Q.How does Kohlberg's account of moral development in young children (before age 9) differ from that of early adolescents?

Kohlberg described moral reasoning as passing through age-related stages, with young children (before about age 9) reasoning in terms of external authority, while early adolescents reason in terms of internalised rules followed to win approval rather than merely avoid punishment. …

According to Lawrence Kohlberg, moral reasoning develops through a sequence of age-related stages, studied by presenting children and adolescents with stories describing moral dilemmas and asking them what the characters in the story should do, and why. Kohlberg's central finding was that children at different ages approach questions of right and wrong quite differently — not merely knowing more moral rules as they get older, but reasoning about morality in fundamentally different ways.

Young children, before around 9 years of age, think about morality largely in terms of external authority. At this stage, an action is considered wrong simply because the child is punished for it, and right simply because the child is rewarded for it — moral judgment, in other words, is anchored to the direct external consequences (reward or punishment) that follow an action, rather than to any internal sense of right or wrong. A young child at this stage is not yet reasoning about the deeper reasons an act might be wrong; they are essentially tracking what gets them into trouble and what does not.

As the child grows, and reaches early adolescence, moral reasoning develops through the rules set by others — such as by parents, or by the laws of society. The crucial shift at this stage is that these external rules come to be accepted by the adolescent as their own — they become 'internalised.' The adolescent now follows rules in order to be virtuous and to win the approval of others, rather than simply to avoid being punished, which marks real moral progress from the earlier, purely consequence-driven reasoning of younger children. However, Kohlberg's account also notes that at this early-adolescent stage, children still tend to view rules as absolute guidelines that should always be followed, without exception — moral thinking at this point remains relatively inflexible, even though it is now motivated by internalised values rather than merely by fear of punishment. …