Motivation and Moral Development

Objective

Students will look at six different levels of motivation behind a person's actions.

Dr. Lawrence Kohlberg identified six levels of moral development:

1. Avoid punishment
2. Seek rewards
3. Please others
4. Help society
5. Improve the rules
6. Follow a personal code

We can use these as a tool to discuss students' social-emotional needs as well as dig deeply into character motivation.

Steps

1. First, we introduce the idea that one positive action can have different motivations - and those motivations can be positive or negative.
2. Then, students learn about Levels 1 and 2 and note characters and historic figures who match up with those levels.
3. Next, students learn about Levels 3 and 4 and note characters and historic figures who match up with those levels.
4. In this part, students learn about Level 5 and look for characters and historic figures who fit this level.
5. Finally, they'll learn about Level 6 and note how characters can match up with different levels depending on which point in a story we're looking at.

Resources

• Part 1's Worksheet (PDF)
• Part 1's Worksheet (Google Slides)
• Part 2 - 5's Worksheet (PDF)
• Part 2 - 5's Worksheet (Google Slides)