Previous findings indicating a relationship between moral reasoning and political orientation have been interpreted in cognitive-developmental terms as reflecting the influence of the level of moral maturity on political attitudes. The present study investigates the alternative possibility that individual differences in adult moral reasoning reflect differences in content of politico-moral idealogy. Students, denning themselves politically as left wing, moderate, or right wing, completed a measure of moral reasoning (Rest's, 1975, Defining Issues Test), once from their own perspective and once from the point of view of either a conservative or a radical. Leftwingers achieved significantly higher scores on principled moral reasoning than did the other two groups. However, both right-wing and moderate students significantly increased their principled-reasoning scores if they responded as a radical. Results support the view that variations in adult moral reasoning are a function of political position rather than developmental status.Relationships between political attitudes and moral reasoning have been reported in a number of investigations (e.g.,
A scale was developed to assess attitudes towards formal authority in the school and in the public domain (police and law). Data derived from a sample of young adolescents (13 years) indicated that attitudes towards authority in these two domains were highly rated (r = 0.57, P less than 0.001). Factor analysis yielded four interpretable factors--alienation from the institutional system, belief in the absolute priority of rules, perception of the bias vs. impartiality of authorities, and personal relationship to school life--accounting for 47.6, 13.9, 9.3 and 8.0 per cent of common variance respectively. Both overall attitude scores and factor scores were significantly related to self-reported delinquencies. Finally, covariance analysis of the results indicated that the attitude variable accounted for a substantial proportion of the sex difference in delinquency.
Children aged 7 to 12 and drawn from contrasting social backgrounds made estimates of the incomes of people in different occupations and made judgements about the fairness of income differences. Middle‐class children, as compared to working‐class children, not only made higher overall estimates of income for all the occupations considered but also perceived a greater spread in incomes and a clearer division between manual and non‐manual occupations. Irrespective of their own social class background, a majority of children regarded differences in income as justified on grounds of equity. However, the middle‐class children appeared to possess a more extensive rationale for inequality and to be more committed to it. They also seemed more sensitive to other consequences of income differences. The results are discussed in terms of alternative theories of socio‐cognitive development.
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