College students and Peace Corps volunteers were assigned to a typology of moral reasoning according to their responses to the Kohlberg Moral Judgment Scale. Differences among 5 moral types in family-social background, self-and ideal descriptions, and descriptions of mother and father were analyzed. In general, 5s of principled moral reasoning, as contrasted with the conventionally moral, were more active in political-social matters, particularly in protest; their views on current issues were more discrepant from their parents who themselves were politically liberal; their self-and ideal conceptualizations emphasized interpersonal reactivity and obligation, self-expressiveness, and a willingness to live in opposition. Perceptions of parental relationships suggest that little conflict or separation occurred in the families of the conventionally moral with more in those of the principled.

Dimensions of personality, based on Q-sorted descriptions at seven points in time over a 50-year period and derived from a three-way component analysis, are described for a core sample of 118 subjects and two additional childhood samples of 99 and 108 subjects that partially overlap with the core sample. Stability and change in personality are described between adjacent periods and across a substantial segment of the life span from early childhood to late adulthood. These descriptions do not seem consistent with various explanations that personality develops either by stages or by steady gradual accumulation, or that it results from early effects. Instead, some aspects of personality shifted in level and correlational stability at particular intervals in time and according to sex of participants; other aspects were comparatively stable, irrespective of time interval and sex of participants. We suggest that the development of personality and achievement-based variables is not alike. Instead, personality development appears to be considerably more innovative and responsive-that is, more adaptive.

No abstract

A model of ego functioning that includes both coping and defense mechanisms is described and its use is demonstrated in a study that reports the relationships of ego functioning to absolute intelligence and to IQ change from early adolescence to middle adulthood. The ego mechanism measures were developed from ratings of extensive interviews of the adult sample of the Oakland Growth Study. IQ change measures were derived from the Terman Group Test and results are reported for change in the total intelligence score as well as in the arithmetic and the verbal scores. Sex differences, social class, and sex role typing are likewise considered. The general results suggest that coping is related to, and presumably leads to, IQ acceleration and defense to IQ deceleration.

Six adolescent friendship groups (total N -56), each group being sexually heterogeneous but all black or white and all of lower or middle socioeconomic status, participated in moral games in an investigation of moral action constructed according to two different formulations. Kohlberg's theory of formal moral judgment, which is viewed as a process of deducing logical moral solutions from imperative rules, was contrasted with an interpersonal formulation that posits that moral solutions are achieved through dialogues that strive for balanced agreements among participants. Analyses focused on relationships between interview-based moral thought, action in the moral games, the coordination of action by coping and defensive processes used in these moral games, and changes in the level of thought after the game experiences. Although the levels of both the Kohlberg and interpersonal scores fluctuated between games, the interpersonal scores were more stable than the formal scores, particularly in stressful games. Black adolescents had higher interpersonal than formal levels; whites reversed this pattern. All participants used interpersonal more frequently than formal reasoning in the action situations. Predictions of action from test levels were markedly improved for the interpersonal moral scores when ego processing was taken into account. After the games the levels of both moral scores increased for the six experimental groups as compared to a control group of an additional 17 teenagers. Social Science and Moral Researchand vigorous involvement of social scientists Moral philosophers' controversies over the in systematic moral research must be based centuries make it prudent for social scientists on alt ernative expectancies that a universal to assume that the nature of the "true" and moralit y exists in some form and that its universal morality is not yet known. Some natur * wil1 be eventually revealed by emempiricists respond to this lacuna by abandon-P incal investigation. At point here is the gening hope that the human social condition has eral daim made ^ the Proponents of the cogdiscoverable moral similarities and by taking ajtive theory of moral development that up relativistic positions. However, the recent Kohlberg's formulation and scoring system identifies a universal morality (Kohlberg, 1969). In practice, the cognitivists' discourse This research was supported by the Hazen Foundaand investigations are supported by two more tion of New Haven, Connecticut