Clutching at straws: Is it time to abandon the moral judgment deficit explanation for delinquency?

Abstract

We respond to the commentary by Brusten, Stams, and Gibbs (2007) on the research by Tarry and Emler (2007), arguing for the appropriateness of key design decisions – studying delinquency as assessed by self‐report in a sample of 12‐ to 15‐year‐old males. We argue that ‘known‐group’ methods for assessing involvement in delinquency, the major alternatives to self‐report, produce divergent results with respect to moral judgment level because these methods are confounded with other influences on moral judgment level, in particular education.