The Relationship of Social-Moral Development With Cognitive and Ego Development: a Cross-Cultural Study (original) (raw)

Development of social-moral reasoning among Kibbutz adolescents: A longitudinal cross-cultural study

Developmental Psychology, 1985

The development of social-moral judgment among Israeli kibbutz adolescents was studied from the perspective of Kohlberg's theory of moral judgment development. The sample included 92 adolescents, 64 of whom were interviewed longitudinally over a two-to-nine year period. The study's purpose was to evaluate the validity of Kohlberg's model and measure in a cross-cultural context and to assess the cultural uniqueness of social-moral reasoning among kibbutzniks. The developmental findings strongly supported the validity of Kohlberg's structuraldevelopmental understanding of moral judgment. Stage change was found to be upward, gradual, and without significant regressions. Analyses also supported the internal consistency of the stages as operationally defined in the standardized scoring manual. There were no significant sex differences in moral development and fewer cultural differences than expected. Overall, the distribution of stage scores among the kibbutz subjects was unusually high when compared to the results of parallel studies in the United States and Turkey, the two previous longitudinal studies of moral judgment development that have used the standardized scoring system. The most important cultural variation involved the use of Stages 4/5 and 5. Whereas all of Kohlberg's stages were present among kibbutz members, not all elements of kibbutz postconventional reasoning were present in Kohlberg's model or scoring manual. In particular, the communal emphasis and collective moral principles of the kibbutz subjects were partially missed or misunderstood. This article presents the results of a longitudinal study of social-moral reasoning among Israeli adolescents. The research oh

The kibbutz as a model for moral education: A longitudinal cross-cultural study

Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 1985

This article reports a longitudinal assessment of the effectiveness of an israeli kibbutz in facilitating social-moral development among kibbutz-bonn and nonkibbutz-born youth. The sample included 92 Israeli adolescents divided primarily into three subgroups: (1.) kibbutz-bonn and kibbutz-educated youth; (2.) city-bonn and city-educated youth; and (3.) city-bonn, but kibbutz-educated youth. A pretest moral development interview was administered shortly after a cohort of Middle Eastern cityborn youth had arrived on the kibbutz to continue their education. This was followed by one or more posltests after the city-bonn youth had been integrated with their kibbutz-born peers for varying periods, from 2 to 9 years. The findings indicated that, although city-born youth entered the kibbutz at a significantly lower moral stage than their kibbutz-bonn peers, 2 to 5 years later there were no significant developmental differences between the two groups. Comparison city-born youth, not placed on a kibbutz or placed on another kibbutz where they were not integrated into the community, did not show the same gains in moral development. Implications of kibbutz education for improving schools in the U.S. are considered.

How are Moral and Ego Development Related

Lee and Snarey (1988) found that the relationship between moral (MJI) and ego development (SCT) changed across the life-span. Mentkowski and Associates (2000) found factorial evidence that affirmed Loevinger’s position that moral development is an inseparable aspect of a single ego development process. Using Lee and Snarey’s assumptions of scale comparability, a secondary analysis of ten years of longitudinal change observed in the Alverno Longitudinal Study did not replicate their findings for increasing moral primacy (MJI greater than SCT). Ego-moral difference scores are theoretically questionable. Moral and ego development appear to be entangled constructs, complementary representations of the development of the moral self.

Cognitive and Social Aspects of Moral Development

Anthropologists have long recognized that there has been a development in moral thinking as societies increase in complexity from band societies to literate civilizations. The increasing range of moral concern, the development from shame to guilt, and the increasing importance of intention in assessing responsibility are examples. There are clear resemblances between these findings and Kohlberg's stages of moral development, which have been validated cross-culturally. His stages of pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional thought providing important insights into the moral thinking characteristic of band societies, tribal societies, and literate civilizations. But it is also concluded that, especially at the more advanced stages of moral thinking, philosophical and religious beliefs about the world have a powerful influence on moral values that is distinct from cognitive development.

Ego development and moral development in relation to age and grade level during adolescence

Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 1986

The relation between Loevinger's measure of ego development and moral development as indexed by Rest's Defining Issues Test was examined in a sample of 517 adolescents between 12 and 21 years of age. Major increases in moral capacity were found at the Conformist and Conscientious levels of ego development. Low positive correlations between ego level and moral capacity were reported for young adolescents but not for older ones. The development indices of age and grade were compared. Both ego and moral development seemed more closely related to grade level than to age. Socioeconomic status predicted acceleration in ego development at the rate of one half an ego level over middle to late adolescence. This effect persisted at university. Students of higher socioeconomic background attained developmental levels one to two years before their contemporaries of low socioeconomic status. Sex differences in ego development were in favor of females.

Psycho‑socio‑moral development of the youth in Iran and Germany: A cross‑cultural research

Objectives: The aim of this cross-cultural research is to study and compare the psycho-socio-moral development of the youth in Iran and Germany in the Eastern and Western society considering different components of both societies. Materials and Methods: The statistical universe of this research is 16–20-year-old high school students in Hamburg and Tehran. Three hundred students (150 females and 150 males) were randomly chosen through multi-stage sampling from the Northern, Central, and Southern parts of each of these two cities. A test similar to Kohlberg's moral measurement was made to assess the level of moral development. This test was compiled regarding cultural variables (Iranian, German, mythic, and modern) and new conflict triggering issues that were not considered in Kohlberg's moral measurement and it was standardized in two languages and cultures simultaneously. Back-translation cross-cultural methodology was used to assess the equivalence of the two tests in two languages and two cultures. Result: To compare the moral development of Iranian and German youths, a test of mean for independent groups was carried out with the hypothesis that cultural and time components will significantly influence the results. According to the final results, moral development is significantly higher in German youths than in Iranian youths. Although the mentioned measure had reflected other conflicts in the different cultural atmosphere, it was not influential except in the case of the fourth story. Conclusion: This finding implies the need for revising the moral training procedures based on developmental psychology.

Introduction: Meaning, measurement, and correlates of moral development

European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 2013

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