Notes

Cognitive, Psychosocial, and Moral Development Theories:Part 2
Conventional Morality
According to Kohlberg, the second level of moral development lasts through adolescence and into early adulthood. Conventional morality reflects a person’s need to adopt certain morals and adhere to certain ideals in order to feel valued and accepted by social groups. These groups may include the individual’s family members, classmates, friends, etc. The conventional morality stage consists of the following two stages of moral development:

Stage 3 (interpersonal conformity): At this stage, a person’s moral decision-making process reflects the constant need to receive appreciation from parents, teachers, and friends. In order to build strong interpersonal relationships, individuals may behave in a manner that is more acceptable to their social groups. They also tend to show empathy, trust, and cooperation toward others to gain approval.

Stage 4 (societal conformity): As adolescence comes to an end and early adulthood begins, an individual tends to conform to the standards set by society in general. The scope of morality widens to include the approval of people in general, not just that of family, teachers, and friends. At this stage, individuals understand the importance of law and order. They also understand the importance of abiding by various rules in order to achieve societal conformity.
post-conventional Morality
Kohlberg’s final stage of moral development relates to a person’s growing awareness of individual rights, personal ethics, and logical reasoning. The post-conventional level of morality consists of the last two stages of development. They take place in middle and late adulthood.

Stage 5 (social contract and individual rights): At this stage, an individual gives more importance to the welfare of family and society in general. The emphasis is on moral values that can benefit society, which the individual considers to be a social contract between all the people. At this stage, people also give higher priority to the individual rights of their sociocultural groups. Though this stage still sees an individual abiding by rules and laws, the interests of society and its members are of prime importance.
Stage 6 (universal ethical principles): According to Kohlberg, very few people reach this stage of moral development. This stage reflects an individual’s personal set of ideals, beliefs, and ethical principles. Such ethics are universally applicable to all members of society. They comprise what you know as human rights and equality. They do not involve any prejudice against a specific group, race, or culture. It should be noted that a person’s ideas and moral values with respect to justice might differ from those that the laws of the land promote. This is because people have developed their own set of moral guidelines at this stage. Individuals may act as independent authorities. They may judge a given situation according to their own moral reasoning. Many individuals do not arrive at this stage due to ignorance, a lack of ethics, or personal biases toward certain groups in society.

The moral value of equality forms the core of this stage, and Kohlberg was unable to find many people at this level of morality during his research. After posing questions to his survey respondents with respect to the Heinz dilemma, he came to the above conclusions in his theory of moral development.
During the interpersonal conformity stage, people are mostly concerned about the approval of their parents, friends, and other members of their social groups.