Kohlberg's moral reasoning

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  • Created by: H3lix
  • Created on: 03-05-22 11:30

Kohlberg's moral reasoning

Advantages

  • CROSS CULTURAL SUPPORT- Howitt & Chen (2007) in Taiwan, analysed 300 adolescents (12-18), found more advanced moral reasoning = less violent crimes. (despite being correlational)
  • REAL LIFE APPLICATIONS - studies had controlled groups, mixed gender, representative of groups = developing methods of modifying criminal behaviours
  • Link between offending behaviour & cognitive distortions = anger management can challenge criminal's irrational thinking patterns

Disadvantages

  • SAMPLE BIAS - Kohlberg's theory only consisted of male p's, assumed same level moral reasoning can be applied to women (beta bias), suggested women less morally developed. Howitt & Chen sample bias
  • Howitt & Chen (2007) also have sample bias, mostly males
  • REDUCTIONIST - Thornton & R.L Reid (1982) argues moral reasoning ignores impulsive nature of crimes, some not deliberately planned e.g violent & sexual crimes
  • UNSCIENTIFIC - lacks scientific research, moral may not be falsifiable, intelligence should be evaluated, predict likelihood of crimes = quantifiable & objective Langdon (2010)

Evaluation

To sum up, Kohlberg's moral reasoning theory is unfalsifiable as he is unable to fully explain the underlying cause for criminality, especially all types of impulsive nature of crimes. This means that the lack of scientific evidence to predict the development for criminality, makes generalisability difficult to fully understand why some commit more violent crimes. Therefore, Kohlberg's theory is an incomplete individual differences explanation for criminal behaviours. 

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