Stage1: TRUST VERSUS MISTRUST
(Birth-l year)

Significant social relations are principally with mother or mother substitute. Basic strength is hope. Amount of trust depends on the quality of the mater nal relationship. An unfavorable outcome is withdrawal, autistic isolation, abandonrnent, "being left", "being empty" and basic mistrust. A favorable outcome is mutual recognition, continuity of care providers, psychosocial strength, basic trustworthiness and trusting oneself (that later becomes the capacity for faith).

Stage 2: AUTONOMY VERSUS DOUBT / SHAME
(1 - 2 years)

Significant social relations are with parents. Basic strength is will. Crisis revolves around will to be oneself vs. self-doubt; self-certainty vs. sciousness. An unfavorable outcome comes from compulsion, loss of self-control and of parental overcontrol producing a lasting propensity for doubt, shame and meek compliance. A favorable outcome comes from parents living their dignity as autonomous beings, producing a sense of self-control, and autonomy (i.e. "I am what I can will freely.")
 

Stage 2: PREOPERATIONAL
(2-7 years)

Child uses language and can represent objects by images and words; is still egocentric, the world revolves around the infant and he or she has difficulty taking the viewpoint of others; classifies objects by single salient feature: if A is like B in one respect, must be like B in other respects; toward the end of this stage begins to use numbers and develop conservation concepts (e.g., the amount (mass) of a substance is not changed when the shape is changed or when it is divided into parts; the total weight of a set of objects will remain the same no matter how they are packaged together; and liquids do not change in amount when they are poured from a container of one shape to that of another).
 

(continued) Level 1: PREMORAL or PRECONVENTIONAL
Stage 1: PUNISHMENT AND OBEDIENCE ORIENTATION
(Birth - 7 years)

Stage 1:
INTUITIVE- PROJECTIVE FAITh (3 - 7 years)

First self-awareness and awareness of sex and death. Fantasy-filled, imitative phase. Imagination, stimulated by stories, gestures, and symbols, and not yet controlled by logical thinking, combines with perception and feelings to create long-lasting images that represent both the projective and threatening powers surrounding one's life.

Stage 3: CONCRETE OPERATIONAL
(7 - 12 years)

Child becomes capable of logical thought; achieves conservation concepts in this order: number (age 6), mass (age 7), weight (age 9); can classify objects, order them in a series along a dimension (such as size), and understand relational terms (A is longer than B). Children are using abstract terms only in relation to concrete objects, and not in purely symbolic terms.

Stage 4: INDUSTRY VERSUS INFERIORITY
(6 - 12 years, puberty)

Significant social relations are one's neighborhood and school. Basic strength is competence. Crisis revolves around task identification vs. sense of futility; apprenticeship vs. work paralysis. An unfavorable outcome is inertia, an estrangenent from oneself and from tasks, and a sense of inferiority. A favorable outcome is competence in intellectual, social, and physical skills; a sense of being able to make things and make them well, a sense of industry.
 

Level I: PREMORAL or PRECONVENTTIONAL
Stage 2: NAIVE INSTRUMENTAL HEDONISM
(7 - 11 years)

Actions are evaluated in terms of whether they lead to rewards. One tends to conform to obtain rewards and to have favors returned. In this stage the person concentrates on making a "good deal."

Stage 2: MYTHIC -
LITERAL FAITH
(7 years and beyond)

The person begins to take on for him- or herself the stories, beliefs, and observances that symbolize belonging
to his or her community. Story becomes the major way of giving unity and value to experiences. He or she composes a world base on reciprocal fairness and on immanent justice founded on reciprocity. The developing ability to think logically helps one order the world with
categories of casuality, space and time; to enter into perspectives of others; and to capture life meanings in stories.
 

Stage 4: FORMAL OPERATIONS
(12 years and beyond)

The individual can think in abstract terms, follow logical propositions, and reason by hypothesis; isolates the elements of a problem and systematically explores all possible solutions; becanes concerned with the hypothetical, the future, and ideological problems. The essence of this stage of thought is considering all the possibilities, working out the consequences for each hypothesis, and confirming or denying these consequences. This ability to conceive of possibilities beyond what is present in reality—to think of alternatives to the way things are—permeates this stage and is tied in with the tendency to be concerned with metaphysical and ideological problems and to question the way in which the world is run.

Stage 5: IDENTITY VERSUS CONFUSION
(12 - 18 years, adolescence)

Significant social relations are with one's peer groups and out-groups as well as models of leadership. Basic strength is fidelity / loyalty. The adolescent looks most fervently for people and ideas to have faith in. The choice of occupation takes on great importance. An unfavorable outcate is repudiation and identity confusion, possibly joining chronic hopelessness, delinquent and "borderline" episodes. A favorable outcome is an integrated image of oneself as a unique person, to arrive at a definition of one' s identity.

Level II:CONVENTIONAL ROLE-CONFORMITY
Stage 3: "GCOD BOY" MORALITY OF MAINTAINING GOOD RELATIONS, APPROVAL
OF OTHERS
(11 years and beyond)

At this stage one seeks approval by being "nice"
Fknphasis is on the importance of conforming to the expectations of those who are close to us.

Level II: CONVENTIONAL ROLE-CONFORMITY
Stage 4: AUTHORITY- MAINTAINING MORALITY (13 years and beyond)

One continues to seek approval, now expanding to include "doing one's duty," showing respect for authority, and conforming to the social order in which one is raised. At this stage, reasoning stresses laws, social duties and conscience.

* (Many individuals never progress beyond Level II, Stage 4. Only those who have achieved the later stages of formal operations thought are capable of the kind of abstract thinking necessary for postconven- tional rrorality at Level III, Stages 5 and 6, according to Kohlberg.)
 

Stage 3: SYNTHETIC- CONVENTIONAL FAITH
(12 years and beyond, adolescence)

The person's experience of the world now extends beyond the 'family into school, work, peers, media,etc This is a "conformist" stage in that the person is acutely tuned into the expectations and judgrrents of significant others. New cognitive abilities make mutual perspective-taking possible and require one to integrate diverse self images into a coherent identity. A personal and largely unaware, unreflective ideology and synthesis of beliefs and values evolves to support identity and to unite one in emotional solidity with others.

(Continued) Stage 4:
FORMAL OPERATIONS
(12 years and beyond)

* (Research with children of different ages and backgrounds supports Piaget's observations of the sequences in cognitive development. Yet, the ages at which children reach the different levels vary considerably, depending on many factors. A very bright 10-year-old child may be at stage 4 (i.e., skillful at systematically analyzing a problem and testing hypotheses) whereas some adults never achieve formal operational thinking.)

Stage 6: INTIMACY VERSUS ISOLATION
(19 - 35 years, early adulthood)

Significant social relations are partners in friendship, sex, cornpetition, and cooperation. Basic strength is love. An unfavorable outcorre is exclusivity, distantiation (the readiness to repudiate, isolate, and even destroy those forces and people whose essence seems dangerous to one's own), estrangement and isolation (the incapacity to take chances with one's identity by sharing true intimacy). A favorable outcoue is learning the ability to form close and lasting relationships; to make career commitments.

Level III: POSTCON
VENT IONAL MORALITY:
MORALITY OF SELF-
ACCEPTED MORAL
PRINCIPLES
Stage 5: MORALITY
OF CONTRACT, OF INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS,
AND OF DEMOCRATICALLY ACCEPTED LAW
(15 years and beyond)

The individual recognizes that most values and rights are relative, but some, such as life and liberty, should be upheld in any society. In this stage the person conforms to maintain the respect of the impartial spectator judging in terms of community welfare.

Stage 4: INDIVIDIJATIVE
REFLECTIVE FAITH
(19 years and beyond, young adulthood, although for a significant group it emerges only in the mid- thirties or fourties)

The self now claims an identity no longer defined by the composite of one's roles or meanings to others. This new identity composes a meaning frame conscious of its own boundaries and inner connections and aware of itself as a "world view." This is a "demythologizing" stage. Critical reflections upon one's beliefs and values, understanding of the self and others as part of a social systern, and the assumption of responsibility for making choices of ideology and lifestyle open the way for commitments in relationships and vocation.

(Continued) Stage 4:
FORMAL OPERATIONS
(12 years and beyond)

Stage 7: GENERATIVITY
VERSUS SELF-ABSORPTION
(35 - 50 years, middle adulthood)

Significant social relations are divided labor and shared household. Basic strength is care. An unfavorable outcome is rejectivity and a regression to an obsessive need for psuedo-intimacy, self-indulgence and self-asorption, often with a pervading sense of stagnation, boredom, and interpersonal impoverishment. A favorable outcome is genuine concern for establishing and guiding family, society, and future generations.

Level III: POSTCON
VENT IONAL MORALITY:
MORALITY OF SELF-
ACCEPTED MORAL
PRINCIPLES
Stage 6: MORALITY
OF INDIVIDUAL
PRINCIPLES OF
CONSCIENCE
(16 years and
beyond)

This stage requires formulating abstract ethical principles and conforming to them to avoid self-condemnation.
Herein, reasoning focuses exclusively on universal moral principles.

(Kohlberg reports that less than 10 percent of his subjects over age 16 show the kind of "clear principled" thinking characteristic of stage 6 thinking.)

Stage 5: CONJUNCTIVE FAITH
(35 years and beyond, mid-life)

This stage is a new reclaiming and reworking of one's past and opening to the voices of one's "deeper self." Alive to paradox and the truth in apparent contradictions, this stage strives to unify opposites in mind and experience.
This individual lives and acts between an untransformed world and a transforming vision and loyalities. The embrace of polarities in one's life, an alertness to paradox, and the need for multiple interpretations of reality mark this stage. Symbol and story, metaphor and myth (from one's own traditions and others') are newly appreciated as vehicles for grasping truth.
 

(Continued) Stage 4:
FORMAL OPERATIONS
(12 years and beyond)

Stage 8: INTEGRITY VERSUS DESPAIR (50 years and beyond, the aging years)

Significant social relations are "mankind" and "my kind". The basic strength is wisdom. An unfavorable outcome is disdain--a reaction to * feeling (and seeing others) in an increasing state of being finished, confused, helpless, hopeless, and dogmatic. Such a despair is often hidden behind a show of disgust, a misanthropy, or a chronic contemptuous displeasure with particular institutions and particular people, ultimately only signifying the individual's contempt of him- or herself. A favorable outcome is integrity (a sense of coherance and wholeness at supreme risk of loss of linkages) a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction with one's life, and a willingness to face death.

(Continued) LEVEL III:
P0STCONVENTIONAL
MORALITY: MORALITY OF SELF-ACCEPTED MORAL PRINCIPLES
Stage 6: MORALITY OF
INDIVIDUAL PRINCIPLES
OF CONSCIENCE
(16 years and beyond)

*(John Snarey, Ph.D.
examined 7 empirical studies of Kohlberg's theory of rroral developrnent and found strikingly similar findings. "Each individual achieved the highest stage of moral reasoning without skipping any of the earlier stages, and alnnst no one reverted to a previous stage." In further examining 45 studies, Snarey found solid support for the universality of Kohlberg's first four stages across numerous cultures and societies. Less confirmation was found for stages 5 and 6 and it appeared that mature moral principles are held that are distinct from our own in other cultural groups and social classes.)

Stage 6:
UNIVERSALIZING
FAITH
(35 years and beyond
mid-life)

This stage is exceedingly rare. Their enlarged vision of universal community and devotion to universalizing compassion may offend our parochial perceptions of justice. Their leadership initiatives often utilize the strategies of nonviolent suffering and ultimate respect for being, frequently becoming matyrs for their visions. Such individuals are actualizers of the spirit of an inclusive and fulfilled human community. They are "contagious" in the sense that they create zones of liberation from the social, political, economic and ideological shackles we place and endure on human futurity. These people (e.g. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, Thomas Merton, Dag Hammerskjold, and Abraham Heschel) have a special grace that makes them seem more lucid, more simple, and yet somehow more fully human than the rest of us. They are ready for fellowship with persons at any of the stages and from any other faith tradition.