Judging the important issues in moral dilemmas: An objective measure of development.

Abstract

Using Kohlberg's moral stages, statements were written to exemplify stage characteristics. Subjects were asked to select the statement defining the most important issue in a moral dilemma. The importance attributed to principled (Stages 5 and 6) moral statements (the P score) evidenced developmental trends: The P score differentiated student groups of varied advancement-junior high, senior high, college, and graduate students (F > 48.5); P correlated in the .60s with age, comprehension of social-moral concepts, and Kohlberg's scale-and less so but significantly with IQ. The way subjects chose important issues was not only an intellectual skill but also value related: P correlated in the .60s with attitude measures. A second student sample and an adult sample provided replications. Test-retest correlation of the P score was .81. The methodological advantages of an objective moral judgment measure were discussed.

Alchemy and beyond: Indexing the Defining Issues Test.

“…The P -Stage 4 index in effect isolates the shift between Stage 4 and principled morality by increasing the score for gains in P at the expense of Stage 4. In the Rest et al (1974) data, the P -Stage 4 score is even more strongly correlated with law and order than either N2 or P: r = -.65 (contrasted to -.53 or -.58). However, the P -Stage 4 index is not a good general index of development, for instance, as manifest in its correlation with moral comprehension (r = .58 compared with .69 with N2).…”

“…Moreover, the other statistical comparisons of PStage 4 in other criteria and samples also show this index to be a poorer general index in comparison with N2 or P. Nevertheless, the pattern of results supports the broadness-narrowness explanation as to why N2 generally outperforms the P index but not in the case of correlations with law and order. Table 7 presents Cronbach's alpha on the two indexes from two heterogeneous samples, the 1995 composite sample and the 1979 composite sample, each with about 7 On the short form, the comparable correlations with moral comprehension in the Rest et al (1974) study are P at .68 and N2 at .67-about the same as for the long form. In the Rest (1986) study, the correlations are P at .31 and N2 at.…”

“…One data set comes from the Rest, Cooper, Coder, Masanz, and Anderson (1974) study. This is a sample of 140 participants (after elimination of incomplete data), composed of four educational groups: junior high, senior high, college, and graduate students.…”

Matching Traffic Safety Strategies to Youth Characteristics: A Literature Review of Cognitive Development

“…Measures found to correlate with DIT scores included intelligence quotient (IQ), aptitude, and achievement. Rest, et al (1974) found that subjects' DIT scores were related to other measures usually assumed to correlate with development (Kohlberg's measure of moral judgment development, comprehension of socio-moral concepts test, and the Differential Abilities Test). They concluded that as subjects develop cognitively they come to define moral dilemmas in a more complex way and to place greater importance on principled moral thinking than do less cognitively advanced subjects.…”

“…However, efforts to measure traits such as honesty, responsibility, obedience, and courage with any precision or reliability have been unsuccessful and these traits have not been useful in predicting behavior from one situation to another later in life (Turiel, 1973). In contrast, there is considerable evidence that cognitive development is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the development of moral reasoning (e.g., Rest, Cooper, Coder, Masanz, & Anderson, 1974;Tomlinson-Keasey & Keasey, 1974;Walker, 1980). Walker (1980), for example, studied 146 fourth through seventh grade children to assess cognitive development and perspective-taking functioning.…”