Check whether the people in a stage study resemble the people you are describing
Before you apply a stage description to people in another culture, class or community, find out who the original samples were and what they had in common.
Pourquoi ça marche
Snarey (1985) reviewed 45 cross-cultural studies that tested Kohlberg’s claim of universal moral development. He reports striking support for the underlying assumptions, and also identifies major caveats about the range and general applicability of the stages, with biases in favor of complex urban societies and middle-class populations. A description built from one kind of sample can carry that sample’s sense of what counts as a good reason. Asking who was studied is how a reader tests whether a description travels to the people in front of them.
Comment faire
- Find out where and among whom the stage description was developed, if the source says.
- Note the features the sample shares with you and with the people you are applying it to, such as city or village, schooling, income, language and religion.
- Ask whether the reasons the description treats as mature are reasons the people you are thinking about would also recognize.
- Where the features differ, write the stage claim as applying to the original sample only, until you have evidence from people like those you are describing.
Données probantes
Snarey (1985) reviewed 45 cross-cultural studies of Kohlberg’s stages. The abstract reports striking support for the underlying assumptions and identifies major caveats about the range and general applicability of the stages, with biases in favor of complex urban societies and middle-class populations. The study concerns the stages’ fit across cultures, not the reading practice; the practice applies that finding to a reader’s own use of stage descriptions and has not been tested. (mechanistic)
Snarey’s review is of the Kohlbergian literature up to 1985. Its conclusions about culture are his, not a verdict on every stage model, and the practice is a question to ask rather than a demonstrated correction.
Sources
Erreur fréquente
Assuming that a stage that sounds sensible to you is a universal stage. The sense of what counts as a reasonable reason is itself shaped by culture, and it is the very thing a sample was supposed to show.
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Plus de pratiques pour The Critiques of Adult Development Stage Theories, Fairly Stated
- Close the reading and come back to the room
Put the stage reading down, feel your feet and breath, and let the shame loosen before you decide anything about where you stand.
- Reach a person if the shame is more than a reading can carry
If the shame about where you stand starts to feel like not wanting to be here, reach a trusted person and a clinician now.
- Check who validated a stage model before you repeat its claims
When a stage model is described as scientifically proven, find out who ran the validation, whether the report is public, and whether anyone outside its developers has checked it.
- Prefer a scored assessment to reading yourself into a stage
Do not pick the stage description that sounds most like you; if you want a level, use a scored instrument, and treat your own sense of your stage as a guess to test.
- Do not place someone at a stage from one conversation or one moment
Before you judge where a colleague, partner or child sits in a stage model, collect more than one sample and keep what you observed separate from the label you are tempted to attach.
- Read a gender gap against the schooling and jobs of the people measured
When a study reports that men or women score higher on a developmental measure, check whether education and occupation explain the gap before you conclude anything about sex.
- Ask whether a moral scoring scheme counts care and emotion as reasons
When a framework ranks how mature a person’s moral reasons are, check whether reasons grounded in relationships, feeling and loyalty were scored at all.
- Hold a critique next to the support the reviewers still found
When you read a critique of a stage theory, also write down what the reviewers concluded the evidence still supports, and keep both halves of the verdict in view.
- Check whether a stage claim’s evidence came from children or from adults
Before you apply a stage claim to adult life, find out how old the people were in the studies that produced it, and whether those studies tested adults at all.
Concepts associés
- Terri O’Fallon’s STAGES Model, Made Practical
Twelve stages built from three repeating questions, and how to work with the one you are in
- Ego Development Theory: What It Is and How It Is Measured
The frame you make meaning through, how researchers measure it, and how to work with it without ranking anyone
- Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development, Made Practical
Six stages of moral reasoning, how they are scored, and how to work with the reasons you give
- Carol Gilligan’s Ethics of Care, Explained
Two ways of reasoning about moral problems, what the research shows, and how to use both lenses
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- The Model of Hierarchical Complexity, Explained
How tasks are ranked by coordination, what the 14 orders are, and how to use the idea on a hard problem
- Torbert’s Seven Action Logics of Leadership
Seven ways leaders make sense of pressure, how common each is, and how to work with your own
- La théorie sujet-objet de Kegan, en pratique
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