An Ecological Validation of Social Cognitive Development

Abstract

ENRIGHT, ROBERT D., and SUTTERFIELD, SARA J. An Ecological Validation of Social Cognitive Development. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1980, 51, 156-161. 2 classrooms of first graders (N = 40) were administered Damon's moral judgment measure, Shure and Spivack's social problem solving measure, and the Stanford-Binet vocabulary. Concurrently, 2 observers recorded in the children's school environment incidences of successful resolutions of interactions, amount of derogation, and the number of times a child was approached by peers. A positive relationship was predicted between moral development and frequency of success, proportion of success, and amount of times the child was approached by others. Negative relationships were predicted between morality and frequency of unsuccessful responses, proportion of such responses, and derogation. The same predictions were made for social problem solving and the behavioral variables. Vocabulary was the discriminant cognitive variable, thus no relationship to behavior was predicted. Results confirmed the positive relationship of the moral variable with proportion of successes and amount of time S was approached by peers. Further, the predicted negative relationship between the moral variable and proportion of unsuccessful outcomes held. When vocabulary was partialled out, these relationships did not hold for social problem solving reasoning. As expected, vocabulary did not relate to competent social behavior. The results support moral judgment as an ecologically valid social cognitive construct.