BLOG PODS #47 - Theory Bites 6b - Lawrence Kohlberg: Stages of Moral Development

INTRODUCTION

In our last post, we began looking at Kohlberg’s theory of moral development. we saw where it (and he) fits into the theorising of his time and the basic structure of his theory.

For professionals working with children, especially those recovering from developmental trauma and/or who offend, understanding Kohlberg’s theory can help us think about and guide more effective interventions and foster a healthier morality in kids. It can allow us to drill down beyond the surface behaviour or obvious presentations of a child and look more broadly about how their experiences may have impaired their moral development.

Doing this means we can avoid falling into quick judgments or unhelpful heuristics; it can help structure our thinking and gain a degree of objectivity that’s essential for ensuring we serve this as well as we can - if our assessments and intervention planning are better, the child will do better and we’ll optimise the change they can make.

The stages and levels again - briefly

Kohlberg organised his theory into 6 stages in 3 levels (for more detail on these see the previous post):

1. Pre-Conventional Level (Typically in early childhood)

Stage 1: Obedience and Punishment Orientation

Rules are ‘fixed’ and decisions are made to avoid punishment.

Stage 2: Self-Interest Orientation

Actions are driven by self-interest and immediate benefits; others might benefit but it’s still mainly about ‘me’; but if they benefit, fine.

2. Conventional Level (Typically in adolescence)

Stage 3: Interpersonal Accord and Conformity

Focus on being a “good person”, meeting expectations, prioritising relationships and social approval.

Stage 4: Authority and Social-Order Maintaining Orientation

Emphasis on law and order, duty, upholding societal rules and maintaining a functioning society.

3. Post-Conventional Level (Achieved by some adults, if at all)

Stage 5: Social Contract Orientation

Awareness that rules and laws exist to serve society but can be changed if unjust; decisions are based on fairness and human rights.

Stage 6: Universal Ethical Principles

Guided by abstract moral principles like justice, equality and dignity which supersede laws.

Applying Kohlberg’s Theory in Practice

For children recovering from developmental trauma, their moral development may be delayed, impaired or disrupted. Trauma can create trust issues, boundary problems and emotional dysregulation - as well as a raft of associated behavioural and presentational issues.

In my working world of youth justice and forensic mental health, a child’s ‘offending’ is simply the official recognition that something they did broke the law, or may have done. For us, though, being able to zoom out and look at the broader developmental context for the child’s current functioning is critical if we are to avoid adding to their problems through criminalisation and punishment, when kindness, understanding and treatment are what’s needed.

Kohlberg, like lots of theoreticians, can help us think more clearly and non-judgmentally, giving kids the best chance of emerging from the justice system-or any system-unscathed.

Here are a few thoughts about practical ways Kohlberg’s theory might help guide child care professionals:

1. Build Trust and Safety First

Create and encourage consistent, predictable environments where children feel secure - safety is a bulwark against reactivity, which is so often the driver of problem behaviours.

Be transparent about expectations and consequences. There’s so much talk about ‘restorative’ approaches, but there has be something to restore kids to! Often there isn’t, so let’s start by working on that. In Kohlbergian terms, if a child is to begin identifying with a group such that they have incentives to conform and do their bit for social order (stages 3 & 4), then the group has to be worth investing in; safety encourages this.

2. Address Emotional Regulation

Trauma can massively undermine safety and impair emotional control, so supporting children to recognise and manage emotions effectively is key. Children will not be able think about never mind employ more complex socially interactive skills like theory of mind and empathy, if they’re still trapped at the beck and call of their own feeling states.

Gently and empathically leaning into what they’re feeling, applying word labels to feelings and appropriately sharing our own feelings in relation to events and situations can all help kids begin getting a sense of what emotions mean, what causes them and how to self-soothe. Strategies like this that provide a kind of emotional coaching can begin to allow children to settle in themselves; once they do, they’re much more likely to begin acting with a little more deliberation, rather than reacting - essential if truly moral behaviour is to develop.

In my view, it’s the lack of overt recognition of this in Kohlberg’s theory that lets it down a bit for me - it seems to assume children have facilities like theory of mind and meta-cognition, when many are still pin-balling between emotional states they have little insight into. Addressing this early on is important.

3. Assess Moral Development Stage

Use Kohlberg’s stages as a framework to understand where a child currently sits. There are no rigid taxonomies here, but a look over the stages will give us a sense of where a child may be on their journey of moral development.

Adjust interventions based on whether the child operates at a pre-conventional or conventional level. i.e. are they in a childhood mode of moral functioning: simplistic, ego-centric, maybe with a sense of others’ welfare emerging, but it’s still mainly hedonistic and self-seeking? If so, they probably in the pre-conventional level somewhere, look at the stage descriptions (1 & 2) to drill down more specifically. Or are they showing some maturity in their ethical thinking: looking for social approval in some things and interested in being thought of as a ‘good person?’ In which case they’re likely more in the conventional level somewhere (stage 3 or 4).

4. Tailor Interventions

For example, for children at Stage 1 (Obedience and Punishment), focus on building trust, creating structure, building safety and security - make this the priority. Keep your appointments (where, when and how you meet) as consistent as possible.

For those at Stage 2 (Self-Interest Orientation), we can focus on and comment about the feelings and experiences of others; asking questions about how they think someone else might feel or think, can encourage kids to actively ‘go there’ and begin building empathy and mentalising others. If this is tricky, start by helping them articulate their own feelings, thoughts & subjective experiences before introducing comments about the same in other people.

Once we have a sense of where the child might be in their progression and development, we can think more clearly and specifically about how we can augment and encourage this along.

5. Create Ethical Dilemma Discussions

Use age-appropriate moral dilemmas to encourage children to think critically about right and wrong. Chatty and informal conversations that look back on choices made, situations encountered and explore ideas are easy but useful. Helping kids run different fun scenarios (e.g. the old one about if there was a beggar, a bank manager and a bride swimming towards a two-person lifeboat, which two would you rescue and why?), is another easy way of' ‘intervening’ positively to propagate moral growth without it feeling like an intervention at all.

Discussing real situations that might arise for the child in future, giving opportunity to think in advance about their options and the pros and cons of each, is not only useful in terms of mental preparation, it also focuses them on the moral meaning of their decisions and the possible impact not only for themselves but for others, too.

6. Foster Perspective-Taking

Use word and picture work to help children understand the emotions and experiences of their own and in others. I used to do this a lot using a pile of cuttings from newspapers and magazines of people with different facial expressions. To start with we can work with the child to match up feeling faces and feeling words - this is useful if kids have had poor attachment experiences and lack the linguistic labels for feelings and body states that most kids begin learning from attachment figures in the pre-verbal stage.

As they progress, use some pics that just show the face and others that place the person in context, then chat about how the person is feeling and why they may be feeling that way? How might we be able to help them feel differently (calmer, happier, less upset, etc.) can help link emotion and action, fostering empathy.

Use storytelling, group discussions and role-playing exercises, when kids are ready for it, to build empathy by learning from others. And on it goes - let your creativity loose and have fun!

7. Set Clear, Compassionate Boundaries

Boundaries must be firm but communicated with care. Here we’re looking to strike the balance between a more Durkheimian educative, pedagogical approach to moral learning and the more autonomous group moral osmosis of Piaget (in general terms I guess this is a tension between sociology and psychology? But I digress…). Kids need to know where the edges are-this far and no further-and these will need to flex and evolve as they grow, of course. But children who may have lacked clarity on what’s OK and what’s not will need us to be clear so they know the extent of the arena they have to work and learn within.

Eventually, of course, they’ll need the freedom to explore ideas, disagree with ‘authority’ and rehearse trying out their own possibilities - don’t all teenagers do this; shouldn’t all teenagers do this?! The key is to tailor the parameters within which they function-the boundaries, the edges-such that they can do the early learning they may have missed and in doing so start to feel safe and settled, Then they can do the moral and ethical exploration all kids need in order to arrive at and cement their own preferential morality into place.

Using punitive approaches when the boundaries get crossed can hold kids back in terms of moral growth - stalling them in stage 1 (avoidance of punishment) rather than encouraging a growing sense of belonging and, eventually, group identification and a sense of the greater good.

8. Reinforce Positive Behaviour

Praise and celebrate ethical decision-making and small moral victories. Even if there’s loads of room for further progress (which there always is), the very fact that a child has thought about something and/or made a good decision is reason enough for celebration. Be cautious not to make the praise too lavish and take care to target the effort rather than the talent, as this avoids the praise itself feeling overwhelming or running contrary to the child’s more negative sense of self, in which case they may reject it. It’s the action (decision, choice, conduct) we want to highlight for encouragement (Carol Dweck is very good on this - see link below).

Encourage persistence even in small moral dilemmas. Change always comes incrementally, so helping the child to understand this by taking a ‘one-step-at-a-time’ approach, is wise. Big change comes off the back of accumulated small ones; so making our expectations, language used and practice applied around this will help guide kids through big leaps in a series of baby steps.

9. Address Trauma Impact on Moral Development

Recognise that trauma can stunt the progression of moral reasoning. Abused children get trapped in the fear and harm caused by what they’ve been through. Spending their formative years in way too much fight and flight sets up the body and emotions to be stuck in a quasi survival mode. The Kohlbergian ideas of group identity, social and legal conformity, personal duty and working for the common good get subverted by the need to feel safe and get through the day. Without opportunity to settle into safety, learn from the patient compassion of others and adopt a more positive sense of self, kids remain stuck such that progress to stages 3 and 4, never mind the higher moral ideals of stages 5 and 6, remain Herculean.

Identify and address traumagenic functioning as a priority. If sleep is disturbed, relationships are fraught, routine is elusive and/or emotions are labile, anything approaching a normative cognitive development remains impaired; ergo moral reasoning is stalled, too. Noting these kinds of symptoms, looking for patterns, getting advice where necessary from clinical colleagues will all help us keep the historical context of the child’s presentation in view. Taking the child out of the trauma is pretty straight forward; taking the trauma out of the child takes time - but this is time they need if their wider cognitive and emotional progress is to be re-started which, in turn, will allow progress in their moral development, too.

As always with these thoughts about application, it’s crucial to tailor everything to the individual child and to remain flexible so that our approaches and the interventions we employ can pivot as their needs become clearer and evolve over time.

Supporting Child Care Professionals: Self-Care is Crucial

Working with traumatised children is emotionally taxing; sometimes it can feel downright overwhelming. To have any chance of hanging in there for the long haul, we must prioritise our own well-being to remain effective; consider:

Regularly assessing your personal stress levels - the ProQoL can help with this.

Maintain healthy boundaries - while we all use appropriate self-disclosure and self-deprecation in our work to some degree, maintaining a sense of balance in this is important. This will ensure we can keep a healthy separation between our personal selves and our working selves.

Reflect on your “why” to stay motivated during challenging times. When progress is slow-which it very often is with troubled kids-it’s easy for our mojo to get slowly depleted. If you notice this, it can help to revisit why it you do what you do and reinforce your sense of ‘mission.’

We all have our own ways of keeping well in the work. But when work strays into areas of morality-whether it be criminality, violence and/or mental distress and it’s correlate behaviours-the toll on us can be greater than usual and stretch our ways of coping, too.

Remaining vigilant to the impact of our work and the potential for vicarious trauma, makes a commitment to getting and staying well all the more important.

FINAL THOUGHTS

So there it is - Kohlberg’s theory of moral development and some ideas about how we can allow it to inform our practice.

In my view, he offers a useful framework for understanding moral development in children. For child care professionals, it provides a roadmap that can really help to structure or thinking and thereby usefully inform assessments and interventions, helping us to include children’s ethical growth among the many other factors we take into account along the way.

However, we must always remind ourselves that each child is unique and interventions must be flexible, compassionate and trauma-informed as we seek to tailor everything for this child and their individual needs. The goal is not just to help children make better decisions but to empower them with the reasoning skills and emotional resilience needed to navigate life’s moral dilemmas.

And right now, as always, there are lots and lots of those! I hope that’s helpful.

See you in the next one!

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More information:

COURSE: Jonny’s self-care course, ‘Looking After No.1’ (link). Get the book for £3.97 here.

QUESTIONNAIRE: The Professional Quality of Life Measure - a questionnaire to help you get a sense of your current stress levels and work satisfaction. The measure is tailored for those in the helping professions and is FREE to download and use (link)

WEB ARTICLE: Read the opening pages of Kohlberg’s ground-breaking doctoral thesis here (link)

PAPER: Moral Development: A Review of the Theory by Kohlberg & Hersch (1977 - link) This one has a useful education focus.

BOOK CHAPTER: Moral Education in the Cognitive Education Tradition: Lawrence Kohlberg’s Revolutionary Ideas (link pdf download) - an involved but useful summary of the man, his context and how he worked with and between the ideas of Durkheim & Piaget.

WEB ARTICLE: Summary of Kohlberg’s theory from Simply Psychology (link)

WEB ARTICLE: A more in-depth and detailed pdf of Kohlberg’s theory - again from Simply Psychology (pdf download link)

*PAPER: A Theory of Human Motivation by Abraham Maslow (1943; see p.371 for reference to ‘prepotency’ - link)

PAPER: Moral Development, Religious Thinking and the Question of a Seventh Stage by Kohlberg & Power - a religious and philosophic take on it al… (1981 - link)

PAPER: Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development and Its Comparison with Ethics from the Perspective of Shia Islam - interesting read this for those who want to dig deeper into the role of religion in moral thinking, esp. the ‘moral nature of man.’ (link)

More in the Theory Bites series:

Theory Bites 1. - Urie Bronfenbrenner: Ecological Systems Theory (link)

Theory Bites 2. - Abraham Maslow: Hierarchy of Human Needs (link)

Theory Bites 3. - Erik Erikson: Psychosocial Stages of Development (link)

Theory Bites 4. - Sigmund Freud: Psychosexual Stages of Development (link)

Theory Bites 5. - Steven Porges: Polyvagal Theory (link)

Theory Bites 6a. - Lawrence Kohlberg (link)

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