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.
Why it works
Several of the studies cited on this page were run on children. Walker (1980) assessed fourth- to seventh-grade children, exposed them to stage 3 reasoning in a brief role-play, and found transitions only among children who had reached the hypothesized prerequisites. Blatt and Kohlberg (1975) ran a classroom experiment in which children received twelve hours of moral discussion over twelve weeks, and the experimental group tended toward higher moral thinking than controls. Evidence about how children move through reasoning stages says less directly about adult reasoning, and the ages of the sample decide how far a claim reaches.
How to do it
- Find the age range of the people in each study behind the stage claim.
- Check whether any adults were tested, and in what settings.
- Write the claim as a claim about the ages tested, and only then decide whether it bears on your own life or a team’s.
- If you apply the claim to adults, note what adult evidence would be needed to support it, and whether you have seen it.
Evidence
Walker (1980) reports that fourth- to seventh-grade children moved to stage 3 reasoning only where the hypothesized prerequisites were present. Blatt and Kohlberg (1975) report that a classroom discussion group tended to move toward higher moral thinking than controls. Both are read from abstracts. The studies concern children’s classroom and role-play tasks, not adult reading; the practice applies the age of the sample to a reader’s own application of a stage claim and has not been tested. (mechanistic)
These studies are read here as limits on what they show about adults, not as proof that the stages fail for adults. Walker (1984) addresses adult sex-difference studies separately.
Sources
- Walker, L. J. (1980). Cognitive and Perspective-Taking Prerequisites for Moral Development. Child Development, 51(1), 131–139.
- Blatt, M. M., & Kohlberg, L. (1975). The Effects of Classroom Moral Discussion upon Children’s Level of Moral Judgment. Journal of Moral Education, 4(2), 129–161.
Common mistake
Assuming that a sequence observed in school children describes the adult you are today. A sequence can be real in children and still not map onto adult stages one to one.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Related concepts
- 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
- The Construct-Aware and Unitive Stages of Adult Development
Seeing the self and its stories as constructions — what it looks like, how rare it is, and what it does not promise
- 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
- Kegan’s Subject-Object Theory, Made Practical
Moving from being run by your assumptions to being able to examine them
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