Comparison of Moral Development Concepts

Gilligan's Level of Moral Development theoretically analyzes the gender specific mental development processes. According to Gilligan's research girls are more in tuned with their feelings than boys. Her theory further suggest that there are significant differences among men and women, whereas women are more relationship oriented than men and in contrast men are primarily task oriented and focuses on meeting objectives thus putting relationships on hold until tasks are completed (i.e. work now, play later).

Accordingly, Gilligan's work emphasizes that people in general tend to "think about other people in a humanly caring way,"
(Gilligan et al, 1988) thus allowing both genders to cater to individuals as nurturers. "Gilligan also emphasized that both men and women think about caring when faced with relationship dilemmas, similarly both are likely to focus on justice when faced with dilemmas involving others rights. On the other hand, the most criticized element to her theory is that it follows the stereotype of women as nurturing, men as logical. The participants of Gilligan's research are limited to mostly white, middle class children and adults." (Gilligan and Attanucci, 1988).

Lawrence Kohlberg (1971) expresses that a child is responsive to cultural issues which frame a child's mental state as to what is good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable practices. According to Kohlberg, there are consequences associated with a child's moral development such as:

 Punishment
 Reward
 Exchange of Favors

These consequences are divided into three stages:

"Egocentric judgment. The child makes judgments of good on the basis of what he likes and wants or what helps him, and bad on the basis of what he does not like or what hurts him. He has no concept of rules or of obligations to obey or conform independent of his wish. (Kohlberg, 1971).