Moral Stage - A literature overview

Seminar paper from the year 1998 in the subject Psychology - Developmental Psychology, grade: very good, Hendrix College (Department for Social Psychology), course: Independent Study, language: English, abstract: This paper is a comprehensive review of psychological literature concerning the issue ofmorality in psychological research. Though the emphasis is on psychological constructsthe first chapter offers philosophical and sociological views on morality. In the secondchapter Kohlberg s stage sequence theory is explained from its origins in Piaget s workto various criticisms of the theory. The second chapter also provides extensiveinformation about measurement and the different approaches popular in psychologicalliterature. The last part in the second chapter links other constructs like socioeconomicstatus, grade point average, collectivism, and psychoticism to moral reasoning. The thirdchapter concludes the paper with a review of the most important thoughts on morality andstates the need for further research in special areas.