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Psychology Cwork

Background

In the area of developmental psychology, Kohlberg (1976) carried out a study exploring obedience of people at different ‘stages'. The topic which interests me the most about this study is conventional morality, which according to Kohlberg, is where people are concerned about their actions and not being judged for behaving wrongly.
Children believe it is important ‘to do one's duty and to obey the laws or rules of authority'. (Stage 4 of the Kohlberg theory, see appendix (a))
Kohlberg carried out a cross-sectional study, which developed his stage theory 72 boys aged between 10 and 16 were interviewed about dilemmas such as the ‘Moral Dilemma', see appendix (b).
The 2 hour interviews consisted of a predetermined set of questions. See appendix (c).
The results enabled Kohlberg to classify each boy in terms of his level of moral reasoning.
The original sample was followed for another 20 years. The men were tested 6 times, at 3 yearly intervals.
By the age of 22, no one used stage 1 reasoning, but there were examples of stages 1 and 3.
By the end of the study, at the age of 36, there was little evidence of stage 5 reasoning.

The different stages are mentioned in the study, however this study will find out if the age of children reaching stage 4 differs, by comparing year 12's conformity with that of year 13's. The participants will not yet be in adulthood, and still developing, so expectations are high to see a difference between the two age groups.

In this study, stage 4 will be operationalised, by looking at rule following behaviour of students at the Grammar School Guernsey

Aim and Hypotheses

Research and Aim

The aim is to find out whether year 12 or year 13 students are more conforming to the school rules, to see if the age of Kohlberg's ‘stage 4' differs between the ages of 16 and 18.

Hypothesis

Year 12 students will be more conforming and will have on average a lower rule breaking score than year 13 students....