Practising moral judgement within the day care center: A look at the educator's moral decision under stress
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compared the performance of thirty eight experienced early childhood educators on real life moral decision, with their hypothetical moral knowledge, and found that the educators' hypothetical knowledge explained 28.9% of the variation in their real-life moral decision.
Abstract: Many dilemmas in the day‐care center call for moral decisions. What is the educator's source of moral knowledge? How does s/he apply such knowledge in real life? This paper presents a study which examined these questions within the cognitive developmental approach to moralization (Kohlberg, 1976). It compares the performance of thirty eight experienced early childhood educators on real life moral decision, with their hypothetical moral knowledge. The results suggest that the educators' hypothetical moral knowledge explains 28.9% of the variation in their real life moral decision. The phenomenon of inconsistency between the two types of moral knowledge is explained.
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TL;DR: The authors outline in 11 propositions a framework for a new approach that is more attentive to the purposes that people use morality to achieve, and introduce a more pragmatic approach.
Abstract: In this article, the authors evaluate L. Kohlberg's (1984) cognitive- developmental approach to morality, find it wanting, and introduce a more pragmatic approach. They review research designed to evaluate Kohlberg's model, describe how they revised the model to accommodate discrepant findings, and explain why they concluded that it is poorly equipped to account for the ways in which people make moral decisions in their everyday lives. The authors outline in 11 propositions a framework for a new approach that is more attentive to the purposes that people use morality to achieve. People make moral judgments and engage in moral behaviors to induce themselves and others to uphold systems of cooperative exchange that help them achieve their goals and advance their interests.
238 citations
Additional excerpts
...Other investigators, including Kohlberg, have reported similar findings (Gilligan & Belenky, 1980; Haan, 1975; A. Higgins, Power, & Kohlberg, 1984; Kohlberg, Scharf, & Hickey, 1972; Leming, 1978; Linn, 1984, 1987a, 1987b; Lockwood, 1975; Smetana, 1982; Walker, de Vries, & Trevethan, 1987)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the effects of gender, gender role, and type of moral dilemma on moral maturity and moral orientation were investigated for female and male university students who were given the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PQ).
Abstract: The authors investigated the effects of gender, gender role, and type of moral dilemma on moral maturity and moral orientation. Fifty-five female and 55 male university students were given the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (J. T. Spence & R. L. Helmreich, 1978), L. Kohlberg's test of moral judgm
160 citations
TL;DR: The results are interpreted as more consistent with models of moral development such as those advanced by C. G. Levine and R. Harré, which posit a relatively wide range of within-person stage use and emphasize the determining power of social situations, than with the more constructivistic model ofmoral development of Colby and Kohlberg (1987).
Abstract: Two issues were examined in this study—the consistency of moral judgment across different types of dilemma and different social contexts, and the relationship between the structure (stage) of moral judgment and the content of moral decisions. Forty subjects were given two hypothetical dilemmas about business decisions and two standard Kohlberg dilemmas. Half the subjects directed their responses to a business audience, half to a philosophical audience. Responses to the moral dilemmas were scored in accordance with the Colby and Kohlberg (1987) scoring manual. Stage of moral reasoning was found to be significantly higher on the Kohlberg dilemmas than on the business dilemmas. A significant interaction between type of dilemma and audience was attributed to the tendency of subjects directing their responses to a business audience to interpret one of the business dilemmas in terms of the moral order of business, but for subjects directing their responses to a philosophy audience to treat it as a philosophical dilemma. The other business dilemma evoked uniformly low-level moral judgments. The amount of selfishness intrinsic in subjects' moral choices on the business dilemmas was significantly negatively correlated with moral maturity on the business dilemmas, but not with their moral maturity on Kohlberg's test. These results are interpreted as more consistent with models of moral development such as those advanced by C. G. Levine ([1979] “Stage Acquisition and Stage Use: An Appraisal of Stage Displacement Explanations of Variation in Moral Reasoning, ” Human Development, Vol. 22, pp. 145–164), J. Rest ([1983] “Morality,” in: P. H. Mussen [ed.], J. H. Flavell and E. Markman [Vol. eds.], Handbook of Child Psychology [Vol. 3, 4th ed.], John Wiley & Sons, New York), and R. Harre ([1984]) Personal Being: A Theory for Individual Psychology, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts), which posit a relatively wide range of within-person stage use and emphasize the determining power of social situations, than with the more constructivistic model of moral development of Colby and Kohlberg (1987).
55 citations
TL;DR: In partial support of Kohlberg's contention that his test assesses moral competence, there was a negative linear relationship between scores on his test and the proportion of Stage 2 judgments on the 2 other dilemmas.
Abstract: One of the central assumptions of Kohlberg's theory of moral development--that moral judgment is organized in structures of the whole--was examined. Thirty men and 30 women were given 2 dilemmas from Kohlberg's Moral Judgment Interview, a 3rd involving prosocial behavior, and a 4th involving impaired driving. Half the Ss responded to the prosocial and impaired-driving dilemmas from the perspective of a hypothetical character, and half responded from the perspective of the self. No sex or perspective differences in moral maturity were observed. Ss scored highest in moral maturity on Kohlberg's dilemmas, intermediate on the prosocial dilemma, and lowest on the impaired-driving dilemma. In partial support of Kohlberg's contention that his test assesses moral competence, there was a negative linear relationship between scores on his test and the proportion of Stage 2 judgments on the 2 other dilemmas. An interactional model of moral judgment is advanced.
53 citations
TL;DR: The extent to which the physicians' justifications of their action reflected their moral competence, is discussed, and the ways in which personal moral values are put into practice are discussed.
Abstract: Routine daily experience does not always provide physicians and moral researchers the opportunity to focus on the ways in which personal moral values are put into practice. An extreme situation—a physicians' strike—provided such an opportunity. This paper is based on interviews with 50 Israeli striking physicians. The extent to which the physicians' justifications of their action reflected their moral competence, is discussed.
17 citations
References
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01 Jul 1974
TL;DR: In this article, the authors set up a simple experiment at Yale University, where a person comes to a psychological laboratory and is told to carry out a series of acts that come increasingly into conflict with conscience.
Abstract: In order to take a close look at the act of obeying, I set up a simple experiment at Yale University. Eventually, the experiment was to involve more than a thousand participants and would be repeated at several universities, but at the beginning, the conception was simple. A person comes to a psychological laboratory and is told to carry out a series of acts that come increasingly into conflict with conscience. The main question is how far the participant will comply with the experimenter’s instructions before refusing to carry out the actions required of him. But the reader needs to know a little more detail about the experiment.
1,778 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, two opposite views of the relation between moral cognition and moral action are described; one is an essentially irrational view that emphasizes need and action tendencies, while the other c
Abstract: Discusses conceptual and empirical issues concerning the relations between moral reasoning and moral action. Two opposite views of the relations between moral cognition and moral action are described; one is an essentially irrational view that emphasizes need and action tendencies, while the other c
1,358 citations
591 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the Self Model is proposed, starting from the assumption that moral reasons are functionally related to action, and it uses the self as the central explanatory concept, establishing both the sense of personal responsibility and the dynamism of selfconsistency.
494 citations