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Moral Development

Chapter · October 2013

DOI: 10.1002/9781118339893.wbeccp367

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The draft for the item, “moral development”, which was edited and appeared in
Kenneth D. Keith (Ed.) The Encyclopedia of Cross-Cultural Psychology. New York:
Wiley (published in 2013, pp. 891-897).

Moral Development
Takashi Naito
Ochanomizu University, Japan
Although moral development has been studied from a variety of psychological
perspectives, including learning theory, psychoanalysis, and others, current studies of
moral development have been strongly influenced by the cognitive developmental
approach of Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg. Kohlberg identified several
fundamental philosophical issues underlying studies of moral development, such as the
question of a culturally fair definition of the construct. Psychologists studying morality
or moral development must deal with the problem of moral relativism or value
neutrality, which stems from the value-laden words “moral” and “development.” Moral
relativism is the position that moral values differ among cultures and peoples and are
therefore not universal. Conceptually, we must distinguish ethical moral relativism from
descriptive moral relativism, because the relevant reasoning and evidence differ. Ethical
relativism insists that basic values held in different cultures are equally right.
Descriptive relativism simply holds that, factually, moral values held by people vary
with culture.
Ethical relativism may have value in guiding cross-cultural research in culturally
fair ways. For Western psychologists, it might have the principal effect of restraining
easy applications of their own conceptions to other cultures—important because
Western psychologists have had more opportunities to apply the theories of their own
cultures to other non-Western cultures. For non-Western psychologists, the doctrine of
cultural relativism may have the effect of raising the status of their culture-bound
conceptions or values. However, the doctrine of relativism has the pitfall of leading
people to the position that any psychological phenomenon in a culture should be
understood and evaluated only by its own cultural standards. Considering the increased
interactions between cultures and the global problems that require collaboration
between societies, relativism includes a problem to be overcome.
Kohlberg argued that the formal and structural aspects of morality are universal,
while the content of morality can vary with culture. In addition, he believed the criteria
of adequacy and superiority of moral principles are intrinsically encompassed in the
sphere of moral reasoning. Namely, universalizability and prescriptivity of principles
are formal criteria of morality. Universalizability implies that the moral principles
should be applicable to anywhere, anytime, and anyone without morally relevant
differences, and prescriptivity implies that moral principles should have obligatory
nature in contrast to preference statements.
Finally, Kohlberg stood against both descriptive and ethical relativism in moral
reasoning. However, Kohlberg's universality claim has been exposed to the criticism
that it displays a degree of ethnocentrism, because his stages reflect the moral ideals of
particular cultures, especially the male culture of the U.S.
Kohlberg proposed that all people in all cultures use universal concepts of
morality: “All individuals in all cultures use the same thirty basic categories, concepts,
or principles” (Kohlberg, 1971, p. 175). Examples of the issues in these basic categories
include life, law, property, authority, trust, and so on. People in all cultures are faced
with conflicts within these universal domains. Because there are universal moral issues
and conflicts, the moral stages of individuals are usually measured by presenting
dilemmas that are supposed to be resolved in any society. Further, Kohlberg claimed
that moral reasoning develops according to a universal sequence of stages.
As for the concept of development, Kohlberg claimed to adopt Piagetian criteria
of cognitive development. The developmental stages and process of moral reasoning
satisfy the following criteria: (a) qualitative differences between stages, (b) a stage as a
structured whole, (c) an invariant sequence of stages, and (d) hierarchical integration
from a previous stage to the next stage. Kohlberg’s (1984) stages of moral development
comprise three levels: preconventional, conventional, and postconventional.
Preconventional Level
The characteristics of moral reasoning at the preconventional level are connected to
the inadequacy of role taking. At this level, people make moral judgments on the basis
of cultural rules and labels that represent authority external to the individual.
Consequently, reasoning takes account of the physical or external aspects of acts. The
preconventional level of morality includes two stages: heteronymous morality (Stage 1);
and individualism, instrumental purpose, and exchange (Stage 2). People at the
preconventional level define good and bad in terms of individual needs.
Stage 1 Heteronymous Morality
At Stage 1, role taking ability is limited to the egocentric level; in other words,
perspectives are confused or undifferentiated from one's own perspective in moral
situations. Moral rightness at this stage means to obey the rules and to avoid being
labeled with disparaging terms such as "burglar." Behavior reflects an underlying fear of
punishment and other sanctions by physically superior agents. Young children in all
societies learn social rules and discipline imposed by their families or other social
systems. Thus there can be cultural variation in the nature of prohibited or prescribed
acts and in the ways children are influenced to engage in desirable behaviors
(discipline).
Stage 2 Individualism, Instrumental Purpose, and Exchange
Persons at Stage 2 successively take concrete individual points of view but not
integrate them together. In most cases, they come to know that people have different
needs or values in different situations and even in similar situations. Moral rightness
means that each one follows his or her own values, and that we should resolve conflicts
by the principle of physical equality, bargaining, or give and take, if people's needs are
in conflict. There is a cultural difference in the degree to experience the variety of
individual needs and values. In some societies, persons at Stage 2 frequently experience
different feelings and values in role-taking opportunities. In these societies, people may
learn more relativistic morality than in the societies, where people frequently experience
common or shared feelings and values.

Conventional Level
At the conventional level of morality, moral values are described in terms of
maintenance of interpersonal relations, groups, societies, or nations. In some cases, the
system can be described as religious codes. The conventional level includes two stages:
mutual interpersonal expectations, relationships, and interpersonal conformity(Stage
3); and social system and conscience (Stage 4).
Stage 3 Mutual Interpersonal Expectations, Relationships, and Interpersonal
Conformity
At Stage 3, people adopt more complex types of role-taking than at Stage 2. They
can understand that you and I can take another point of view together. People at Stage 3
can take a third-person view from which right actions are judged. Furthermore, people
at Stage 3 understand the principle that they should act according to shared expectations
from interpersonal relations. A one-to-one relation can be extended or generalized to
represent others in general.
There is a large number of variations in the type of interpersonal relations and
mutually shared or expected behaviors in relations across cultures. These cultural
differences may be exemplified by many literatures concerning international students
who faced with the cultural differences of expected behaviors between friends.
Stage 4 Social System and Conscience
At Stage 4, people can take the point of view of the leader in an organization, from
which they can integrate interpersonal relations, as well as other individual points of
view in organizations such as a community. Moral rightness is defined as behavior
serving to maintain the social system. There can be a variety of levels of Stage 4,
depending on the levels of the social systems: families, communities, countries, and so
on.
Culturally, there are varieties of social systems. For example, some social systems
are heretically ordered, while others are more egalitarian. Furthermore, societies vary in
mobility, openness, and so on.
Postconventional Level
People at the postconventional level of morality have developed self-chosen,
abstract principles by taking a "prior-to-society" perspective, which brings impartial
judgments from outside the system in moral conflict situations. Specifically, moral
judgments are made from an impartial viewpoint for all societies or cultures. The
postconventional level includes two stages, social contract and individual rights (Stage
5); and moral reasoning based on abstract reasoning using universal ethics (Stage 6).
Stage 5 Social Contract or Utility and Individual Rights
At this stage, people can adopt a perspective from outside the society and
understand that value systems held in societies can be different. In other words, they
understand the relativity of social values. They also understand that for the welfare of
all people, and for protection of all people’s rights, a sense of contract between a society
and its people is the basis for moral reasoning. They understand that values such as
freedom, life, and so on are universal because they are preconditions for people to
contract with societies.
Stage 6 Universal Ethical Principles
People at Stage 6 take the perspective of a so-called moral point of view. They
recognize that persons are ends in themselves and must be treated as such, and take
viewpoints they suppose rational individuals would take in similar situations. Moral
reasoning is based upon universal ethical principles and requires a sense of personal
commitment to internalized principles of justice. The principles of justice are the
equality of human rights and respect for the dignity of human beings. The commitment
to justice might allow an individual at Stage 6 to disobey unjust laws.
Measuring Moral Development
For the measurement of the moral stages, researchers have used the Moral
Judgment Interview (MJI). In the typical MJI, the interviewer presents a hypothetical
moral dilemma, then asks a respondent 10 questions concerning the dilemma. Three
moral dilemmas were provided in the last version of the MJI. One of these, “Heinz’s
dilemma,” is as follows.
In Europe, a woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one
drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist
in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the
druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to make. He paid $400 for the
radium and charged $4,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband,
Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together
about $2,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was
dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: "No,
I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it." So, having tried every
 legal means, Heinz gets desperate and considers breaking into the man's store to steal
the drug for his wife (Kohlberg, 1984, p. 640).
Among other questions, participants are asked whether Heinz should have stolen
the drug, and also to explain their reasoning. The responses are scored with reference to
a scoring manual, which has been revised several times (the latest manual is Colby &
Kohlberg, 1987). Other measures of the moral development stages have been
developed: the Defining Issue Test (DIT) by Rest (1979), the Social Reflection Measure
Short Form (SRM-SF) by Gibbs (Gibbs, Basinger, & Fuller, 1992), and the Moral
Judgement Test (MJT) by Lind (2008). These include dilemma-free (SRM-SF) and
dilemma-type tests (MJI and DIT) as well as production type (MJI), which request
respondents to answer their moral reasonings, and recognition tests (DIT), which
request respondents to rate the given moral reasonings.
Cross-Cultural Research on Kohlberg’s Stages
Researchers have carried out a substantial number of studies using Kohlberg’s
moral stages. For example, Snary (1985) reviewed 45 studies conducted in 27 countries
and regions. In addition, several reviews of studies concerning the universality of
Kohlberg’s stages have been published (e.g., Ahmed & Gielen, 2002; Gibbs, Basinger,
Grime & Snarey, 2007; Gielen, 1996; Gielen & Markoulis, 2001; Moon, 1986; Snarey,
1985). Although the majority of the aforementioned studies have been conducted in the
U.S. and in European countries, several studies in Asia and Africa were also included in
the reviews. These studies have raised several issues concerning the cross-cultural
validity of the stages.
Existence of moral reasoning other than the six moral stages. If an observed
response is qualified as “moral reasoning” but cannot be classified into any of the
stages or unscorable by the scoring manual, the response could represent a new type of
moral reasoning or stage of moral reasoning. For example, if Confucianism in
collectivistic societies provides unscorable moral statements for the scoring manual,
these statements could be a new type or stage of moral reasoning. However, the
unscorable responses do not necessarily reveal a new stage of reasoning. Namely, the
new unscorable responses can be a new variation of the given stages of Kohlberg’s
stages but not responses of a new stage. Although the issue is important for the validity
of Kohlberg’s moral stages, it is difficult to argue further, partly because the responses
of the sixth stage are not shown in the scoring manual (Colby, & Kohlberg,1987).
Universal sequence. Skipping more than one stage, or a “backward” change in
moral development, can provide counterevidence to the hypothesis of a universal
sequence. Longitudinal data can more directly examine the hypothesis, but only a few
longitudinal studies have examined and supported it (Snarey, 1985, reviewed 7 studies).
However, the hypothesis of universal sequence has been examined in terms of age
trends using a substantial quantity of cross-sectional data. For example, Gielen (1996)
selected the MJI studies that used the latest scoring manual and compared findings in
the U.S., Taiwan, Israel, Turkey, Poland, Finland, and India, most of which covered
people from 10 to more than 25 years of age. As an index of moral development, the
Weighted Average Score (WAS) was used to compare the samples. All except the data
from Poland showed a substantial positive correlation between WAS and age and
education. Further, although most of the samples showed a large increase of WAS
between ages 15 years and 20 years, Polish adolescents did not show this increase
between these ages.
As for studies using DIT reviews by Ahmed and Gielen (1994) of DIT studies in
North and South American, European, East Asian, African, and Arab countries showed a
positive correlation between age and P score (an index of preference for statements by
principled reasoning, i.e., after Stage 5), with the exception of Arab countries. There
were no age differences in P scores among the three Arab countries of Kuwait, Sudan,
and Egypt. However, Ahmed and Gielen pointed out the low reliability of the DIT and
the unfamiliarity of some of the dilemmas used for the Arab samples.
Explanation of cultural variations. According to Kohlberg, there can be cultural
differences both in the rate of development and in the final stage people achieve in
cultures. The further question then is what causes these cultural variations. Kohlberg
suggested role-taking opportunity as a general determinant of moral developmental
stages. Comprehensive reviews of cross-cultural studies have indeed suggested cultural
differences both in rate of development and level achied. For example, adults from
village areas showed lower scores of moral development than those from urban areas
and East Asian high school and university students had a greater preference for
statements based on post-conventional morality than corresponding students from
Anglo-Saxon, Caribbean, and Arab societies. One of the possible interpretations is that
moral teachings incorpolated in public high schools in East Asian societies may develop
the ability to understand the abstract principled moral concepts.
Above all, some studies using the MJI in non-Western societies did not find the
moral reasoning of Stages 5 and 6. These results generated controversial interpretations.
From one point of view, the results showed that Kohlberg’s stages were culturally
biased, because the results support the idea that the post-conventional or principled level
reflects the culture-specific morality of the U.S. In contrast, other psychologists
interpreted the same results from the perspective of social evolution: More developed
and complex societies provide people with more complex role-taking opportunities.
In response, Kohlberg and his colleagues refined the stages and revised the scoring
manual (Colby & Kohlberg, 1987). As a result, even for adults in the U.S., Stage 5 and
6 responses have become rare. Consequently, the problem has become a theoretical
rather than an empirical one.
It may be easy to make the generalization that village environments and
undeveloped societies provide people with simple and concrete interactions, and in
contrast, industrialized or urban areas provide more complex interactions and more
abstract rules. However, considering that some villages provide complex and abstract
traditional rules for village members, as Lévi-Strauss (1966) analysed about totemism of
native Australian tribes, we need to explore more precisely the nature of role-taking
opportunities. Additionally, the high preference for post conventional morality (higher P
scores) by East Asian high school students may be difficult to explain in terms of
role-taking opportunities in their general experience.
Taken together, these results suggest that to explain cultural differences in moral
development stages, more precise conceptions of role-taking opportunities or moral
experiences in the cultures are needed. Researchers must seek answers to such questions
as How do people face moral problems in cultural contexts? or What opportune ities do
societies provide formally or informally for children and adolescents to develop their
morality.?
For these studies, scope of moral development need to be expanded from
 Kohlbergian approach. Kohlbergian approach can be interpreted as a grand project to
understand moral development in the world in terms of the formal criteria of morality
through people’s moral reasoning. The approach has faced with or has revealed the
cultural differences of the status of moral reasoning based on justice. For example, in a
study conducted in India, some adults made moral judgments based on the value of
pureness instead of justice (Pariku, 1975). In Japan, moral reasoning based on justice
tent to be placed in the formal plane in the contexts of double planes of moral
judgments: the formal and the informal (Naito, & Gielen, 1992).
However, it should be noted finally that moral experiences in all cultures are
changing with globalization. In the past, typically, people experienced moral problems
and resolved them based on their cultural values. However, currently people in all
cultures have moral developmental tasks in their lives which demand resolution of
conflicts based on shared concepts, eventually with other cultures.
SEE ALSO: Cultural Relativism; Globalization; Kohlberg, Lawrence
References and Further Reading
Ahmed, R. A., & Gielen, U. P. (2002). A critical review of studies on moral judgment
development using the Defining Issues Test in Arab countries. The Arab
Journal of Humanities, 77, 261-281.
Colby, A., & Kohlberg, L. (1987). The measurement of moral judgment, Vol. 1:
Theoretical foundations and research validation. New York, NY: Cambridge
University Press.
Gibbs, J. C., Basinger, K. S., & Fuller, D. (1992). Moral maturity: Measuring the
development of sociomoral reflection. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Gibbs J. C., Basinger, K. S., Grime, R. M., & Snarey, J. A. (2007). Moral judgment
development across cultures: Revisiting Kohlberg’s universality claims.
Developmental Review, 27, 443-500.
Gielen, U. P. (1996). Moral reasoning in cross-cultural perspective: A review of
Kohlbergian research. World Psychology, 2, 313-333.
Gielen, U. P. & Markoulis, D. C. (2001). Preference for principled moral reasoning: A
developmental and cross-cultural perspective. In L. L. Adler & U. P. Gielen
(Eds.), Cross-cultural topics in psychology (2nd ed., pp. 81-101). Westport,
 CT.: Praeger.
Kohlberg, L. (1971). From is to ought. In T. Mischel (Ed.) Cognitive development and
Epistemology (pp. 151-235). New York, NY: Academic Press.
Kohlberg, L. (1984). Essays on moral development, Vol. 2: The psychology of moral
development. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row.
Lévi-Strauss, C. (1966). The savage mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lind, G. (2008). The meaning and measurement of moral judgment competence
revisited - A dual-aspect model. In D. Fasko & W. Willis (Eds.), Contemporary
philosophical and psychological perspectives on moral development and
education (pp. 185–220). Cresskill. NJ: Hampton Press.
Moon, Y. L. (1986). A review of cross-cultural studies on moral judgment development
using the Defining Issues Test. Behavior Science Research, 20, 147-177.
Naito, T. & Gielen, U. P. (1992). Tatemae and Honne: A Study of moral relativism
in Japanese culuture. In Gielen, Uwe P. and Leonore Loeb Adler and Noach
Milgram (eds.). Psychology in international perspective. Amsterdam: Swets
and Zeitlinger. 161-172.
Parikh, B. S. (1975). Moral judgment and its relation to family environmrntal factors in
Indian and American urban upper middle-class families. Doctoral dissertation,
Boston University.
Rest, J. (1979). Development in judging moral issues. Minneapolis, MN: University of
Minnesota Press.
Snarey, J. (1985). The cross-cultural universality of social-moral development: A critical
review of Kohlbergian research. Psychological Bulletin, 97, 202-232.

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