This paper explores the issue of sex bias in a contemporary major theory of moral development, cognitive moral theory. It explains critical reactions by Carol Gilligan and others questioning whether cognitive moral theory adequately accounts for female moral reasoning and behavior in its theory and research procedures. Several general…

A total of 96 students (16 males and 16 females, chosen randomly from each of the first, fourth, and seventh grades of a grade school and a middle school,) allocated rewards in response to stimuli representing pairs of children differing in work output and effort. Stimulus materials consisted of: (1) a booklet containing nine drawings representing…

Fifty school administrators completed Rest's Defining Issues Test (DIT) and Patterson's Moral Action Choice Test (MACT) as part of a study to determine how Kohlberg's theory of moral development might apply to day-to-day administrative decision-making. The respondents were presented with hypothetical moral dilemmas and asked to explain what they…

This study examined whether male and female adolescents have equal facility in using a response orientation and a rights orientation in solving moral problems. A person using a response orientation in discussing moral dilemmas considers the moral problem as issues of relationships or of response, i.e., how to respond to others in their particular…

A pertinent problem in the area of moral development is whether most people can distinguish moral from conventional issues. Some research has shown children and adolescents consider moral (intrinsic) transgressions more serious than violations of convention. To expand this research by examining in detail the role of intrinsicality in moral…

Tested Gilligan's (1982) claim that men and women differ in moral judgments. College students read four traditional moral dilemmas and rated the importance of 12 considerations for deciding how the protagonist should respond. There were no reliable sex differences on moral reasoning. Sex-typed personality measures also failed to predict individual…

Black and White college students (N=232) were given either the Defining Issues Test (DIT) or a revised DIT in which the protagonists were Black. Racial manipulation did not appear to affect the emotional distance of White subjects from the dilemmas; emotional responses of Black participants were more intense and stressful when the dilemma…

Three experiments investigated five- and 10-year-old children's understanding of the conditions under which a person becomes committed to carrying out an intended action. Findings indicated that, although children from a very early age have the concept of commmitment, the understanding of the interpersonal conditions for becoming committed…

Discusses nature and complexity, meaning, and function of values, their presence in the family therapist in the family treatment, and consequences for treatment of the interplay between those two value systems. A brief conceptualization of values is offered and vignettes illustrate the theoretical and methodological issues raised. (Author)

Reviews the work of Iris Murdoch, a moral philosopher who maintains that the work of moral education is the recognition of the phenomenology of inner moral experience and the struggle to express it. Shows how important this view of the inner meaning of moral experience, often expressed as metaphor, is to identity, culture, and education.…

A recognition measure of Kohlbergian moral reasoning, developed on the basis of a production measure, was psychometrically evaluated. Results showed that the Sociomoral Reflection Objective Measure has acceptable concurrent validity and high levels of test-retest reliability and internal consistency. (Author/CI)

Tests 4- to 12-year-old children's use of the verb "lying" and their moral judgment of true and false assertions. Stories that produced either a false statement despite truthful intentions or a true statement despite deceptive intentions were used. (Author/CI)

Two studies examined children's inferences of personality for actors engaging in different domains of behavior. In both studies, first, fourth, and seventh graders were given two descriptions of actors engaging in either moral or conventional transgressions. Findings indicated that children's concepts of persons were inferred from information…

Videotaped stories depicting deliberate lies and unintentionally untrue statements were presented to 200 subjects evenly divided into the following age groups: 5, 8, 9, 11 years, and adult. Definitions of lying were seen to change gradually over this age range. (Author/RH)

Results indicate that preschool children are capable of making moral judgments in both apology-restitution and guilt-innocence test contexts. Age and sex are significantly related to both moral judgment measures, while intelligence and parent occupation are unrelated to both measures. (Author/RH)