This study investigates the relationship between intellectual development and moral development in order to provide additional descriptions of the relationship based on a Piagetian type conservation task and a Piagetian type paired-story situation involving intentional behaviors and final outcomes. (JH)

This study investigated children's conceptions of death from a developmental perspective. Subjects were 170 children from grades K-4. Children were tested for conservation and interviewed, following story presentations about an elderly woman's death, to assess their understanding of three concepts concerning death: irrevocability, cessation of…

This study tested the hypothesis that objective and subjective responsibility responses in moral judgment may be formally equal forms of cognitive organization. Results showed that subjects acting as offenders gave subjective responsibility responses; the same subjects acting as offended gave objective responsibility responses. Thus, subjects'…

Reports an attempt to test two interpretations of immanent justice responses as causal attributions rather than as moral judgments. Finds older children use causal chains to explain contiguity between misdeed and adversity. Data were interpreted as consistent with an information-processing model of immanent justice responses. (RMH)

Sixty subjects were identified from two grade levels (second and fifth), in elementary schools in Iowa and in Jordan. Cognitive and moral judgment tasks were administered to each subject. The cognitive tasks measured conservation, class inclusion, multiplicative classification, and spatial perception. The moral judgment tasks presented situations…

Cross-lagged correlational analyses and multiple-regression analyses of the data collected in these two studies supports the causal model that, while intentionality and internality both emerge when a common cognitive construct develops, heightened internality also significantly enhances a child's ability to learn intentionality. (Author/JMB)

This study examined effects of interpersonal and intrapersonal cognitive conflict tasks on 54 fifth and 18 seventh grade children's sociomoral rule awareness. Preconventional stage children 9 years of age were paired in same-sex dyads with 9- and 11-year-old children intermediate between preconventional and conventional stage reasoning. Six legal…

The purpose of this study was to examine possible relationships between moral and cognitive development in second- and fifth-grade children. Sixty children were used in the study. Levels of cognitive development were evaluated using four learning tasks and moral development was assessed by presenting four conflicting situations to each subject for…

Middle school students (N=25) with exceptional educational needs were matched with regular students and assessed for their level of moral reasoning using the Objective Assessment of Moral Development. Results indicate exceptional students select types of reasoning typical of younger children, and become less like their peers with age. (RC)

Pairs of elementary school children at different concept development levels were given problems to discuss, in order to examine the prediction, derived from the equilibration model, that when two children holding different beliefs must arrive at a consenus, the child possessing the higher level of cognitive development will prevail over the child…

Examined the moral and ecological reasoning of second, fifth, and eighth graders regarding the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Found that children understood negative effects of the spill, cared that harm occurred to shoreline and marine life, and thought it violated a moral obligation. Fifth and eighth graders used a greater proportion of anthropocentric…

Examined Korean first, third, and fifth graders' judgments about authority commands regarding moral events. Found that children judged that a principal, teacher, class president, and child without an authority position have legitimacy and should be obeyed when giving morally right directives. Children gave greater legitimacy to persons giving…

This booklet provides an overview of stages and levels of cognitive development. Particular attention is given to language skills, the growth of understanding and memory, levels of thinking, altruism, and conscience. The importance of parents' influence on the development of their child's thinking abilities is emphasized. Nine resources that…

Two classrooms of first graders (n-40) were administered Damon's moral judgment measure, Spivack and Shure's social problems solving measure and Stanford-Binet vocabulary. Concurrently, two observers recorded in the children's school environment incidences of successful resolutions of interactions, amount of derogation, and the number of times a…