Moral Judgment Interview Research Articles

Moral Text Comprehension: Implications for education and research

Several studies are reviewed that examine differences in moral schema development using techniques intermediate between measuring implicit knowledge (such as with the Defining Issues Test) and explicit knowledge (such as with the Moral Judgment Interview). Findings include significant differences in the comprehension of moral narratives based on age/education and on level of expertise. Also, intended moral themes in stories are not understood by younger children.

The consolidation/transition model in moral reasoning development.

The consolidation/transition model conceptualizes development as entailing a cyclical pattern of alternating consolidation and transition phases and posits that stage advance is predicted by a specific distribution of reasoning across stages indicative of disequilibrium (more reasoning above than below the mode, with a high degree of mixture). The validity of this model was examined in the context of moral reasoning development with the use of standard statistical techniques as well as Bayesian techniques that can better account for classification error. In this longitudinal study. 64 children and adolescents participated in 5 annual administrations of the Moral Judgment Interview. The distribution of their reasoning across stages was used to predict subsequent development. The results support the hypotheses regarding cyclical patterns of change and predictors of stage transition and demonstrate the utility of Bayesian techniques for evaluating developmental change.

Impairments of social cognition and decision making in Alzheimer's disease.

To investigate the nature of deficits in social cognition and real-life decision making in a group of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). A comprehensive neuropsychological and psychiatric assessment, including the Moral Judgment Interview and the Bechara's Card Test, was carried out in 25 patients with AD and 20 age-comparable normal controls. Outpatient clinic. AD patients had significantly lower scores in the Moral Judgment Interview and obtained significantly less earnings in the card test when compared to the normal control group. The Moral Judgment Interview score correlated significantly with Raven's Progressive Matrices and Block Design, whereas the card test correlated significantly with both the Benton Visual Retention Test and the Buschke Selective Reminding Test. No significant correlations were observed between the experimental tasks and the psychiatric variables. AD patients demonstrated significant deficits on tasks assessing social cognition and real-life decision making. These impairments correlated with deficits on specific neuropsychological tasks, but not with behavioral problems frequently found in AD patients.

O significado e medida da competência moral revisitada: um modelo do duplo aspecto da competência moral

O presente artigo enfoca as questões metodológicas envolvidas na mensuração da competência moral, conforme definida por Lawrence Kohlberg. Compara o Moral Judgment Test (MJT) com a entrevista de juízo moral elaborada por Kohlberg (MJI - Moral Judgment Interview) e com o DIT (Defining Issues Test) de James Rest. Os aspectos cognitivo e afetivo são contemplados no MJT de forma a não se confundirem, o que possibilita sua utilização na avaliação de processos de intervenção. Nestas situações pode-se verificar com maior clareza, através do MJT se as mudanças alcançadas referem-se a atitudes ou de fato ao aspecto da competência moral. O papel dos processos educacionais nas famílias, escolas e universidades é valorizado no desenvolvimento da competência moral.

From Substages to Moral Types and Beyond: An Analysis of Core Criteria for Morally Autonomous Judgements

Based on Kohlberg’s typological distinction between heteronomous versus autonomous moral types (Type A vs. B), the study proposes a refined strategy for the assessment of autonomous morality that aims at overcoming methodological ‘aws of Kohlberg’s typological approach. Theoretically, two conceptually crucial criteria of autonomous morality were distinguished: (1) prescriptiveness; and (2) universality of moral reasoning. Empirically, measures of prescriptiveness and universality of moral reasoning were examined to determine whether or not they yield important empirical findings that were associated with the concept of moral types. In a study of 348 German adolescents from grades 9 and 12, both prescriptive and universalised moral reasoning were assessed by two standard probe questions of the Moral Judgment Interview. Both aspects of moral reasoning predicted readiness to take moral responsibility in the context of sociopolitical action. In addition, both measures were moderately correlated with moral stage, largely independent of SES, and unrelated to gender. There was significant longitudinal change towards prescriptive and universalised moral reasoning over a three-year interval. The findings demonstrate that the construct validity of Kohlberg’s approach to the assessment of autonomous morality can be significantly improved by using measures of the prescriptiveness and universality of moral reasoning.

Altruistic moral judgment among older adults.

This study investigated altruistic moral judgment among the elderly, and examined its relationships to demographic and personality variables, self-reported helping, and subjective social integration (the perception that one is integrated into one's social milieu). The moral judgment interview included three stories, each of which contained a moral dilemma. Participants solved each dilemma and gave reasons for their solutions. The moral dilemmas and scoring system emphasized the positive, prosocial aspects of morality, rather than a prohibition-oriented approach. The categories used most often were, in descending order of frequency 1) pragmatic needs-of-others oriented reasons, 2) empathy-based reasons, 3) reasons based on internalized and/or abstract moral principles, and 4) hedonistic reasons. Of the higher levels of moral judgment, only reasoning based on abstract internalized principles had significant positive relationships with self-reported helping, the personality correlates of helping, and with subjective social integration into one's social milieu.

Relations of Peer Acceptance, Friendship Adjustment, and Social Behavior to Moral Reasoning During Early Adolescence

The relations between moral reasoning and six dimensions of peer relationships were examined. Participants were 108 adolescents, age 10 through 13 years, who completed sociometric measures of acceptance, peer behavioral assessment items, a measure to assess the number of their close friendships, a questionnaire on the features of their very best friendship, a measure to assess the frequency of their participation in socializing and agentic activities with close friends, and the Kohlberg moral judgment interview. Results indicated that moral reasoning was related significantly and positively to leadership status, prosocial behaviors (for girls), antisocial behaviors (for boys), number of close friendships, and socializing and agentic activities (for girls). Results also revealed that social behaviors mediate the link between early adolescents’moral reasoning and their peer acceptance as operationalized in terms of leadership status. Results are discussed in terms of the significance of peer relationships in the moral reasoning of early adolescents.

Editor’s Introduction: Moral context and moral self

This article revisits Kohlberg’s cognitive developmental claims that stages of moral judgment, facilitative processes of social perspective-taking, and moral values are commonly identifiable across cultures. Snarey [Snarey, J. (1985). The cross-cultural universality of social-moral development: A critical review of Kohlbergian research. Psychological Bulletin, 97, 202–232] examined Kohlberg’s claims in a survey of 45 cross-cultural studies in 27 countries that used Kohlberg’s dilemma method of stage assessment (the Moral Judgment Interview, MJI [Colby, A., & Kohlberg, L. (1987). The measurement of moral judgment: Vol. 1. Theoretical foundations and research validation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press]). Snarey’s review identified a basic stage trend but also the cultural specificity of Kohlberg’s highest stages. As a remedy, Snarey proposed a culturally inclusive elaboration of the highest stages. Another proposed model [Gibbs, J. C. (2003). Moral development and reality: Beyond the theories of Kohlberg and Hoffman. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage] argued for maturity in the basic moral judgment stage trend. Gibbs’ revisionist model has been associated with an alternative (dilemma-free) assessment method (the Sociomoral Reflection Measure-Short Form, SRM-SF [Gibbs, J. C., Basinger, K. S., & Fuller, D. (1992). Moral maturity: Measuring the development of sociomoral reflection. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum]). Snarey’s and Gibbs’s revisionist models are compared and used as frameworks for interpreting not only the MJI findings but also newer SRM-SF findings from 75 cross-cultural studies conducted in 23 countries. Despite continuing questions for research, multimethod convergence is found for common moral values, basic moral judgment stage development, and related social perspective-taking across cultural groups.

Welcoming Another CMD Instrument — The MES: But Don't Throw out the MJI or DIT Just Yet!

AbstractThis review offers a cautious acceptance of the Multidimensional Ethics Scale (MES) developed by Robin, Gordon, Jordan and Reidenbach. While the contribution of the MES to future empirical research of individuals’ moral reasoning is welcomed, a number of reservations or criticisms are raised regarding theory confusion, instrument confusion, and fears arising when using the MES. I conclude that the MES is a valuable compliment to existing moral reasoning instruments — the Moral Judgment Interview and the Defining Issues Test — but not a replacement of these instruments.

Welcoming Another CMD Instrument—The MES

This review offers a cautious acceptance of the Multidimensional Ethics Scale (MES) developed by Robin, Gordon, Jordan and Reidenbach. While the contribution of the MES to future empirical research of individuals’ moral reasoning is welcomed, a number of reservations or criticisms are raised regarding theory confusion, instrument confusion, and fears arising when using the MES. I conclude that the MES is a valuable compliment to existing moral reasoning instruments — the Moral Judgment Interview and the Defining Issues Test — but not a replacement of these instruments.

Influences upon Managerial Moral Decision Making: Nature of the Harm and Magnitude of Consequences

Business ethics research typically emphasizes the influence of personal and organizational forces upon ethical decision making. While accepting these forces as important, Collins (1989) and Jones (1991) suggest that the moral issue and its intensity may also influence individuals' resolution of an ethical dilemma. Utilizing a sample of 259 managers and a modified Moral Judgment Interview survey, this research reports that the type of harm, that is, the nature or kind of harm, and the magnitude of the consequences, that is, the degree or extent of the harm affecting the victim, influence the moral reasoning criteria evoked to resolve the dilemmas, as predicted by Collins and Jones. This finding has significant theoretical, empirical, and practical implications, as discussed in the paper.

Context and the Measurement of Moral Judgement

This study explored the role of context in moral judgement measurement by addressing a recent contention that moral dilemmas are not essential for the successful assessment of moral judgement. We evaluated a new instrument, the Sociomoral Reflection Measure-Short Form (SRM-SF), that uses contextually open-ended stimuli instead of moral dilemmas. SRM-SF data were collected from 509 male and female subjects, 8 to 81 years of age, including 94 delinquent males. The SRM-SF evidenced acceptable levels of reliability (inter-rater, test-retest, internal consistency) and validity (criterion-related and construct-related). For example, the SRM-SF demonstrated acceptable concurrent validity with the Moral Judgement Interview and discriminated delinquents as developmentally delayed in moral judgement. The SRM-SF was found to be procedurally efficient in terms of group administrability, completion time, self-training for scoring, and scoring. The factor structure of moral judgement as elicited by the SRM-SF was found to be unidimensional. Also, females were found to be more advanced in moral judgement than males in early adolescence, but the difference disappeared in late adolescence and adulthood.

Measuring moral judgment: The Moral Judgment Interview or the Defining Issues Test?

This paper compares and contrasts two distinct techniques for measuring moral judgment: The Moral Judgment Interview and the Defining Issues Test. The theoretical foundations, accompanying advantages and limitations, as well as appropriate usage of these methodologies are discussed. Adaptation and use of the instruments for business ethics research is given special attention.

Coping, defending, and the relations between moral judgment and moral behavior in prostitutes and other female juvenile delinquents.

Twenty female juvenile delinquents who acknowledged engaging in prostitution, 20 juvenile delinquents who denied doing so, and 20 same-age control subjects responded to Colby and Kohlberg's (1987) Moral Judgment Interview (MJI), a moral dilemma about prostitution, and Joffe and Naditch's (1977) test of coping and defending. Delinquents scored lower on moral maturity and coping and higher on defensiveness than nondelinquents. Post hoc analyses revealed that low-coping delinquents (but not high-coping delinquents or control subjects) made significantly lower level moral judgments on the prostitution dilemma than on the less personally relevant MJI dilemmas. Groups did not differ in their prescriptive judgments on the MJI, but prostitutes made weaker judgments against prostitution than the other delinquents. Prescriptive judgments were not related to moral maturity. The results elucidate the relation between moral judgment and moral behavior.

The moral development of medical students: a pilot study of the possible influence of medical education.

Medicine endorses a code of ethics and encourages a high moral character among doctors. This study examines the influence of medical education on the moral reasoning and development of medical students. Kohlberg's Moral Judgment Interview was given to a sample of 20 medical students (41.7% of students in that class). The students were tested at the beginning and at the end of their medical course to determine whether their moral reasoning scores had increased to the same extent as other people who extend their formal education. It was found that normally expected increases in moral reasoning scores did not occur over the 4 years of medical education for these students, suggesting that their educational experience somehow inhibited their moral reasoning ability rather than facilitating it. With a range of moral reasoning scores between 315 and 482, the finding of a mean increase from first year to fourth year of 18.5 points was not statistically significant at the P < or = 0.05 level. Statistical analysis revealed no significant correlations at the P < or = 0.05 level between the moral reasoning scores and age, gender, Medical College Admission Test scores, or grade point average scores. Along with a brief description of Kohlberg's cognitive moral development theory, some interpretations and explanations are given for the findings of the study.

Long-term psychological consequences of childhood frontal lobe lesion in patient DT

Patient DT was examined 26 years after she acquired focal frontal lobe damage at 7 years of age. This report focused on several aspects of psychological outcome, including the empirical study of social development into early adulthood. Standardized measures of empathy, psychosocial development, and personality were analyzed, along with a moral judgment interview and patterns of adult social behavior. Results indicated that DT has a very limited capacity for empathic understanding, inadequate identity development, difficulties in vocational adjustment, and a concrete level of moral reasoning. Her social behavior and profile of test scores suggest that social development and adaptation have been arrested at early adolescent levels. We conclude that early frontal lobe damage has profound effects on social development, and that the frontal lobes provide a crucial neural substrate for social maturation

Adapting Kohlberg to Enhance the Assessment of Managers’ Moral Reasoning

This paper presents an adaptation of Lawrence Kohlberg's Moral Judgment Interview and Standard Issue Scoring method. The adaptation emphasizes four points: (1) a mixture of less familiar and more familiar moral dilemmas, (2) followup questions which probe managers’ moral reasoning by focusing upon key organizational values, (3) the flexibility of utilizing either an oral or written interview method, and (4) a simpler, yet reliable, system for scoring the managers’ responses and identifying their stage of moral reasoning. An empirical investigation found that each adaptation could enhance the assessment of managers’ moral reasoning.

Graduate Students' Moral Reasoning

Kohlberg's theory of moral development states that there are six stages of moral development acquired during childhood and adulthood. To estimate the level of 10 graduate students' development a moral judgement interview, Form A, was administered. Most of this small sample (7 women and 3 men) reasoned at Stage 4, although there were some responses at Stage 6, which, however, were not sufficient for most of these students to sustain the level.

Study of the influence of veterinary medical education on the moral development of veterinary students

Summary Although veterinary medicine endorses high moral character and adherence to a code of ethics, to our knowledge, virtually no studies have examined the influence of veterinary medical education on the moral development of its students. Using the Kohlberg standard moral judgment interview, this study examined that relationship in a sample of 20 veterinary medical students (16.0% of the veterinary college's student body). The students were tested at the beginning and at the end of their veterinary medical education to determine whether their moral reasoning scores had increased to the same extent as those of other postgraduate students. It was found that normally expected increases in moral reasoning did not occur over the four years of veterinary medical education for these students, suggesting that their veterinary medical educational experience somehow inhibited their moral reasoning ability rather than facilitated it. With a range of moral reasoning scores between 313 and 436, the mean increase from first year to fourth year of 12.5 points was not statistically significant. Statistical analysis revealed no significant correlations between the moral reasoning scores on age or gender, although there were significant correlations with Medical College Admissions Test scores and grade point average scores.

Stage transitions in moral reasoning: A longitudinal study of developmental processes.

The study examined the internal organizational aspects of disequilibrium that are held to be responsible for moral stage transitions and, in doing so, compared the predictions of the consolidation/transition and gradual-transformation models. A sample of 227 children, adolescents, and adults responded to a moral judgment interview twice over a 2-year interval. The distribution of subjects' reasoning across stages at the initial interview was used to predict subsequent stage transitions.