What does "preconventional" mean?

Belonging to the earliest of Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development, focusing on self-interest and on obedience for the sake of avoiding punishment.

What is a synonym for "preconventional"?

Common synonyms include: conventional, postconventional.

Preconventional

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective

1
Belonging to the earliest of Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development, focusing on self-interest and on obedience for the sake of avoiding punishment. not-comparable

Synonyms

All synonyms

conventional postconventional

Etymology

From pre- + conventional.

Related phrases

self interest

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.