Real-Life Dilemmas, Carol Gilligan’s Moral Development Theory

As human beings grow we somehow develop the ability to assess what is

right or wrong, acceptable or unacceptable. In other words; we develop morality, a

system of learned attitudes about social practices, institutions, and individual

behavior used to evaluate situations and behavior as good or bad, right or wrong

(Lefton, 2000). One theorist, Carol Gilligan, found that morality develops by

looking at much more than justice. The following will discuss the morality

development theory of Carol Gilligan and its implications.

Carol Gilligan was the first to consider gender differences in her research

with the mental processes of males and females in their moral development. In

general, Gilligan noted differences between girls and boys in their feelings towards

caring, relationships, and connections with other people. More specifically Gilligan

noted that girls are more concerned with care, relationships, and connections with

other people than boys (Lefton, 2000). Thus, Gilligan hypothesized that as younger

children girls are more inclined towards caring, and boys are more inclined towards

justice (Lefton, 2000). Gilligan suggests this difference is due to gender and the

child’s relationship with the mother (Lefton, 2000).

Child development literature often provides a heated comparison of

Gilligan’s theory with that of Lawrence Kohlberg’s. Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory

entails the famous man “Heinz” who is portrayed to have a wife that is terminally

ill. Kohlberg devised his theory by asking college aged students whether or not

they would break into a drug store to steal the medicine to save his wife and why

or why not (Wark & Krebs, 1996). Kohlberg’s theory is comprised of three levels of

moral development becoming more complex. Kohlberg’s moral development theory

did not take into account gender, and from Kohlberg’s theory Gilligan found that

girls do in-fact develop moral orientations differently than boys. According to

Gilligan, the central moral problem for women is the conflict between self and

other. Within Gilligan’s theoretical framework for moral development in females,

she provides a sequence of three levels (Belknap, 2000).

At level one of Gilligan’s theoretical framework a woman’s orientation is

towards individual survival (Belknap, 2000); the self is the sole object of concern.

The first transition that takes place is from being selfish to being responsible. At

level two the main concern is that goodness is equated with self-sacrifice (Belknap,

2000). This level is where a woman adopts societal values and social

membership. Gilligan refers to the second transition from level two to level three

as the transition from goodness to truth (Belknap, 2000). Here, the needs of the

self must be deliberately uncovered, as they are uncovered the woman begins to

consider the consequences of the self and other (Belknap, 2000).

One study by Gilligan & Attanucci, looked at the distinction between care

and justice perspectives with men and women, primarily adolescence and adults

when faced with real-life dilemmas. An example of one of the real-life dilemma

subjects were asked to consider was a situation with a pregnant women considering

an abortion (Gilligan & Attanucci, 1988). The study showed that: a) concerns about

justice and care are represented in people’s thinking about real-life moral

dilemmas, but that people tend to focus on one or the other depending on gender,

and b) there is an association between moral orientation and gender such that

women focus on care dilemmas and men focus on justice dilemmas (Gilligan &

Attanucci, 1988).

Gilligan’s theory has had both positive and negative implications in the field

of psychology. One positive implication is that her work has influenced other

psychologists in their evaluations of morality. Also, Gilligan’s work highlights that

people think about other people in a humanly caring way. 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

(Woods, 1996. In general, literature reviews have provided that Gilligan’s work

needs a broader more multicultural basis.

In summary, Carol Gilligan has provided a framework for the moral

orientations and development of women. Current research on explicit schemas as

to how women come to real-life decisions when faced with real-life dilemmas is

limited. Gilligan’s theory is comprised of three stages: self-interest, self-sacrifice,

and post-conventional thinking where each level is more complex. Overall, Gilligan

found that girls do develop morality, differently than others. Gilligan’s theory holds

particular implications for adolescent girls specifically as this is typically when they

enter the transition from level two to level three. However, as do all theories

Gilligan’s has advantages and disadvantages that should be considered when

looking at moral orientations.

Carol Gilligan.

Gilligan was a student of Kohlberg and later became critical of some of his
generalizations. She is well known for having argued that girls and women tend to
develop along a somewhat different path, although similarities between her account
of female moral development and male moral development are not hard to
discover.

More recent scholarship tends to the view that the "care" path described by Gilligan
exists but it is not limited to females, nor are females limited to it. Gilligan may be
right that the "care" path is found more often among females than among males.

Preconventional. One learns to care for oneself.

Conventional. One internalizes norms about caring for others and tends to neglect
oneself.

Postconventional. One becomes critical of the conventions one adopted in the

conventional stage and learns to balance caring for self with caring for others.

Carol Gilligan (1936-present)

Internationally acclaimed psychologist and prolific writer, Carol Gilligan was born on
November 28, 1936, in New York City.

Having majored in literature, she graduated summa cum laude from Swarthmore
College in 1958. She went on to do advanced work at Radcliffe University receiving
a Masters in clinical psychology in 1960. She earned her doctorate in social
psychology from Harvard University in 1964.

Gilligan began teaching at Harvard in 1967 with renowned psychologist Erik

Erikson. In 1970 she became a research assistant for Lawrence Kohlberg. Kohlberg
is known for his research on moral development and his stage theory of moral
development, justice and rights. Gilligan's primary focus came to be moral
development in girls. Her interest in these dilemmas grew as she interviewed young
men thinking about enlisting for the Vietnam War and women who were
contemplating abortions.

Gilligan would go on to criticize Kohlberg's work. 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.

Women were taught to care for other people and expect others to care for them.
She helped to form a new psychology for women by listening to them and
rethinking the meaning of self and selfishness. She asked four questions about
women's voices: who is speaking, in what body, telling what story, and in what
cultural framework is the story presented?

Her criticisms were published in 1982 in her most famous book titled, In a Different
Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development. She came to be known as
the founder of "difference feminism". Many feminists insisted that there are no
differences between males and females. Gilligan asserted that women have
differing moral and psychological tendencies than men. According to Gilligan, men
think in terms of rules and justice and women are more inclined to think in terms of
caring and relationships. She asks that Western society begin to value both equally.
She outlines three stages of moral development progressing from selfish, to social
or conventional morality, and finally to post conventional or principled morality.
Women must learn to tend to their own interests and to the interests of others. She
thinks that women hesitate to judge because they see the complexities of
relationships.

There has been criticism of Gilligan's work and much of it has come from Christina
Hoff Sommers, PhD. She says that Gilligan has failed to produce the data for her
research. She condemns the fact that Gilligan used anecdotal evidence, that
researchers have not been able to duplicate her work, and that the samples used
were too small. She thinks the field of gender studies needs to be put to the test of
people from fields such as neuroscience or evolutionary psychology rather than
from the area of education. She feels strongly that promoting an anti-male agenda
hurts both males and females. Public policy and funding has been allocated based
on Gilligan's data, which Sommers says is not publicly available. Sommers does not
find it helpful for girls and women to be told that they are diminished or voiceless.

The response to the criticisms have been just as adamant. Gilligan says that her
findings have been published in leading journals and that Sommers points are not
accurate.

Gilligan received tenure as a full professor for the Harvard Graduate School of
Education in 1986. Gilligan spent 1992-1994 teaching at the University of
Cambridge in England. She was invited there as a Pitt Professor of American History
and Institutions. Her area of academic expertise is in human development and
psychology. She is a considered to be a pioneer of gender studies and particularly
in the psychological and moral development of girls.

In 1997, Gilligan was appointed to Harvard University's first position in gender

studies which is a newly endowed position at the Harvard Graduate School of
Education known as the Patricia Albjerg Graham Chair in Gender Studies. She has
been an integral part of the Harvard Project on Women's Psychology and Girls'
Development that she initiated. This project unites the psychological study of
women with the study of young girl's development. In addition, she works with a
program called, Strengthening Healthy Resistance and Courage in Girls which has
now been enlarged to include boys in its prevention goals. It has been renamed
the Harvard Project on Women's Psychology, Boy's Development and the Culture of
Manhood.

Gilligan is currently coordinating the formation of the new Harvard Center on

Gender and Education. This is becoming a reality much more quickly than expected
due to the donation of 12.5 million dollars by actress Jane Fonda. 2.5 million of the
donation is earmarked for an endowed chair to be named for Professor Gilligan.
Fonda found Gilligan's work inspiring and feels that it has had a positive impact on
women around the world.

Another of her recent works is in developing the Listening Guide Method. This is a
voice centered, relational approach to understanding the human world. The method
studies voice and resonance. In developing this approach, Gilligan and her
associates have collaborated with voice teachers who are experienced in working in
theatre. This method has literary, clinical and feminist ways of listening to people
as they describe a relationship that they have experienced. The method was
previously called a clinical interview as a method of inquiry.

Currently, Gilligan is teaching the fall semester course titled, Gender in Psychology
and Culture: Theory and Method at Harvard. In addition to her duties at Harvard,
she has been a visiting professor at the New York University School of Law since
1999. She teaches seminars on law and culture and works with the first year law
students to enrich their sense of the responsibilities that are involved in practicing
law.

After a career spanning over thirty five years, she will be leaving Harvard and
joining the faculty of New York University as a fulltime professor. This will be an
interdisciplinary position between the Graduate School of Education and the NYU
School of Law and begins in June, 2002.

Recipient of numerous awards, in 1992 Gilligan was given the prestigious

Grawemeyer Award in Education. This award is given to honor achievements in
areas not recognized by the Nobel prizes, such as in the fields of music and
education. She was named one of Time Magazine's twenty five most influential
people in 1996. Then in 1997 she received the Heinz Award for knowledge of the
Human Condition and for her challenges to previously held assumptions in the field
of human development and what it means to be a human.

She has authored and coauthored numerous books and publications. Considered
her principal publications in addition to In a Different Voice are: Women, Girls, and
Psychotherapy: Reframing Resistance (1991), Meeting at the
Crossroads (1992), Between Voice and Silence: Women and Girls, Race and
Relationship (1995), and her soon to be published book titled The Birth of
Pleasure which is due out in 2002.

In conclusion, Carol Gilligan has been instrumental in research on adolescence,

moral development, women's development and conflict resolution. As a feminist,
scholar, professor and author, she has helped to form a new direction for women.