Early studies of moral judgement described young children's thought as undifferentiated and oriented toward external festures of transgressions. However, more recent evidence suggests that young children distinguish between domains of social transgression and justify moral judgements with reference to the transgression itself, rather than to external features such as rules, authority directives, or sanctions. The present study hypothesized a possible explanation for this discrepancy: that undifferentiated reasoning occurs with the use of unfamiliar stimulus events or stimulus events not clearly differentiated with respect to social domain. Sixty-one 6-, 8-, and 10-year-olds were interviewed about four types of social transgression: familiar moral, unfamiliar moral, familiar conventional, and unfamiliar conventional. Assessments were made of several dimensions of judgement hypothesized to be criteria1 for the differentiation of social domains; responses were also analysed for types of justification used. For familiar stimuli all age groups showed a differentiated understanding of moral and conventional issues, both in judgement and in justification. Younger subjects showed less differentiation in judgement than older subjects when stimuli were unfamiliar. Age differences were also found in the types of justification given, both for familiar and for unfamiliar moral issues. The findings indicate that stimulus familiarity is a more significant factor in the moral reasoning of younger than of older children.
A thought-provoking examination of how explanations of social and moral development inform our understandings of morality and culture. A common theme in the latter part of the twentieth century has been to lament the moral state of American society and the decline of morality among youth. A sharp turn toward an extreme form of individualism and a lack of concern for community involvement and civic participation are often blamed for the moral crisis. Turiel challenges these views, drawing on a large body of research from developmental psychology, anthropology, sociology as well as social events, political movements, and journalistic accounts of social and political struggles. Turiel shows that generation after generation has lamented the decline of society and blamed young people. Using historical accounts, he persuasively argues that such characterizations of moral decline entail stereotyping, nostalgia for times past, and a failure to recognize the moral viewpoint of those who challenge traditions.
2 developmental propositions of Kohlberg's theory of moral judgments were tested: (a) that the stages form an invariant sequence, and, thus, more learning results from exposure to the stage directly above one's level than to stages further above; (b) that passage from 1 stage to the next involves integration of the previous stages, and, thus, more learning results from exposure to the stage directly above than to the stage 1 below. First, Ss' stages were determined in a pretest. 44 Ss of Kohlberg's Stages 2, 3, and 4 were equally distributed among 3 experimental groups and 1 control group. In the treatment conditions, Ss were exposed to either the stage 1 below, 1 above, or 2 above the initial dominant stage. The control group was not administered a treatment condition. In a posttest the influence of the treatment conditions was assessed. The results confirmed the hypotheses since exposure to the stage directly above was the most effective treatment.
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