Showing papers on "Social cognitive theory of morality published in 1982"
769 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the connections between philosophy/history and moral philosophy/theology are discussed, and a new final chapter has been added which elaborates on the connection between philosophy and history.
Abstract: First published in 1981this edition has a new final chapter which elaborates on the connections between philosophy/history and moral philosophy/theology.
167 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine how children acquire a sense of right and wrong from their interactions with two major agents of socialization (parents and peers) and draw several conclusions about the ways in which parents affect children's moral character.
130 citations
TL;DR: The authors used the Chinese culture as an example to underline the culturally specific contextual problems regarding Kohlberg's theory of moral development and to point to a new direction for cross-cultural research in this area.
109 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: A review of what is known and what is not known about comparative ethics can be found in this article, where the authors discuss the ideas and concepts associated with moral thinking in normal (non-sociopathic) Western adults.
Abstract: This essay is a review of what is known and what is not known about three is sues in comparative ethics: (a) What are the ideas and concepts associated with moral thinking in normal (non-sociopathic) Western adults? (b) What are the processes resulting in a judgment that something is a vice or a virtue? and (c) Are those ideas, concepts, and processes available in different cultures and at different ages?
106 citations
TL;DR: Empathy and guilt feelings, which develop naturally under ordinary conditions, may be significant affects underlying moral action as mentioned in this paper, which may explain why empathy and guilt can affect moral action.
Abstract: Empathy and guilt feelings, which develop naturally under ordinary conditions, may be significant affects underlying moral action.
89 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compared the moral reasoning of interacting groups and the reasoning of individual members of the group using the defining issues test (DIT) of moral judgement development, and found that interacting groups reason at a significantly higher level, as measured by the DIT, than the average of the members of groups.
Abstract: The article presents a study which compared the moral reasoning of interacting groups and the reasoning of individual members of the group using the defining issues test (DIT) of moral judgement development. The results showed that interacting groups reason at a significantly higher level, as measured by the DIT, than the average of the members of the groups. Although the results are interesting and perhaps promising, at this stage they are subject to limitations. Thus, additional research on the issue seems justified.
87 citations
TL;DR: The authors showed that people of all ages distinguish between those actions (moral) having an intrinsic effect upon the rights or well-being of others and actions (social conventional) whose propriety is determined by the societal context (i.e., implicit or explicit societal norms).
Abstract: This article reviews recent research and related theory indicating that individuals’ conceptions of social convention and morality are constructed with in distinct developmental systems emerging out of qualitatively differing environmental interactions. The research indicates that people of all ages distinguish between those actions (moral) having an intrinsic effect upon the rights or well-being of others, and actions (social conventional) whose propriety is determined by the societal context (i.e., implicit or explicit societal norms). In addition, the research demonstrates that concepts about morality and convention follow independent and distinct developmental patterns.The article discusses the limits of current values education programs (e.g., Kohlbergian, values clarification) in terms of their failure to coordinate the teaching of social values with students’ differential conceptions of morality and convention.In addition, the article presents implications for classroom management procedures, the d...
75 citations
TL;DR: In response to major social changes, the social work profession's moral philosophy and mission have become fragmented and weakened, and some social workers are being charged as "immoral" as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In response to major social changes, the social work profession's moral philosophy and mission have become fragmented and weakened. Some social workers are being charged as "immoral." Official positions taken by professional organizations on certain moral issues are controversial and express a libertarian morality that is open to question and criticism. It is suggested that this whole subject merits open dialogue, that the profession's moral philosophy be reformulated and tested in practice, and that the study of social work philosophy and ethics be reestablished in the basic social work educational curriculum.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the effect of age and order of information presentation on children's moral judgments in a set of 9 single stories which orthogonally combined three levels of intentions with three levelsof consequences and which varied with respect to the order in which the intention and consequence information was presented.
Abstract: GRUENEICH, ROYAL. The Development of Children's Integration Rules for Making Moral Judgments. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1982, 53, 887-894. The information integration approach was used to investigate the effects of age and order of information presentation on children's moral judgments. Thirdand sixth-grade children rated a set of 9 single stories which orthogonally combined 3 levels of intentions with 3 levels of consequences and which varied with respect to the order in which the intention and consequence information was presented. The children also made choices for 3 story pairs which varied in terms of the order of presentation of intention and consequence information. Order affected the children's single-story ratings, and it had striking effects on the story-pair choices of the third graders, though it had no effect on the sixth graders' choices. Analysis of individual children's integration rules indicated a developmental trend toward increasing integration of both intention and consequence information into judgments. Children's integration rules were not affected by order. The results highlight the weaknesses of the story-pair procedure, indicate the need to control for order effects and to analyze individual as well as group data, and demonstrate the power of the information integration approach to deal with important methodological and conceptual issues in this area of research.
TL;DR: In this article, the concepts of intention and consequence information are described in terms of a set of features which are organized and interrelated in specific ways, and guidelines are prescribed for dealing with memory by either assessing its effect on judgments or controlling for its influence.
Abstract: GRUENEICH, ROYAL. Issues in the Developmental Study of How Children Use Intention and Consequence Information to Make Moral Evaluation. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1982, 53, 29-43. Although Piaget's seminal work on children's use of intention and consequence information to make moral evaluations has spawned a substantial amount of subsequent research, progress in this area has been hampered by serious conceptual and methodological problems. 1 serious limitation is that research has not provided a sufficiently complex account of the structure of intention and consequence information. The paper attempts to remedy this deficiency by describing the concepts of intentions and consequences in terms of a set of features which are organized and interrelated in specific ways. The research has also suffered from the inability to separate the impact of moral as opposed to cognitive factors on children's judgments. One such problem is that stimulus stories often do not adequately represent intention and consequence information. It is suggested that use of the story-grammar analysis, which has been designed to analyze the structure of simple stories, can help alleviate problems associated with stimulus construction. Another problem concerns the existence of developmental differences in children's memory for explicit story information. Guidelines are prescribed for dealing with memory by either assessing its effect on judgments or controlling for its influence. A final problem which is discussed concerns children's comprehension or understanding of story information. Since children of different ages may form different interpretations of a story, it is essential to make an explicit assessment of comprehension and determine how this factor is related to judgments. Procedures which may accomplish this goal are discussed.
TL;DR: The utility of using situation-specific moral dilemmas when assessing moral reasoning, and the possible role that lack of sexual experience plays in inhibiting sexual moral development are discussed.
Abstract: Two studies are described in which the relations between sexual experience, sex guilt, and sexual moral reasoning were examined. Subjects were asked to articulate their opinions on each of six sexual activities, and then choose one of six statements (corresponding to Kohlberg's six stages of reasoning) that most clearly reflected why they had, or had not, engaged in three of those activities. An analysis of the moral reasoning present in each of the six articulated responses indicated that level of reasoning was inversely related to sex guilt. Analysis of the preference data indicated that subjects endorsed reasoning (statements) at a higher stage than they had articulated, and that this “gap” between articulation and preference was much greater for less experienced subjects. Results are discussed in terms of the utility of using situation-specific moral dilemmas when assessing moral reasoning, and in terms of the possible role that lack of sexual experience plays in inhibiting sexual moral development.
TL;DR: The authors investigated the relationship between tolerance and moral reasoning among adolescents in Northern Ireland and in the Irish Republic, finding that those who understood the principled level of moral reasoning would be more tolerant than those who reasoned predominantly at the conventional level.
Abstract: This research was undertaken in order to investigate the relationship between tolerance and moral reasoning among adolescents in Northern Ireland and in the Irish Republic. A study of Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development led to the expectation that individuals who understood the ‘principled’ level of moral reasoning would be more tolerant than those who reasoned predominantly at the ‘conventional’ level. The subjects of this research, all senior students, completed a questionnaire which furnished data on their level of moral reasoning, their tolerance of outgroups, and in addition, on selected personal, demographic and educational variables expected to be associated with moral reasoning and tolerance. The findings supported the hypothesis that students who reasoned at a ‘principled’ level of moral reasoning would be more tolerant than those who reasoned predominantly at the ‘conventional’ level. Also, as expected, students’ participation in discussion of controversial political, social...
TL;DR: The relationship among the first stages of cognitive development, role-taking abilities, and moral development was investigated in this article, where 51 children, aged 5-14, were given tests designed to assess their stages.
Abstract: KREBS, DENNIS, and GILLMORE, JANET. The Relationship among the First Stages of Cognitive Development, Role-taking Abilities, and Moral Development. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1982, 53, 877-886. 51 children, aged 5-14, were given tests designed to assess their stages of cognitive development, role-taking ability, and moral development. 2 theoretical accounts of the relationship among development in the 3 domains were considered. The results tended to support Kohlberg's claim that cognitive development is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the development of role-taking ability but not his claim that particular stages of cognitive development and role taking are necessary for isomorphic stages of moral development. It was concluded that either the isomorphic stage alignments for moral development outlined by Kohlberg and his colleagues are off by 3 stage, or there are circumstances in which children may acquire the ability to apply principles of logic to social and moral issues before they acquire the ability to apply these principles to issues in the physical domain.
TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that the assumption that moral stage relates equivalently to all forms of criminal behaviour is incompatible with cognitive-developmental theory as elaborated by Kohlberg since the theory implies that developmentally primitive moralities will be associated with delinquent behaviour only to the extent that the behaviour in question is differently evaluated at the different moral stages.
Abstract: Many studies have investigated the relationship of Kohlberg's stages of moral reasoning to criminal behaviour, the consensual finding being that known delinquents tend to use less advanced forms of moral reasoning than control subjects. An assumption common to the majority of these studies is that moral stage relates equivalently to all forms of criminal behaviour. It is argued that this assumption is incompatible with cognitive-developmental theory as elaborated by Kohlberg since the theory implies that developmentally primitive moralities will be associated with delinquent behaviour only to the extent that the behaviour in question is differently evaluated at the different moral stages. On this basis it is hypothesized that preconventional moral reasoning will be associated only with crimes in which the offenders believe they have a good chance of evading punishment. In support of this hypothesis prisoners whose current offence is of this type are shown to use more preconventional moral judgement than either other offenders or non-offenders. Various possible alternative explanations of this finding are discussed.
TL;DR: In this article, a study was conducted to examine the nature of moral problems as formulated by gifted adolescents, who were asked to generate stories involving a moral problem and to provide a solution.
Abstract: A study was conducted to examine the nature of moral problems as formulated by gifted adolescents. Subjects from Grades 9‐12 were asked to generate stories involving a moral problem and to provide a solution. As in Kohlberg's moral dilemmas, students depicted a central protagonist as well as a definite subsidiary character. There was a significant relationship between the sex of the student and the sex of the protagonist. The protagonist and subsidiary characters were approximate to the age of the subject. Half (53 per cent) of the moral problems involved friendship or a love relationship between the protagonist and the subsidiary character. Most subjects (92 per cent) were able to give guidelines for a solution to their moral problem. Solutions to moral problems were categorized as indicating primarily either a personal (focus on self) or social (focus on group or society at large) perspective. The majority (55 per cent) of subjects gave solutions based on a social perspective, while 45 per cent...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that business managers are accountable to the combined requirements of professionalism and democratic citizenship, notions which are briefly described at the conclusion of the paper and are rejected by a reductio ad absurdum argument; it entails the immunity of all professional activities from moral judgment.
Abstract: ‘Moral Sanctuary’ is used in this paper as a metaphor for any theory which makes actions immune from moral criticism. Three arguments favoring moral sanctuaries for business activities are countered. Two of the arguments rest on faulty analogies. One compares business activities to games, another to the behavior of machines. The third rests on the claim that business is a unique activity. This position is rejected by a reductio ad absurdum argument; it entails the immunity of all professional activities from moral judgment. I argue that business managers are accountable to the combined requirements of professionalism and democratic citizenship, notions which are briefly described at the conclusion of the paper.
TL;DR: For example, the authors suggests that human interests can be generalized as reproductive, involving activities by individuals that tend to promote the survival of their individualized sets of genes; that ethical, moral and legal questions arise out of conflicts of interest that exist because of our history of genetic differences; and that human behavior probably always involves egoistic tendencies and moral inconsistency.
Abstract: Considerations from biology suggest (1) that human interests can be generalized as reproductive, involving activities by individuals that tend to promote the survival of their individualized sets of genes; (2) that ethical, moral and legal questions arise out of conflicts of interest that exist because of our history of genetic differences; (3) that human behavior probably always involves egoistic tendencies and moral inconsistency; (4) that the stages of moral development described by social scientists correspond to the patterns of life effort discussed by biologists; (5) that the idealized moral systems of philosophy and religion have been developed as models that are promoted in others but not (or more than) in one's self; and (6) that what are usually seen as the closest approaches to these idealized models are the sources of our most severe problems because they involve between-group competition and strife.
TL;DR: Meta-ethics, as traditionally conceived, is an attempt to elucidate the meaning of moral concepts or terms, to specify the logical status of moral utterances and to characterize the structure of moral reasoning.
Abstract: Meta-ethics, as traditionally conceived, is an attempt to elucidate the meaning of moral concepts or terms, to specify the logical status of moral utterances and to characterize and elucidate the structure of moral reasoning. In the past decade, there has been a healthy tendency to move away from such stultifying preoccupations on the part of moral philosophers.1 Without sacrificing rigor, a broader understanding of what a responsible doing of moral philosophy might come to has quietly emerged. Even when, as with J. L. Mackie and G. Harman, there is a return to such analytically traditional concerns, it is in a wider and more fruitful context. I shall construe my topic broadly and conceive of meta-ethics as an inquiry into the 'foundations' of morality and into what Rawls has characterized as moral methodology. What I shall say here will be mainly negative. Where, in the latter half of my essay, I do say something more positive concerning wide reflective equi librium (WRE) my remarks are both tentative and extremely ambivalent. But, for the most part, particularly in the first sections, what 1 say will consist of dicta and some arguments about what we cannot do and indeed now should no longer try to do, rather than a positive account giving new directions. In part this is generated by a certain reaction to the work of John Rawls. Like many others, I see it as the most careful, systematic and reflective develop ment of moral theory in our time. It is self-consciously aware of alternatives, profoundly aware of the history of the subject and, in spite of its ubiquitously moderate and almost self-effacing tone, it is a bold work while remaining thoroughly architectonic. Notwithstanding all this sophistication, integrity and years of careful reflection (reflection which was hardly carried on in cultural isolation), it seems to me that the upshot of the extensive and varied criticism that Rawls's work has received is to show that his endeavour fails. Most centrally he has not shown that his two principles of justice can be derived from an original position that has not already been so skewed as tendentiously and question-beggingly to produce this result. There can be several, perhaps many, contractarianly conceived original positions from which a variety of quite different principles of justice could be derived. And we have not been shown why we should accept Rawls's characterization of the original position. We have not been given a characterization of the original
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss some recent variations in social learning theory on a theme that moral philosophy has long regarded as a formal feature of moral philosophy. But they do not discuss the relationship between social learning and behaviorist accounts more as capitulations to the opacity of the data than as explanations.
Abstract: Moral psychology divides nicely into three relatively autonomous domains: cognitive-developmental theories of moral judgment, psychoanalytic theories of motivational processes, and social learning theories of moral behaviors and inhibitions. For instance, a well-known review of the literature on moral development opens by correlating these three domains with the romantic view of man as innately perfectible, the reformationist view of man as naturally inclined to evil, and the empiricist conception of the mind as a tabula rasa. Its author, Martin Hoffman, is a prominent social learning theorist, but the same principles of division recur in similar reviews by Lawrence Kohlberg and Jane Loevinger, to name just two major figures in the cognitive-developmental and psychoanalytic traditions, respectively.' Both of these domains have been surveyed in detail by philosophers over the last several years. However, considerably less has been said philosophically about the third one, at least as far as morality is concerned. This is regrettable for many reasons, not the least of which is the dominant position social learning theory holds in present-day American psychology. The neglect is not altogether benign: social learning theory has grown up out of behaviorism, and many philosophers regard behaviorist accounts more as capitulations to the opacity of the data than as explanations. It is to remedy this neglect as well as for the intrinsic interest of the issue that I shall discuss some recent variations in social learning theory on a theme that moral philosophy has long regarded as a formal feature of
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined Piaget's cognitive approach to moral development particularly as it relates to the moral behaviour of young children and found that self-initiated rule violations were significantly but modestly correlated with low cognitive development, rule violations as reactions to others' misconduct correlated substantially with a lack of identification with the mother.
Abstract: This paper examines Piaget's cognitive approach to moral development particularly as it relates to the moral behaviour of young children. Research on moral behaviour and moral reasoning or cognition using measures derived from Piaget's theory has indicated only a weak to moderate correlation between the two. However, it is proposed that the correspondence between some domains of moral behaviour and a type of social ‘hot’ cognition is actually quite considerable. Borrowing from the work of J. M. Baldwin, this cognition consists of thoughts and decisions having a high affective value. These can involve the child's relationships with others and particularly parents. A study is reported in which the rule-violating behaviour of children aged five and six years was observed in a naturalistic situation. While self-initiated rule violations were significantly but modestly correlated with low cognitive development, rule violations as reactions to others' misconduct correlated substantially with a lack of identification with the mother (as indicated by children's verbal responses to questions regarding their relationships with others). The implications of a social-cognitive approach for the study of moral development and behaviour are considered.
TL;DR: In this paper, it has been suggested that altruistic individuals may differ among themselves with respect to so-called "moral endo-/ exocentrism", which refers to the extent to which one's altruistic behaviour is controlled by its anticipated effects on one's own feelings of moral satisfaction, pride, etc.
Abstract: It is proposed that altruistic individuals may differ among themselves with respect to so-called 'moral endo-/ exocentrism'. Moral endocentrism refers to the extent to which one's altruistic behaviour is controlled by its anticipated effects on one's own feelings of moral satisfaction, pride, etc., and moral exocentrism refers to its anticipated effects on a partner's well-being. It has been assumed that, when in a moral dilemma, endocentric altruists tend to focus more on the morality of the self while exocentric ones tend to focus more on a partner in need.