Generational Differences in Moral Processing Styles (original) (raw)
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A Longitudinal Study of Moral Reasoning
Child Development, 1989
Several issues concerning Gilligan's model of moral orientations and Kohlberg's models of moral stages and moral orientations were examined in a longitudinal study with 233 subjects (from 78 families) who ranged in age from 5 to 63 years. They participated in 2 identical interviews separated by a 2-year interval. In each interview, they discussed hypothetical dilemmas and a personally generated real-life dilemma, which were scored for both moral stage and moral orientation (both Gilligan's and Kohlberg's typologies). Results revealed few violations of the stage sequence over the longitudinal interval, supporting Kohlberg's moral stage model. Sex differences were almost completely absent for both Gilligan's and Kohlberg's moral orientations, although there were clear developmental trends. Hypothetical and real-life dilemmas elicited different moral orientations, especially in terms of Kohlberg's typology. The interrelations between the 2 models of moral orientations were generally weak, indicating that they are not synonymous.
Moral reasoning and behaviour in adulthood
This study aimed at assessing whether and to what extent moral judgment and behaviour were: 1. situation-dependent; 2. selectively dependent on cognitive and affective components; 3. influenced by gender and age; 4. reciprocally congruent. In order to achieve these aims, four different types of moral dilemmas were construed and five types of thinking were presented for each of them -representing five possible ways to evaluate the situation. The judgment criteria included selfishness, altruism, sense of justice, and the conflict between selfishness and the two moral issues. The participants were 250 unpaid volunteers (50% male; 50% female) belonging to two age-groups: young people and adults. The study entailed a 2 (gender) x 2 (age-group) x 5 (type of thinking) x 4 (situation) mixed design: the first two variables were betweensubjects, the others were within-subjects. Results have shown that: 1. moral judgment and behaviour are at least partially affected by the type of situations and by interpersonal variables such as gender and age; 2. moral reasoning depends in a similar manner on cognitive and affective factors; 3. there is not a gender polarity between the ethic of justice and the ethic of cure/ altruism; 4. moral reasoning and behavior are perceived as reciprocally congruent even though their congruence decreases with a more objective assessment. Such results were discussed in the light of contrasting theories on morality.
The Relation of Moral Judgment Development and
2007
Moral text processing was used as an ecologically valid method for assessing implicit and explicit moral understanding and development. The authors tested undergraduates, seminarians, and graduate students in political science and philosophy for recall of moral narratives and moral expository texts. Multivariate analyses of covariance using educational experience as an independent variable, age and moral judgment score as covariates, and recall of embedded moral arguments as dependent variables revealed a relation between education and level of moral arguments recalled. Lower-stage moral reasoning was best recalled by undergraduates, whereas higher-stage reasoning was best recalled by graduate students, with seminarians intermediate for both types of text. Moral judgment score was related to recall of the highest-level moral arguments even when age and educational experience were controlled. Moral judgment development appeared to be particularly helpful in recall of expository compared with narrative texts.
Developmental Level of Moral Judgment Influences Behavioral Patterns during Moral Decision-making
Journal of Experimental Education, 2020
We developed and tested a behavioral version of the Defining Issues Test-1 revised (DIT-1r), which is a measure of the development of moral judgment. We conducted a behavioral experiment using the behavioral Defining Issues Test (bDIT) to examine the relationship between participants’ moral developmental status, moral competence, and reaction time when making moral judgments. We found that when the judgments were made based on the preferred moral schema, the reaction time for moral judgments was significantly moderated by the moral developmental status. In addition, as a participant becomes more confident with moral judgment, the participant differentiates the preferred versus other schemas better particularly when the participant’s abilities for moral judgment are more developed.
A Comparison of Four Measures of Moral Reasoning
1976
Kohlberg's Moral JUdgment Scale, Gilligan, et al.'s Sexual Moral Judgment Scale, Maitland and Goldman's Objeictive Moral Judgment Scale, and Hogan's Maturity of Motal Judgment Scale were examined for reliability and inter7scale relationshiptil measures except the Objective Moral Judgment Scale had goodsrelia lities. The obtained relations between the Moral Judgment Scale and the-Sexual Mbral Judgment Scale replicated previous research. The Objective Moral Judgment Scale was not found to validly assess the Kohlberg stages. The maturity of Moral Judgment Scale scores Were strongly related to the subjects' classification on the Kohlberg stages, and thescale appears to offer a reliable, quickly scofed, and valid index of mature moral thought, although the scale's continuous scores do not permit clear stage classification. (Author)
Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 2014
Adolescents' emotions in the context of moral decision-making repeatedly have been shown to predict actual behaviour. However, little systematic information on developmental change regarding these emotion expectancies has been available thus far. This longitudinal study investigated anticipated moral emotions and decision-making between the ages of 15 and 21 in a representative sample of Swiss adolescents (N = 1,258; 54 % female; M = 15.30 years). Anticipated moral emotions and decisionmaking were assessed through a semi-structured interview procedure. Using Bernoulli hierarchical linear modeling, it was found that positive feelings after a moral transgression (i.e., ''happy victimizer'' responses) decreased over time, whereas positive feelings after a moral decision (i.e., ''happy moralist'' responses) increased. However, this pattern was contingent upon the moral scenario presented. Systematic relationships between anticipated moral emotions and moral personality characteristics of sympathy, conscientiousness, and agreeableness were found, even when controlling for socio-demographic characteristics and cognitive ability. Overall, this study demonstrates that the development of anticipated moral emotions is not limited to childhood. Fur-thermore, our findings suggest that moral emotions serve as an important link between moral personality development and decision-making processes that are more proximal to everyday moral behavior.
Different types of moral cognition: Moral stages versus moral foundations
Two measures of moral cognition were compared across three samples: Rest’s neo-Kohlbergian stages of moral developmental (DIT) and Graham and Haidt’s intuition-based Moral Foundations Theory (MFQ). In spite of differences both in theory and in measurement, there was considerable overlap between Stage 2/3 ‘‘personal interests’’ (DIT) and In-group (MFQ), as well as Stage 4 ‘‘maintaining norms’’ (DIT) and Authority (MFQ). Unexpectedly, Stages 5/6 ‘‘post-conventional’’ (DIT) was unrelated to Fairness and Harm (MFQ) in two of the three samples. However, participants’ prioritization of Fair/Harm over Authority/In-group/Purity was positively related to their post-conventional reasoning across all three samples. Also, for conservatives, Stage 4 reasoning decreased in the cognitive load/depletion sample, matching that of liberals. Conceptual, operational, and developmental implications of these findings are discussed.
Generational Change? The Effects of Family, Age, and Time on Moral Foundations
The Forum
One way to uncover the persistent role of religion across generations is to look past traditional understandings of religious belief and denominational belonging and examine the presence of bedrock principles that could influence political beliefs in families. The Moral Foundations framework was developed for this purpose – to describe human behavior and attitudes in the moral realm without relying upon country, culture, or time specific labels. In an original and rare three-generation dataset, college students, their parents, and their grandparents were asked about political attitudes and preferences for the Moral Foundations of Harm/Care, Fairness/Reciprocity, Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity/Sanctity. The Foundations are not equally shared across generations as preferences for each Foundation increase with the age of the cohorts in this sample, with especially large differences on Authority and Purity. A follow-up survey reveals that Moral Foundations may not be sta...
Describing and testing a moderator of the moral judgment and action relationship
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1991
The relationship between moral judgment development and action for Ss who differ in the degree to which justice-based moral judgments influence moral decision making was investigated. First, a method for quantifying Ss' use of justice-based moral judgments in moral decision making (the utilizer variable) is described. Second, 5 moral judgment and action studies are reanalyzed to assess the moderating effect of the utilizer variable information. Results indicate that the relationship between moral judgment scores and action intensifies as utilization increases. Moreover, the utilizer effect appears uniform across different age and educational levels and behavioral domains. These findings support the validity of the utilizer variable and are consistent with recent multiprocess models of moral action that suggest that moral judgments are a necessary, but insufficient, factor in the production of moral action.
Journal of Moral Education, 2014
indices of moral decision-making assessed by the Defining Issues Test have been limited to correlational analyses. This study used Harm, Fairness, Ingroup, Authority and Purity to predict overall moral judgment and individual Defining Issues Test-2 (DIT-2) schema scores using responses from 222 undergraduates. Relationships were not confirmed between the separate foundations and the DIT-2 indices. Using the MFQ moral judgment items only, confirmatory factor analyses confirmed higher order constructs called Individualizing and Binding foundations. Structural models using these higher order factors fitted the data well, and findings indicated that the Binding foundations significantly positively predicted Maintaining Norms and negatively predicted both overall moral judgment (N2) and the Postconventional Schema. Neither Individualizing nor Binding foundations significantly predicted Personal Interest. While moral judgments assessed by DIT-2 may not be evoking the MFQ foundations, findings here suggest the MFQ may not be a suitable measure for capturing more advanced moral functioning.