Showing papers on "Social cognitive theory of morality published in 1980"

Bridging Moral Cognition and Moral Action: A Critical Review of the Literature.

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

Rule utilitarianism, rights, obligations and the theory of rational behavior

Abstract: The paper first summarizes the author’s decision-theoretical model of moral behavior, in order to compare the moral implications of the act-utilitarian and of the rule-utilitarian versions of utilitarian theory. This model is then applied to three voting examples. It is argued that the moral behavior of act-utilitarian individuals will have the nature of a noncooperative game, played in the extensive mode, and involving action-byaction maximization of social utility by each player. In contrast, the moral behavior of rule-utilitarian individuals will have the nature of a cooperative game, played in the normal mode, and involving a firm commitment by each player to a specific moral strategy (viz. to the strategy selected by the rule-utilitarian choice criterion) — even if some individual actions prescribed by this strategy, when considered in isolation, should fail to maximize social utility.

On a Cognitive Theory of Religion

Abstract: AITCHISON, J., J. D. F. HABBEMA, and J. W. KAY. 1977. A critical comparison of two methods of statistical discrimination. Applied Statistics 26: 15-25. CORRUCCINI, R. S. 1975. Multivariate analysis in biological anthropology: Some considerations. Journal of Human Evolution 4:1-19. FISHER, R. A. 1936. The use of multiple measurements in taxonomic problems. Annals of Eugenics 7:179-88. GEISSER, S. 1977. \"Discrimination, allocatory and separatory, linear aspects,\" in Classification and clustering. Edited by J. van Ryzin, pp. 301-30. New York: Academic Press. HOWELLS, W. W. 1973. Cranial variation in man. Papers of the Peabody Museum 67. THORNE, A. G., and S. R. WILSON. 1977. Pleistocene and recent Australians: A multivariate comparison. Journal of Human Evolution 6:393-402. WELCH, B. L. 1939. Note on discriminant functions. Biometrika 31: 218-20.

Ego identity status, formal operations, and moral development.

Abstract: Twenty-six subjects (20 males and 6 females) were administered measures assessing ego identity status, level of moral reasoning, and stage of cognitive development. Expectations that formal operations would be a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the development of post-conventional moral thought and for Identity Achievement status were supported. Level of moral thought was also found to be positively related to achievement of identity. Individual descriptions of subjects with noteworthy patterns of the three variables under study were presented. Suggestions for future research included the necessity for replication of these findings with a largerN and exploration of the possibility that level of social role taking mediates between cognitive development and identity (psychosocial) development.

The relation of moral judgment stage disparity to developmental effects of peer dialogues

Abstract: Kohlberg (1969, 1976) has described moral judgment as de veloping through a universal invariant sequence of qualitatively dif ferent stages, with each subsequent one subsuming the less differ entiated and less integrated prior one. In recent years, experimental studies using diverse methods have generally found a positive rela tion between confrontation with higher-stage moral arguments and upward change in moral judgment, as well as between participation in moral discussions and upward change in moral judgment. One of the earliest studies (Turiel, 1966) concluded that more learning results from exposure to the stage directly above the sub ject's own (the " + 1" condition) than from exposure to the stage two above or one below (cf. critical interpretations by Broughton, 1978; Kurtines & Greif, 1974; Turiel, 1972). Comparable results have been reported by Cowan, Langer, Heavenrich and Nathanson (1969) and, to a limited degree, by Tracy and Cross (1973). Keasey (1973) found a similar immediate effect that washed out, however, in a two week delayed posttest. In these studies, the treatment manipulation involved prepared inputs, and was accomplished through direct and active participation of an experimenter or accomplice. Although the internal validity of such studies is well established,

Making moral incentives pay

Abstract: Politicians often appeal to moral principles as a least-cost method of enforcing their policy demands. To do so effectively, they must understand how such principles fit into ordinary people's decision functions. Here I distinguish three ways for formally representing moral principles. One reduces morality to enlightened self-interest, denying that morality has any special place in the decision calculus. Another, while acknowledging that people do internalize moral principles per se, enters them into utility functions as just another consumption good. Truly strong moral principles, however, are best represented by a third model of seriously held moral principles which must be kept formally apart from mundane considerations. Such principles are as precarious as they are powerful. Policy-makers who want to tap them must respect the formalisms that make them strong, most typically by shielding moral principles from contamination by egoistic impulses.

An Ecological Validation of Social Cognitive Development.

Abstract: ENRIGHT, ROBERT D., and SUTTERFIELD, SARA J. An Ecological Validation of Social Cognitive Development. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1980, 51, 156-161. 2 classrooms of first graders (N = 40) were administered Damon's moral judgment measure, Shure and Spivack's social problem solving measure, and the Stanford-Binet vocabulary. Concurrently, 2 observers recorded in the children's school environment incidences of successful resolutions of interactions, amount of derogation, and the number of times a child was approached by peers. A positive relationship was predicted between moral development and frequency of success, proportion of success, and amount of times the child was approached by others. Negative relationships were predicted between morality and frequency of unsuccessful responses, proportion of such responses, and derogation. The same predictions were made for social problem solving and the behavioral variables. Vocabulary was the discriminant cognitive variable, thus no relationship to behavior was predicted. Results confirmed the positive relationship of the moral variable with proportion of successes and amount of time S was approached by peers. Further, the predicted negative relationship between the moral variable and proportion of unsuccessful outcomes held. When vocabulary was partialled out, these relationships did not hold for social problem solving reasoning. As expected, vocabulary did not relate to competent social behavior. The results support moral judgment as an ecologically valid social cognitive construct.

The Cognitive Developmental Approach and the Practicing Counselor: An Opportunity for Counselors to Rethink Their Roles.

Abstract: At the present time, psychologists who describe the stages of human growth concur on the importance of cognitive elements, although they also recognize the affective and social components of development. Kohlberg's thinking was influenced by the work of Dewey and Piaget, and has been confirmed by his longitudinal study of 50 Chicago boys and by numerous other researches throughout the world. In his conception, discussions of moral problems (dilemmas) are the basis for moral growth. Through them the less mature become aware of the perspectives of those who have reached a higher level of moral judgment. These ideas and practices have been applied with young people in The Cluster School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the ideas of justice for all and fairness have become the real themes of the school. The authors' challenge to counselors as consultants and facilitators is one of becoming deliberately involved in the value and moral growth of students. Allen E. Ivey reacts to this article by urging a value-centered advocacy model for counselors.

Moral Judgment Research and the Cognitive‐Developmental Approach to Moral Education

Abstract: Describing Kohlberg's interview test and his own Defining Issues Test (DIT), Rest assures us that we now have usable, reliable ways of assessing an individual's moral judgment development level. There is evidence for accepting a developmental sequence in moral judgment, from low stage thinking to higher stage thinking. Rest reviews the evidence for three aspects of morality as part of the cognitive domain, although numerous other factors beyond moral judgment influence concrete behavior. The author offers impressions about educational interventions. Moral judgment theory is considered the current best choice for “theoretical richness, practical implications, validated findings.”

Moral development and the gifted: An initial investigation

Abstract: A recent study to assess the level of moral reasoning in gifted students indicates that the level of responses were highly associated with intellectual functioning.

Locus of control and stages of moral reasoning

Abstract: This study investigated the relationship between belief in personal control and Kohlberg's stages of moral reasoning. Responses of 57 male and 56 female pupils of two residential secondary schools in Kano City indicated that subjects at Stage 3 of moral reasoning tended to exhibit significantly more internality than those at Stages 1, 2, and 4. Significant sex differences were found neither in belief in personal control nor in moral reasoning.

Affect and moral reasoning

Abstract: Temporary mood states were induced to determine the impact of affect on moral reasoning. College students were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions: positive, negative, or neutral moods prior to completing the Defining Issues Test (DIT) of moral development. P-scores on the DIT were significantly higher in the positive affect condition than in either of the other conditions. These results are discussed in relation to previous studies on situational factors influencing moral judgments and social behaviors.

Motivation and Moral Development as Determinants of Behavioral Acquiescence and Moral Action

Abstract: Summary In a study of the influence of motives and moral judgment ability on acquiescent behavior and moral action under varying degrees of social pressure, female undergraduates (n = 80) of two different motivational orientations—safety and esteem—were tested for their level of moral development by means of Kohlberg's schema, and formed into four comparison groups—(a) safety-oriented conventional (stage 3), (b) safety-oriented post-conventional (stage 5), (c) esteem-oriented stage 3, and (d) esteem-oriented stage 5. Either as a member of a three person group and subjected to strong social pressure or alone, Ss were instructed to act as a jury and were given a legal case to deliberate (which presented a complex moral dilemma to solve) and told to reach a verdict. As predicted, the results indicated that the esteem-oriented Ss did not acquiesce and were consistent in the moral action across situations. In the group condition, safety-oriented individuals acquiesced to the social pressure of two confederates...

Developmental Relations among Children's Perspective Taking, Moral Judgment, and Parent-Rated Behaviors.

Abstract: Much attention has recently been directed at the nature of the relationship between children's perspective taking and moral judg ment abilities. At the theoretical level, perspective taking has been viewed as the cognitive basis for mature moral judgment. Both Piaget (1965) and Kohlberg (1969), for example, have claimed that qualita tive changes in children's ability to consider another person's per spective underlie qualitative changes in the nature of their moral judgments. In particular, both theorists view the ability to consider conflicting viewpoints as being directly related to intention-based moral judgments and the construction of comprehensive, differ entiated, and equilibrated justice structures, respectively. Selman's (1976) logical structural model posits a more specific developmental relation between qualitative changes in these two abilities such that a certain level of perspective taking functions as a necessary but not sufficient condition for a certain level of moral judgment. In contrast to the above theorists who have paid singular attention to perspective taking as it relates to moral judgment, Turiel (1978) argues that perspective taking is but one method by which social information needed to construct moral concepts is extracted and reproduced. Despite differences in the specific descriptions of the relationship between perspective taking and moral judgment given by Piaget, Kohlberg, Selman, and Turiel, each would predict a positive relation between developmental changes in both perspective taking and moral judgment. A look at empirical investigations of the perspective taking-moral judgment relationship reveals two distinct approaches. First and more commonly, investigators have administered tasks of both per spective taking and moral judgment to the same group of children and correlated the respective scores. Kurdek (1978a) has reviewed the results of these studies and concludes that such correlational evidence is inconclusive due largely to problems with both the

A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of ‘Reasoning’ in the Socialization of Young Children

Abstract: Cognitive developmental theories of moral judgment assume that some types of moral argument are more advanced or more valid than others; however, logical analysis reveals that they vary not in logical

What is Lawrence Kohlberg Doing

Abstract: Lawrence Kohlberg's work in moral education appears to be significant enough philosophically that one is tempted to use much of it to resolve basic problems of long standing. In this essay it is argued that it would prove more fruitful for Kohlberg or anyone else to avoid applying his developmentalist position to the settling of such problems as utilitarian/formalist supremacy or the search for a ‘best’ morality. Instead, emphasis could be placed on the explicating of the fundamental requirements of a non‐relativistic, non‐egoistic morality of whatever sort. Such basic moral requirements serve to highlight of what principled morality (Stages Five and Six) consists, and why it need not be tied to a Rawlsian Formalism, or to any other normative ethical position. In fact, there is considerable cause for supposing that what Kohlberg really achieves with clarity is nothing more than a sequential typology of development in moral thinking from egoism to universalism, and from situation‐specific rules to...

Adults' moral reasoning with children.

Abstract: OLEJNIK, ANTHONY B. Adults' Moral Reasoning with Children. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1980, 51, 1285-1288. The interrelationships among young adults' levels of moral reasoning, their preferred discipline style, and how they would reason with children on moral issues were investigated. Principled-level adults were found to prefer using induction and perceived their mothers as having used more induction than power assertion, while conventional-level adults preferred using power assertion and perceived their mothers as having used more power assertion than induction. Principled-level adults used conventional-level moral reasoning, while conventionaland preconventional-level subjects used preconventional-level reasoning when explaining the importance of keeping promises, telling the truth, and obeying adults in simulated situations involving children.

A study of moral development and personality relationships in adolescents and young adult Catholic students.

Abstract: Explored the relationship between personality and moral development. Using Kohlberg's stages of moral development, it was conceived as possible that some of the characteristics measured by the California Psychological Inventory would be related significantly to preference for principled levels of moral judgment (stages 5 and 6 of Kohlberg's schema) for three groups of Catholic students (N = 549) in attendance at Catholic high schools and universities. The results indicated that those who preferred principled levaels of moral reasoning were seen as being dependable, rational, creative, intelligent, and accepting of rules and constraints of society, but at the same time, able to think independently and aware of the need for change.

Moral maturity and behavior: Failure to find a link.

Abstract: The question addressed is whether individuals operating at the Postconventional level of moral reasoning behave appreciatively different from those functioning at lower moral maturity levels. The types of behaviors reported in the literature are classified in five areas: resistance to temptation, resistance to social influence/authority, student activism, prosocial behavior, and antisocial behavior. The data suggest that evidence linking Kohlbergian moral development to differential behaviors is remote. However, the link between moral reasoning and behavior is not positively nonexistent. There remain several factors which probably affect the findings in all five behavioral categories, especially the sparsity of subjects at the principled level and the limited range of behaviors investigated.

The Illusion of Stage Six

Abstract: Kohlberg's developmental theory of moral reasoning postulates a supremely adequate form of moral thinking to which all other stages are tending, labelled Stage Six. Kohlberg identifies this with a principle of justice, though without adequately justifying the elimination of other autonomous universal principles. The claim that this principle provides consistent, reversible and universalizable moral judgements is criticized: by itself a purely formal principle of justice can provide no particular moral judgements at all; for that we need independent values, such as the value of life which Kohlberg appeals to, but does not justify, in his discussions of the Heinz dilemma. More generally there is no reason to expect that any form of moral reasoning will be supremely adequate in Kohlberg's sense, providing a solution to all moral problems and dilemmas. The principle of justice is merely one among the many specifically moral principles which Kohlberg locats at Stage Five, albeit the one which he perso...

Adults' Judgments about Adolescents' Moral Judgments.

Abstract: PRESSLEY, MICHAEL; SCHMIERER, DEBORAH; and HOPE, D. J. Adults' Judgments about Adolescents' Moral Judgments. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1980, 51, 1289-1291. College students taking the Defining Issues Test were instructed to simulate the responses of 11-, 15-, and 19-year-olds on the test. Other college students selected issues which they felt should be presented to 11-, 15-, and 19-year-olds faced with the moral dilemmas. Subjects accurately perceived that moraljudgment level increases with age, but they recommended higher-level arguments for presentation than the perceived level of adolescents' moral judgments.

Promoting postconventional morality: the adequacy of Kohlberg's aim.

Abstract: Lawrence Kohlberg has advocated the implementation of programs in the public schools designed to raise the general level of moral reasoning. His contention is that the attainment of Postconventional moral reasoning is associated with optimal personal and social adjustment. Growing concern about the violence and disintegration of American society has led to public and private support for such programs. Because intervention into the moral education of children in a democratic society raises serious social/political questions, it seems appropriate to consider the relevance of the Kohlberg hypothesis. In this paper, the twin issues of philosophic adequacy and empirical evidence are examined. In neither respect does the cognitive-developmentalist position find the support essential to a recommendation for its use.

The Development of Moral Behavior: Continuities and Discontinuities:

Abstract: A conceptual framework and supporting research findings are presented which are intended to contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between moral judgment and moral action. A transactional model, based in part upon the earlier work of Piaget, is outlined. Within this framework, the outcome of moral deliberation is viewed as the joint product of an individual's current level of cognitive complexity and the structural complexity of the moral dilemma which he or she must arbitrate. In this context cognitive development level is assumed to predict concrete behavioral choices whenever individuals are at least as complex as are the moral alternatives which confront them.In order to test this hypothesis, children at three levels of conceptual maturity were presented with six dilemmas, representing all pairwise combinations of rituals, rules and principles, and were required to formulate specific plans of action to resolve these conflicts. The results are consistent with the hypothesis and show a...

An Examination of Kohlberg's Cognitive-Developmental Model of Morality

Abstract: This paper examines certain features of Kohlberg's cognitive-developmental model of morality. Questions are raised concerning the notion that “mature” moral decisions (judgments) ultimately derive from the capacity for principled moral reasoning.

Moral Dilemmas and Moral Education

Abstract: A major focus of recent social studies instruction is the area of moral education, and among the most prominent approaches to moral education is the one associated with Lawrence Kohlberg. This article suggests that, even if Kohlberg is correct in his claim that practice with the resolution of moral dilemmas will catalyze moral growth, there remain serious problems with a moral education program built around the analysis of pre-designed moral dilemmas.