Universality and Variation in Moral Judgment: A Longitudinal and Cross-Sectional Study in Turkey

Abstract

NISAN, MORDECAI, and KOHLBERG, LAWRENCE. Universality and Variation in Moral Judgment: A Longitudinal and Cross-sectional Study in Turkey. CHID DEVELOPMENT, 1982, 53, 865-876. A longitudinal and cross-sectional study of moral judgment development in Turkey is described. Rural and city subjects aged 10 through 28 were individually interviewed on Kohlberg's moral dilemmas. The responses were analyzed using a new manual, which calls for matching responses to criteria judgments. The results support the claim for structural universality in moral judgment: the Turkish responses fitted the moral judgment stages and exhibited the claimed sequence in both the longitudinal and the cross-sectional studies. The study also showed several aspects of variation in moral judgment. Village subjects showed a slower rate of development than city subjects. Beyond the age of 16 all the village subjects showed some conventional judgment; however, they seemed to stabilize at stage 3. Independent of stage level, the village subjects tended to justify their moral decisions mainly in the normfollowing and utilitarian modes, while city subjects (in the older group) showed a tendency to use deontological and perfectionistic justifications.