Kohlberg's Moral Development Test

Lawrence Kohlberg proposed that moral reasoning develops through 6 sequential stages across 3 levels: pre-conventional (obedience and self-interest), conventional (interpersonal expectations and social order), and post-conventional (social contract and universal ethical principles). People progress through stages by encountering and reflecting on moral conflicts.

Each of the 6 stages is scored from 1 to 5 based on how much the reasoning statements sounded like you. Your highest stage is your dominant style of moral reasoning. Most adults score highest in the conventional level (stages 3–4), which is entirely typical.

No. Kohlberg's stages describe how people reason about right and wrong, not how moral or good they are. A lower stage does not mean you are less ethical — it describes a different framework of reasoning. Kohlberg himself saw the stages as developmental, meaning they can change with experience.

Not exactly. Kohlberg used open-ended interviews in which people explained their reasoning in their own words, and trained raters classified responses into stages. This interactive version is a simplified educational adaptation that uses rating scales instead. It is designed for self-reflection, not research classification.