To Kill A Mockingbird Essays: Scout's Moral Development

Decent Essays
Scout’s Moral Development
Kohlberg’s theory is about our moral development; showing us the different stages of rational thinking we can end up on. How either over time or in certain situations our thought process goes bizarre. These levels we can end up on are: Pre-conventional, conventional, and postconventional. Each of these levels are two different stages, leaving us with six different stages.
To help support his theory Kohlberg would review people’s responses towards a specific situation and place them in different stages based on their response. Though Kohlberg also believed that our responses would differ according to our age. “According to Kohlberg, an individual progresses from the capacity for pre-conventional morality (before age

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    There were three level in Kohlberg's theory, Pre-conventional morality, Conventional morality, and Postconventional morality. Along with the three levels there were six stages that came with it. The first stage is obedience and punishment, where a child learns to obey rules to avoid punishments. This falls under the pre-conventional level. The second stage is individualism and exchange, where they learn to be a bit more dependent on themselves.…

    • 1383 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Kohlberg claimed children did have some sort of moral inclination according to his stages of moral development. However, both Bloom and Kohlberg differ in how children have a moral sense because in the first stage of development according to Kohlberg children would only do the right thing to avoid punishment. Another example is child psychologist Jean Piaget’s preoperational stage of cognitive development. Within this stage children can have some sort of reasoning and would think only about themselves which is termed egocentrism. Paul Bloom uses egocentrism to show that children can feel empathy for others because children will see a person in pain and feel that pain as well, which causes the child to soothe the person in pain (Bloom…

    • 755 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” Scout’s life alters from what it was before. Scout was an innocent young tomboy, who had a brother named Jem. This alteration starts when her father Atticus, a lawyer, defends an African American, Tom Robinson, a man who is accused of raping a white woman. In the beginning, Scout was a six-year-old who liked to play with Jem and Dill, who always visited Maycomb, Alabama. When the trial started, she learned many things such as walking away from a fight.…

    • 693 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Kohlberg asserts that the three stages of moral development are pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional. Brian begins the movie in the conventional morality stage, and through the events of the day, begins to show signs of post-conventional morality. At first, he is conventional. The book says that this means he tries to ? uphold laws and rules to gain social approval or maintain social order?…

    • 1876 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Scout’s Changes To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a story of two young kids growing up and learning to love everyone. Scout and Jem’s characters grow and change as they begin to understand Boo Radley and his way of life. Scout becomes more mature and aware of the situations going on around her as she get older and more connected to the world. From believing that Boo is a scary squirrel eating monster that never leaves his house, to realizing that he and a good hearted man who cares deeply about her and her brother, Scout’s mind changes from being filled with rumors and petty comments, to facts and love for this man who saved her life.…

    • 939 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In “To Kill a Mockingbird”, Scout’s point of view changes as she grows older. At the beginning, she feels the same way as everyone else. By the end, she has realized that racism isn’t good. The more racism progresses, the more she doesn’t like it. The way black characters are treated makes Scout change her mind.…

    • 643 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Kohlberg’s theory of moral development was created by a man named Lawrence Kohlberg. He was a professor at Harvard, as well as a psychology. Subsequently, he decided to move into the moral education field. He believed that there are three levels of moral development; each level is divided into two individual stages. His theory was influenced by the thinking of the Swiss psychologist, Piaget; American philosopher, John Dewey; and American philosopher/ psychologist, James Mark Baldwin.…

    • 2071 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The third and fourth stage of Conventional morality includes good interpersonal relationship and maintaining a social order. Based on the actions of a action a child displays and good behavior is portrayed through individuals in society, this individual or child gains the approval of others and forms good interpersonal relationships. (Santrock, 2010) Individuals who are in stage four of Kohlburg’s development act in appropriate behavior to avoid any type of rule breaking that might result in law enforcement and obey the rules to dodge judgment that might be placed by society. The final level of the…

    • 1607 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, a girl named Scout shared many of her childhood memories. Scout is one of the most important pieces of the story. Scout is well liked by most people, is willing to learn new things and she is adventurous. Scout is a well liked person by many of the people in Maycomb.…

    • 323 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It’s always a mystery what other people are going through until you see life from their eyes. Throughout the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” the characters learn maturity as time goes on. Scout, in particular is taught many important life lessons by her family members and neighbors, which leads her to be able to narrate this part of her life as an adult looking back at her childhood. Although Scout gains so much insight on how to treat people in multiple ways, there is one in particular that has truly shaped her into the adult who later writes this hugely popular book in her adulthood. What caused her to mature from the beginning to the end of her book was the advice that “you never really understand a person until you consider things from his…

    • 674 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Moral development, based on Kohlberg’s theory, states that children undergo levels and stages of morals through the years of growing up; mainly in childhood. The theory says that they’re three levels — pre-conventional, conventional, and postconventional morality. Within those three levels, they’re two stages in each level: thus, having six stages in total. The stages themselves describe a child's behavior and their thinking. But, not every child goes through the same levels and stages at the same time —each one is different — neither go through them in order nor all the stages side by side.…

    • 1829 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    “One sign of maturity is the ability to be comfortable with other people who are not like us” (Kraft). This is a major issues that Harper Lee discusses in her classic coming of age novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The novel’s main focus is on racism and prejudice as it mostly centers on the trial of Tom Robinson, a black man who is accused of raping a white women. Every character in the novel grows in some way including Jean Louise (Scout) Finch. Scout becomes less naïve, along with growing emotionally and socially.…

    • 1087 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    His research was more focused on the reasons children develop certain moral reasoning’s and how these change throughout childhood into adulthood. Kohlberg had six stages to theory on moral development, and Precious would fall into the second stage, which is called Conventional Morality. During this phase, Interpersonal relationships are important, and the focus is living up to social expectations and roles. Conformity and fitting in influence relationships as well. Maintaining social order is also considered, and when making judgements the focus is on following the rules and respecting authority.…

    • 1581 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Similarly, both theorists’ levels have progression, and focus on only one gender. Kohlberg focused on how individuals make moral judgments based on emphasis on value rather than fact, the effect on a person or persons, and a requirement that action be taken (as cited in Patton et al., 2016). Kohlberg’s stages of moral development consist of three levels and six stages. Stages progress in a hierarchy from lower order to higher order of moral thinking where universal justice is the goal and autonomy is prized (as cited in Patton et al., 2016). According to Kohlberg (1976), in the preconventional level, individuals have not come to understand societal rules, there are two stages.…

    • 1701 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    This is my story of growth and how I got from point A to point B, how I’m a better person for it, and how I change from the person I once was. I’m going to use Kohlberg Stages of Moral Development to show how I have developed through the years and how I will continue to develop. I started off as a kid who really didn’t care about grades. Who didn’t understand how this would affect me and what…

    • 1893 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays