Scholars in the helping professions have become increasingly concerned with how the fruits of their labor can promote social justice (e.g., Vera & Speight, 2003; Swank & Fahs, 2013, North, 2009). At present, there is a lack of theoretical convergence around what social justice consciousness, aptitude, awareness, or orientation actually…

Major psychological theories of morality and motivation make the assumption that an inverse relationship exists between guilt and satisfaction. To the extent that feelings of guilt are linked to a particular motivational or moral stance, it is assumed that feelings of satisfaction are unlikely also be linked to that stance. Empirical findings in…

Comprehension of moral reasoning is important both for successful moral education and for Kohlbergian claims that moral reasoning development is cognitive in nature. Because a psychometrically appropriate moral comprehension instrument does not appear to exist, the Moral Comprehension Questionnaire (MCQ) was constructed in Study 1 and displayed…

Differing findings exist on how Defining Issues Test (DIT) scores relate to intelligence. Further study is needed in order to address aspects of intellect not previously considered and to address how these relationships rival studies that have compared indices of intellect with constructs similar to DIT scores. In the present study, a sample of…

Students (N=178) judged the adequacy of reasons presented in stage prototypic responses to moral dilemmas to provide a profile of the frequency and strength with which students rejected early stage reasons. Data indicated definite age trends in rejecting lower-stage reasoning. Higher-stage items produced no significant age differences. (RC)

This study investigated the interrelationships among the development of role-taking skills, moral judgments, and sharing behavior of boys and girls in K-3. A total of 160 lower middle class white children (20 boys and 20 girls from each grade) participated in the study. Data were collected on four measures: (1) sharing candy with a friend, (2)…

Correlates 46 Dutch high school students' attitudes toward nuclear war, sexism, ethnocentrism, and authoritarianism with their moral judgment level. Finds political attitudes related to moral judgment level. Qualitative data was obtained from interviews with 19 of the 46 students further develops the relationships. (CH)

The Defining Issues Test (DIT) has been subjected to construct validation in a number of studies relating it to the development of moral judgment and to measures of cognitive development and political attitudes. The DIT has been found to have significant positive correlations with the Comprehension of Social-Moral Concepts Test for a variety of…

Six papers, originally presented in different form at the 1977 Convention of the Society for Research in Child Development, highlight approximately 100 studies that have used the Defining Issues Test (DIT) of moral judgment. The DIT's standardized format and objective scoring makes comparisons possible among studies, and this body of research…