and fulfilling your duties, unless they conflict with your personal values.

Level 3: Postconventional Sociomoral perspective: prior-to-society perspective Stage 5: Social Contract and Individual Rights Doing what’s right because it’s best for society and everyone in it Stage 6: Universal Principles Doing what’s right because it aligns with your universal moral principles The third and last level is the Postconventional level. The sociomoral perspective within this level is the “prior-to-society perspective” which means that you commit to doing the right thing because it fully upholds your personal moral values for what’s best for society. Stage 5 is the “Social Contract and Individual Rights” stage, where one does what is right because it’s best for society and everyone in it. Doing the right thing for a stage 5 person means following the rules of the group and fulfilling a social contract because the group agrees that it is the best. (although there is an exception to this due to personal values, like life, liberty, etc). And then the sixth and final stage is the “Universal Principles” stage, where one does what is right because it aligns with their universal moral principles. And doing what’s right for a stage 6 person means following the rules that are in place because they align with their universal principles.

Gilligan’s Criticisms Worked with Kohlberg Interviewed pregnant women about the moral dilemma of abortion Believed that his work was biased against girls and women Said women focus on compassion and men focus on justice Described how women progress through Kohlberg’s levels Carol Gilligan was a researcher who worked with Kohlberg. She did her primary research by interviewing pregnant women about the moral dilemma of abortion. She believed that Kohlberg’s work was biased against girls and women, as in Kohlberg’s stages women get stuck on stage 3, which focuses on interpersonal relationships. She said that this was because women focus more on compassion than men, which makes them appear as if they are less morally developed because they usually fall in stage 3. Gilligan called these focuses ethics of care and ethics of justice. In a study based on Gilligan, ethics of care was defined as when “moral responsibility emphasizes attachments, allows for both self-sacrifice and selfishness, and considers connections with others”, and is primarily found in women. Ethics of justice was defined as when someone “emphasizes on autonomy, rules, legalities, and considers the individual as primary” and is primarily found in men. Gilligan provided her own description of how women progress through Kohlberg’s levels. She said they progress through the levels in terms of relationships; in Preconventional- the women focus on theirselves; in the conventiona level, they focus on responsibility for others; in postconventional, they focus on the fact that society is formed on interdependent relationships.

Kohlberg’s Methods Main study was of 72 boys from Chicago aged 10, 13 and 16 Asked questions about hypothetical moral dilemmas Questions focus on normative ethics In each response, the value that is used to justify the choice is the norm In Kohlberg’s main study, he interviewed 72 boys from Chicago that were aged 10, 13, and 16. He asked them questions about hypothetical moral dilemmas, which we’ll show an example with the dilemma that we used later. His questions focused on normative ethics, which a normative ethic is basically what is right and wrong and why it is right or wrong. And then in each response, the value that is used to justify the choice is called “the norm” which is basically where the focus is when one makes one’s choice. Examples of norms are affiliation, law, truth, etc.

Kohlberg’s Study Our Study Studied 72 boys Ages were 10, 13 and 16 Used moral dilemmas Interviewed the children Complicated scoring process Studied 5 girls and 1 boy Age groups ranged from 5th to 8th grade Used moral dilemma Administered a survey Simplified scoring process We compared our study to Kohlberg’s core, initial study; he later added girls and delinquents to the research. Kohlberg studied 72 boys, while we studied 5 girls and 1 boy. Kohlberg’s children were aged 10, 13 and 16, while our children were in grades 5th through 8th. Kohlberg used moral dilemmas to ask the children about, and we used one of Kohlberg’s dilemmas along with his follow-up questions, which we will show y’all later. Kohlberg interviewed the children and probed them on their answers, while we just used a survey which the children answered quietly. To administer the survey we went to a school, passed out the survey, and asked them to answer the questions. It took about 20 minutes total. We gave different surveys to the different sexes; they were the exact same, except the female names were changed to male names for the boy surveys so that the children could better associate with the situation. Kohlberg also used a bit more complicated scoring process than us. He described his scoring process in his Theoretical Foundations and Research Validation. He says, to quote straight from the book, “the first step in standard issue scoring involves the classification of the subject’s responses to a dilemma into the two standard issue categories. Since the issue units are large and often contain a great deal of material, standard issue scoring involves two further subdivisions, by element and by norm, before stage scoring begins. [the results] are defined by the intersection of the dilemma plus the issue plus the norm plus the element”. This scoring process was a bit over our heads, so for the sake of our study we decided to focus only on one aspect of his grading process, which was the norm.

Judy was a twelve-year-old girl Judy was a twelve-year-old girl. Her mother promised her that she could go to a special rock concert coming to their town if she saved up from baby-sitting and lunch money to buy a ticket to the concert. She managed to save up the fifteen dollars the ticket cost plus another five dollars. But then her mother changed her mind and told Judy that she had to spend the money on new clothes for school. Judy was disappointed and decided to go to the concert anyway. She bought a ticket and told her mother that she had only been able to save five dollars. That Saturday she went to the performance and told her mother that she was spending the day with a friend. A week passed without her mother finding out. Judy then told her older sister, Louise, that she had gone to the performance and had lied to her mother about it. Louise wonders whether to tell their mother what Judy did.

Hypotheses Is there a significant difference in the responses to the moral dilemmas between genders? There will be a significant difference in the responses to moral dilemmas between genders because girls develop according to the ethics of care while boys develop according to the ethics of justice Do girls get stuck in the third stage of moral development? Girls do get stuck in the third stage of moral development because Kohlberg’s studies are biased towards men So we focused on two questions when we made our hypotheses for our own study, which the first question was “Is there a significant difference in the responses to the moral dilemmas between genders?” which we answered “There will be a significant difference in the responses to moral dilemmas between genders because girls develop according to the ethics of care while boys develop according to the ethics of justice” and then our second question we asked ourselves was “Do girls get stuck in the third stage of moral development?” which we answered “Girls do get stuck in the third stage of moral development because Kohlberg’s studies are biased towards men”

Answers to First Question Sex Grade Answer Stage and Norm Girl 5th Louise should tell their mother because they need to be honest Stage 1; authority Louise should tell her mom because it is not good to lie about something you were not supposed to do 6th She should tell their mother because even if Judy would be angry, it’s the right thing to do Boy I think that Lewis should tell his father because Josh shouldn’t had gone to the concert 7th Yes she should tell her. Judy lied to her mother and she isn’t going to let her keep lying, so she should tell Stage 2; authority 8th Louise should keep quiet. Judy looks up to her older sister and trusts her. She should just warn Judy not to do it again. Stage 3; affiliation The first question that we asked on the survey was, “Should Louise, the older sister, tell their mother that Judy lied about the money or should she keep quiet?” and “Why?”. These are the answers that they gave. We graded each question by assigning it a stage and the norm that it focused on. The first 4 answers all fall in stage 1 because they are focused on doing the right thing simply because it’s the right thing to do; e.g. “it is not good” and “it’s the right thing to do” are their reasoning. One of Kohlberg’s examples of a stage 1 answer to this question was, “it’s a lie, or it’s bad”; as you can see, the stage 1 answers are very similar to this, such as “it is not good to lie about something you were not supposed to do”. The 7th grade girl falls into stage 2 because her answer indicates that she is thinking about negative consequences, as indicated by the thought that “she isn’t going to let her keep lying”. This is similar to one of Kohlberg’s examples of a stage 2 answer: “the mother could take Judy’s money or might not let Judy go to a rock concert for a long time”, which is also thinking about negative consequences put forth by the mom. The 8th grade girl falls into stage 3 because her answer has a focus on relationships; Louise should keep quiet because Judy trusts her. This is similar to Kohlberg’s example of a stage 3 answer: “Louise should keep quiet because telling would wreck the sister-sister relationship, or because telling would destroy Judy’s trust or faith would betray the confidence”. The first five answers had the norm of authority because they are all focused on telling the mother, or the authoritative figure, and giving her the opportunity to exercise her authority. The last answer was assigned the norm of affiliation because the value is placed on Judy and Louise’s relationship. The other possible norms were contract (a focus on keeping the promise), property (a focus on the fact that Judy earned and owned the money), and conscience (a focus on feelings of guilt, etc.).

Results Sex Grade Stage Girl 5th Stage 1; close to transition Transitional 1 to 2 6th Stage 1 Boy 7th Transitional 2 to 3 8th Stage 3 We went through the same process with each question from each survey. There were 11 questions that the children had to answer, but we threw out two of them; the questions that we threw out were, “In general, what should be the authority of a mother over her daughter? Why?” and “What do you think is the most important thing a daughter should be concerned about in her relationship to her mother? Why is that the most important thing?” We threw these questions out because the first 5th grade girl put question marks as her answer to them, so it seemed as if she did not understand what the questions were asking; the other children’s answers to these questions also seemed as if they were slightly confused. So after we scored the answers to the remaining questions To determine which stage each person was in, we found the mode from their answer stages. For the 6th grade girl and boy and the 8th grade girl, they clearly fell in their stages. However, some of the other children’s answers were more diverse, and proved to be transitional between stages. For example, the 2nd 5th grade girl had four stage 1 answers and four answers that hit stage 2, with a few stage 3 answers as well, so we ranked her as transitional from 1 to 2.

Conclusions Based off our study, there were no significant gender differences in moral development There was not enough data to determine whether or not girls get stuck in stage 3 We found very few answers that fell in stage 2 Based off of our research, there were no significant differences between the boy and girl responses. Also based off our research, we did not find a conclusive result on whether or not girls get stuck in stage 3 due to a lack of data. Finally, we found very few answers that fell in stage 2; most of the kids seemed to skip stage 2 and go straight from stage 1 to stage 3. We didn’t really understand this because Kohlberg said that children move through the stages in order.

Limitations Small sample size Limited age range Lack of clarification Typo on male survey Students may have felt rushed So our greatest limitation was that we had a very small sample size. With only 6 children, it is hard to say that the results are representative of all kids. Also, there was only 1 boy included in the sample size; therefore it is essentially impossible to draw conclusive results about gender differences that are representative of the population as a whole. We also had a limited age-range. We only surveyed kids in grades 5-8, so they only went up to stage 3. We did not have the opportunity to see whether or not girls get stuck in stage 3 due to the lack of older children. Kohlberg interviewed children with these dilemmas, while we surveyed them; therefore we could not ask for clarification on certain questions even though we sometimes would have needed to push the student further in their explanation. Some of the answers were just very confusing. For example one of the 5th grade girls was asked, “does telling have anything to do with being a good daughter? Why or why not?” And she answered, “Yes, because you confess.” She also answered the question “The mother promised Judy she could go to the concert if she earned the money, Is the fact that she earned the money herself the most important thing in the situation?” with “no, because its not good”. Both of these answers were pretty confusing, but because it was a survey we were unable to ask the student what she meant. Some of the students were also very vague in their answers so it was hard not to project our own interpretations of what they meant onto the answers when scoring. For example, the 7th grade girl answered the question, “Should Louise, the older sister, tell their mother that Judy lied about the money or should she keep quiet? Why?” with “Yes she should tell her, because Judy lied to her mother and she isn’t going to let her keep lying, so she should tell”. We were not sure if the girl was referring to Louise or the mom not letting Judy keep lying, so it was hard for us to interpret what the focus of the answer was. This also means that some of the students may have been in higher stages of moral development but we couldn’t tell because they did not elaborate their answers on the surveys. Another limitation is a typo that we made on the male survey; the question was supposed to be, “Does telling have anything to do with being a good son?” However, we accidentally typed the question as, “Does telling have anything to do with being a good father?” This changed the meaning of the question to be something confusing and different, which affected not only that question but potentially also the boy’s answers to the following questions. He answered this question by saying, “No, because you have to be a obeying father”. We were not really sure what he meant by that, but we know that it’s our fault for making the typo. Finally, the students did not all start at the same time; two of the students came in later after the others had already started and we were worried that they may have rushed their answers due to feeling as if they had to catch up.

Nature/Nurture Line Nature Kohlberg Nurture We put Kohlberg on the nature side of the line. We did not put him to the very far side because he was not a maturationist; he did not believe that the stages unfold according to a genetic blueprint. However, he also did not believe that the stages are a product of socialization; he believed socialization can stimulate thinking, but not teach it. He believed that the stages ultimately emerge from our own thinking.