death_place death_date birth_place nationality birth_date known_for alma_mater article_title name occupation death_cause
winthrop , massachusetts 19 january 1987 bronxville , new york american 25 october 1927 lawrence kohlberg 's stages of moral development university one year -rrb- of chicago -lrb- earned bachelor 's degree in lawrence kohlberg
 lawrence kohlberg psychologist suicide
lawrence kohlberg

lawrence kohlberg -lrb- ; october 25 , 1927 -- january 19 , 1987 -rrb- was an american psychologist best known for his theory of stages of moral development .
he served as a professor in the psychology department at the university of chicago and at the graduate school of education at harvard university .
even though it was considered unusual in his era , he decided to study the topic of moral judgment , extending jean piaget 's account of children 's moral development from twenty-five years earlier .
in fact , it took kohlberg five years before he was able to publish an article based on his views .
kohlberg 's work reflected and extended not only piaget 's findings but also the theories of philosophers george herbert mead and james mark baldwin .
at the same time he was creating a new field within psychology : `` moral development '' .
scholars such as elliot turiel and james rest have responded to kohlberg 's work with their own significant contributions .
in an empirical study by haggbloom et al. using six criteria , such as citations and recognition , kohlberg was found to be the 30th most eminent psychologist of the 20th century .
