Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development Quiz
How the Scales are Structured
Who Usually Takes This Test?
See How You Compare
Below is a preview of how scores are typically distributed across each scale.
Example Questions From the Test
- Somewhat natural, especially when the arrangement is easy to track.
- Not very natural; I usually reason without relying on a personal exchange.
- Occasionally useful, but rarely my first way of resolving it.
- Very natural; a balanced exchange usually feels like the clearest solution.
- They matter somewhat, though the overall benefit remains my main reference point.
- They matter little compared with the outcome for most people.
- They deserve major weight and could justify redesigning the policy.
- Protecting those rights is decisive, even if the majority must accept less benefit.
- Sometimes, especially when the consequences are significant.
- Almost always; consistency across people is central to my decision.
- Rarely; the details of my own situation usually matter more than a general rule.
- Often, though I may still decide that individual circumstances justify a difference.
Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development Quiz - Description and methodology of the test
Readers who want to examine how they weigh duties, consequences, and competing claims can use Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development Quiz as a structured reflection on moral reasoning. As a moral development quiz, it suits anyone curious about the principles behind difficult choices, especially when personal benefit, loyalty, rules, and fairness point in different directions. The result offers a profile rather than a fixed identity.
What This Assessment Explores
Because it asks about reasons rather than right answers, the assessment works as a moral reasoning quiz for anyone exploring how different considerations influence judgment. It focuses on choices involving exchange, approval, duty, rules, rights, and universal principles.
The result is organized into three dimensions:
- Consequence-and-Self-Interest Reasoning (0-15) reflects the pull of penalties, rewards, and reciprocal exchange: Limited pull (0-5), Situational pull (6-10), or Strong pull (11-15).
- Relationship-and-Social-Order Reasoning (0-15) reflects the pull of approval, loyalty, duty, and established systems: Limited pull (0-5), Selective pull (6-10), or Strong pull (11-15).
- Rights-and-Principles Reasoning (0-15) reflects the pull of equal treatment, revisable laws, and universal principles: Limited pull (0-5), Deliberative pull (6-10), or Strong pull (11-15).
Together, these bands describe coexisting tendencies linked with Kohlberg's preconventional, conventional, and postconventional reasoning patterns; they neither rank character nor confirm a definitive stage.
Methodology and Scientific Basis
Each item presents a moral situation with four response options. Scenarios cover exchanges, approval, rules, duty, rights, and principles; the respondent chooses the response option that most closely matches their likely judgment or action. The displayed result presents three separate profiles, and the bands do not assign a single stage.
The questionnaire is conceptually consistent with the Moral Judgment Interview and Kohlberg's stage model, but is a separate online self-report format rather than an adaptation or validated version of that instrument. Rest et al.'s neo-Kohlbergian account offers related theoretical context for reasoning patterns that can coexist and vary by situation; it is not this questionnaire's instrument or scoring basis.
As a Kohlberg moral development assessment, it is an unvalidated reflection whose bands are descriptive and have no established norms or clinical cutoffs. Responses may shift with current context, self-awareness, memory, and the wish to appear fair, so the profile is most useful for noticing patterns and deciding which moral conflicts deserve closer thought.
- Colby, Anne, Lawrence Kohlberg, John Gibbs, and Marcus Lieberman. "A Longitudinal Study of Moral Judgment." Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 48, nos. 1-2 (1983): 1-124. 10.2307/1165935
- Colby, Anne, and Lawrence Kohlberg. The Measurement of Moral Judgment, Volume I: Theoretical Foundations and Research Validation. Cambridge University Press, 1987.
- Rest, James R., Darcia Narvaez, Muriel J. Bebeau, and Stephen J. Thoma. "A Neo-Kohlbergian Approach: The DIT and Schema Theory." Educational Psychology Review 11, no. 4 (1999): 291-324. 10.1023/A:1022053215271
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