Esther's Psych Cribnotes

Because I often use them in discussing things

Carol Gilligan's Levels of Moral Development in Women
Gilligan felt that Kolhberg's levels were flawed. "This was based on two things. First, he only studied privileged, white men and boys. She felt that this caused a biased opinion against women. Secondly, in his stage theory of moral development, the male view of individual rights and rules was considered a higher stage than women's point of view of development in terms of its caring effect on human relationships." (from http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/gilligan.html)

The main difference between herself and Kolhberg:
Gilligan argues that for most women, progress toward moral maturity is marked by changes in the focus of caring, not by the development of the abstract, impersonal principles that Kohlberg proposes. . .

Gilligan admits, however, that both perspectives are valid, in fact complementary. She argues that "a shift in the focus of attention from concerns about justice to concerns about care changes the definition of what constitutes a moral problem, and leads the same situation to be seen in different ways.

(from http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v3n1/men.html)

Ironically, her own work receives critism to what she said of Kolhberg's research - "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..." (from http://www.psychology.sbc.edu/Gilligan.htm

Her levels for women:
Level 1 - Orientation of individual survival. The only obligation is to one's own survival.

Transition 1 - Going from selfishness to responsibility. Realizes one is part of a group and makes decisions based on how these actions affect others.

Level 2 - Goodness as self-sacrifice. Morality is defined by meeting the expectations of others and being submissive to the norms of society. Guilt is a powerful tool here.

Transition 2 - From goodness to truth. Truth and honesty are more important than the reactions of others. She starts considering her own needs again.

Level 3 - Morality of nonviolence. The emphasis is on not hurting people, including oneself.


Kolhberg's Levels of Morality
Level 1 - Preconventional morality: Brought into place by external controls. People obey the rules to get rewards or escape punishment or act out of self-interest. This level is typical of children ages 4 to 10. This level has the following stages of reasoning:
Stage 1 - Orientation toward punishment and obedience - "What will happen to me?"
Stage 2 - Instrumental purpose and exchange - "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours."

Level 2 - Conventional morality: People have internalized the standards of authority figures. They are concerned with being good, pleasing others and keeping the social order. Many do not grow out of this even in adulthood. This level has the following stages of reasoning:
Stage 3 - The Golden Rule - or maintaining mutual relationships
Stage 4 - Social concern and conscience - "What if everybody did it?"

Level 3 - Postconventional morality: People now recognize conflicts between moral standards and make their own judgments on the basis of principles of right fairness and justice. If reached at all, it will usually come in early adulthood. This level has the following stages of reasoning:
Stage 5 - Morality of contract, of individual rights and of democratically accepted law - valuing the will of the majority and the welfare of society.
Stage 6 - Morality of universal ethical principles - they act in accordance with internal standards, knowing that they would condemn themselves if they did not.

Kolhberg later added a seventh stage of “Why be moral?" where the person questions the existance of morals in the first place. The person starts to see morality from a meta-perspective.


Erikson's 8 stages of Psychosocial Development
Basically I'm tired of picking them out of my text book and want to have them where I can look them over at a glance. I will probably go ahead and do this for a few other developmental theories too.


Stage 1: Infancy -- Age 0 to 1
Crisis: Trust vs. Mistrust
Description: In the first year of life, infants depend on others for food, warmth, and affection, and therefore must be able to blindly trust the parents (or caregivers) for providing those.
Positive outcome: If their needs are met consistently and responsively by the parents, infants not only will develop a secure attachment with the parents, but will learn to trust their environment in general as well.
Negative outcome: If not, infant will develop mistrust towards people and things in their environment, even towards themselves.


Stage 2: Toddler -- Age 1 to 2
Crisis: Autonomy (Independence) vs. Doubt (or Shame)
Description: Toddlers learn to walk, talk, use toilets, and do things for themselves. Their self-control and self-confidence begin to develop at this stage.
Positive outcome: If parents encourage their child's use of initiative and reassure her when she makes mistakes, the child will develop the confidence needed to cope with future situations that require choice, control, and independence.
Negative outcome: If parents are overprotective, or disapproving of the child's acts of independence, she may begin to feel ashamed of her behavior, or have too much doubt of her abilities.


Stage 3: Early Childhood -- Age 2 to 6
Crisis: Initiative vs. Guilt
Description: Children have newfound power at this stage as they have developed motor skills and become more and more engaged in social interaction with people around them. They now must learn to achieve a balance between eagerness for more adventure and more responsibility, and learning to control impulses and childish fantasies.
Positive outcome: If parents are encouraging, but consistent in discipline, children will learn to accept without guilt, that certain things are not allowed, but at the same time will not feel shame when using their imagination and engaging in make-believe role plays.
Negative outcome: If not, children may develop a sense of guilt and may come to believe that it is wrong to be independent.


Stage 4: Elementary and Middle School Years -- Age 6 to 12
Crisis: Competence (aka. "Industry") vs. Inferiority
Description: School is the important event at this stage. Children learn to make things, use tools, and acquire the skills to be a worker and a potential provider. And they do all these while making the transition from the world of home into the world of peers.
Positive outcome: If children can discover pleasure in intellectual stimulation, being productive, seeking success, they will develop a sense of competence.
Negative outcome: If not, they will develop a sense of inferiority.


Stage 5: Adolescence -- Age 12 to 18
Crisis: Identity vs. Role Confusion
Description: This is the time when we ask the question "Who am I?" To successfully answer this question, Erikson suggests, the adolescent must integrate the healthy resolution of all earlier conflicts. Did we develop the basic sense of trust? Do we have a strong sense of independence, competence, and feel in control of our lives? Adolescents who have successfully dealt with earlier conflicts are ready for the "Identity Crisis", which is considered by Erikson as the single most significant conflict a person must face.
Positive outcome: If the adolescent solves this conflict successfully, he will come out of this stage with a strong identity, and ready to plan for the future.
Negative outcome: If not, the adolescent will sink into confusion, unable to make decisions and choices, especially about vocation, sexual orientation, and his role in life in general.


Stage 6: Young Adulthood -- Age 19 to 40
Crisis: Intimacy vs. Isolation
Description: In this stage, the most important events are love relationships. No matter how successful you are with your work, said Erikson, you are not developmentally complete until you are capable of intimacy. An individual who has not developed a sense of identity usually will fear a committed relationship and may retreat into isolation.
Positive outcome: Adult individuals can form close relationships and share with others if they have achieved a sense of identity.
Negative outcome: If not, they will fear commitment, feel isolated and unable to depend on anybody in the world.


Stage 7: Middle Adulthood -- Age 40 to 65
Crisis: Generativity vs. Stagnation
Description: By "generativity" Erikson refers to the adult's ability to look outside oneself and care for others, through parenting, for instance. Erikson suggested that adults need children as much as children need adults, and that this stage reflects the need to create a living legacy.
Positive outcome: People can solve this crisis by having and nurturing children, or helping the next generation in other ways.
Negative outcome: If this crisis is not successfully resolved, the person will remain self-centered and experience stagnation later in life.


Stage 8: Late Adulthood -- Age 65 to death
Crisis: Integrity vs. Despair Important
Description: Old age is a time for reflecting upon one's own life and its role in the big scheme of things, and seeing it filled with pleasure and satisfaction or disappointments and failures.
Positive outcome: If the adult has achieved a sense of fulfillment about life and a sense of unity within himself and with others, he will accept death with a sense of integrity. Just as the healthy child will not fear life, said Erikson, the healthy adult will not fear death.
Negative outcome: If not, the individual will despair and fear death.

Copied from About.Com.


Kohlberg and Gilligan
Even though I find the results of their theories interesting, after reading some of their base assumptions, I think both of them were/are guided by some prejudices I can't agree with. Both of them seemed to want to see themselves as very moral people.

That's not to say that they don't have some truths in their levels - I just think that they may have blinded themselves to certain things for their own sense of security.


I've been looking a little deeper into the research of Lawrence
Kolhberg and Carol Gilligan about the moral development of people.

I'm not very impress with either theorist. Don't get me wrong, I do
think they did come up with some very sound levels. It's the biases
they attached to their deductions and the lack of variability in their
test subjects that I find appalling.


Kolhberg only studied privileged, white men and boys. In his stage
theory of moral development, the male view of individual rights and
rules was considered a higher stage than women's point of view of
development in terms of its caring effect on human relationships.
(from http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/gilligan.html)

Kolhberg believed that women were incapable of the "higher" levels
because they were so obedient to the rules. Gee, you're physically
smaller and have a lot less social power to draw from. Hardly puts
you in a position to see yourself above the law. Not unless you have
a serious machosistic streak. Yet, it didn't stop Harriet Tubman or
Florence Nightingale or a lot of other women from exhibiting
post-conventional morality.

"Gilligan argues that for most women, progress toward moral maturity
is marked by changes in the focus of caring, not by the development of
the abstract, impersonal principles that Kohlberg proposes. . .

"Gilligan admits, however, that both perspectives are valid, in fact
complementary. She argues that "a shift in the focus of attention from
concerns about justice to concerns about care changes the definition
of what constitutes a moral problem, and leads the same situation to
be seen in different ways."
(from http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v3n1/men.html)

Okay, sounds good enough. Ironically, her own work receives critism
to what she said of Kolhberg's research - "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..." (from
http://www.psychology.sbc.edu/Gilligan.htm

What annoys me about Carol Gilligan's stuff is that while she says
both theories are complimentary, she appears to really believe that a
person can exhibit one route and not the other. At least that is the
impression I get - that you either follow the "nuture" route or the
"abstract" route, while personally, I think people can and do follow
some of both routes depending on their circumstances and
responsibilites.

It always good to look back over things you've studied in the past. While doing so, I found a page about "raging" and healthy anger - http://www.recovery-man.com/abusive/rage_vs_anger.htm#Rage

What is Raging?

Rage is a shame based expression of anger.
Rage is by definition abuse. Ragers react to strong emotions with rage. (i.e. feelings of fear, sadness, shame, inadequacy, guilt or loss convert to rage.)

Ragers were typically shamed or punished by their caretakers for expressing emotion when they were young; i.e.: "Be a man and don't cry", "Nice girls don't get angry" or "I'll give you something to cry about".

Raging gives the rager a feeling of power - offsetting their shame and feelings of inadequacy.

Rage sets up a neurochemical reaction in the brain that can be addictive, producing what is known as rageaholism or ragaholics.

What Rage Looks Like:

Screaming, physical expressions of anger, violence or threats of violence, sulking, manipulation, emotional blackmail, silent smoldering, and anger used to punish.


What Healthy Anger looks like:

Healthy expression of anger involves confrontation of what makes you angry and an effort to set boundaries. (What you will do in response to what makes you angry.)

i.e: When you (a behavior), I feel (a feeling) , and to protect myself I will _________.

Healthy anger is not used to punish, is not violent, and isn't used to intimidate, control or manipulate. It is expressed, discussed, and moved through.

Healthy anger is not stuffed down and ignored. (Stuffed anger created resentment and a wealth of physical / mental and emotional problems.) Healthy anger is not expressed in passive aggressive and manipulative ways.



On another pages, it lists some of the warning signs of being in an abusive relationship, if the person:

- Claims you are responsible for his or her emotional state.
- You frequently worry about how he or she will react to things you say or do.
- You have trouble ending the relationship, even though you know inside it's the right thing to do.
- Is jealous or possessive toward you.
- Accuses you of being unfaithful or flirting.
- Blames you when he or she mistreats you.
- Tries to control you by being very bossy or demanding.
- Is violent and / or loses his or her temper quickly.
- Interrogates you.
- Harrasses or intimidates.
- Limits your outside involvement.
- Doesn't take your concerns seriously.
- Doesn't accept responsibility for their own actions and shifts the blame.

It is important to recognize that abusive relationships are horribly painful for both parties.

These relationships are usually highly reactive and drama driven, therefore mutually abusive on some level. Clear cut lines are hard to draw and the victim /victimized dichotomy can be an oversimplification. Abusers don't make a choice to be abusive, they are generally doing the best they can given the emotional and psychological issues they face.

Defense mechanisms

Repression - the involuntary removal of something from consciousness.

Denial - closing one's eyes to reality.

Reactive formation - defending against an impulse by actively expressing the opposite impulse.

Projection - attributing to others one's own unacceptable desires and impulses.

Displacement - discharging an impulse by shifting it to a "safe" target.

Rationalization - manufacturing a reason to explain away bruises to the ego.

Sublimation - diverting the energies from an impulse into an acceptable outlet.

Regression - reverting to an immature stage when there were fewer demands.

Introjection - "swallowing" the standards of others.

Identification - identifying with a cause or larger group to have feelings of self-worth.

Compensation - focusing on certain strengths to call attention away from weaknesses.