Abstract
Two issues were examined in this study—the consistency of moral judgment across different types of dilemma and different social contexts, and the relationship between the structure (stage) of moral judgment and the content of moral decisions. Forty subjects were given two hypothetical dilemmas about business decisions and two standard Kohlberg dilemmas. Half the subjects directed their responses to a business audience, half to a philosophical audience. Responses to the moral dilemmas were scored in accordance with the Colby and Kohlberg (1987) scoring manual. Stage of moral reasoning was found to be significantly higher on the Kohlberg dilemmas than on the business dilemmas. A significant interaction between type of dilemma and audience was attributed to the tendency of subjects directing their responses to a business audience to interpret one of the business dilemmas in terms of the moral order of business, but for subjects directing their responses to a philosophy audience to treat it as a philosophical dilemma. The other business dilemma evoked uniformly low-level moral judgments. The amount of selfishness intrinsic in subjects' moral choices on the business dilemmas was significantly negatively correlated with moral maturity on the business dilemmas, but not with their moral maturity on Kohlberg's test. These results are interpreted as more consistent with models of moral development such as those advanced by C. G. Levine ([1979] “Stage Acquisition and Stage Use: An Appraisal of Stage Displacement Explanations of Variation in Moral Reasoning, ” Human Development, Vol. 22, pp. 145–164), J. Rest ([1983] “Morality,” in: P. H. Mussen [ed.], J. H. Flavell and E. Markman [Vol. eds.], Handbook of Child Psychology [Vol. 3, 4th ed.], John Wiley & Sons, New York), and R. Harré ([1984]) Personal Being: A Theory for Individual Psychology, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts), which posit a relatively wide range of within-person stage use and emphasize the determining power of social situations, than with the more constructivistic model of moral development of Colby and Kohlberg (1987).
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Candee, D., and Kohlberg, L. (1987). Moral judgmenl and moral action: A reanalysis of Haan, Smith, and Block's (1968) Free Speech Movement data.J. Personal. Social Psychol. 52: 554–564.
Colby, A., and Kohlberg, L. (eds.). (1987).The Measurement of Moral Judgment (Vols. 1 and 2). Cambridge University Press, New York.
Conklin, J. E. (1977). “Illegal But Not Criminal”: Business Crime in America. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
de Vries, B., and Walker, L. J. (1986). Moral reasoning and attitudes toward capital punishment.Develop. Psychol. 22: 509–513.
Emier, N. (1983). Morality and politics: The ideological dimension in the theory of moral development. In Weinreich-Haste, H., and Locke, D. (eds.),Morality in the Making. John Wiley and Sons, Chichester.
Friedman, M. (1988). The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. In Sarris, S. (ed.),Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Moral Issues. Dushkin Publishing Group, Guilford, CT.
Gilligan, C., and Belenky, M. F. (1980). A naturalistic study of abortion decisions.New Direct. Child Develop. 7: 69–90.
Gilligan, C., Kohlberg, L., Lerner, J., and Belenky, M. (1971). Moral reasoning about sexual dilemmas: The development of an interview and scoring system. Unpublished technical report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography (Vol. 1).
Haan, N. (1975). Hypothetical and actual moral reasoning in a situation of civil disobedience.J. Personal. Social Psychol. 32: 255–270.
Harré, R. (1984).Personal Being: A Theory for Individual Psychology. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Harré, R. (1987). Grammar, psychology and moral rights. In Chapman, M. and Dixon, R. A. (eds.),Meaning and the Growth of Understanding: Wittgenstein's Significance for Developmental Psychology. Springer-Verlag, Berlin.
Higgins, A., Power, C., and Kohlberg, L. (1984). The relationship of moral atmosphere to judgments of responsibility. In Kurtines, W., and Gewirtz, J. (eds.),Morality, Moral Behavior, and Moral Development. John Wiley & Sons, New York.
Higgs, A. C. (1975). An investigation of the similarities between altruistic and moral judgments. (Doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, Baltimore, 1974.)Dissertation Abstracts International 35: 4269B (University Microfilms No. 75-7336).
Johnson, J. A., and Hogan, R. (1981). Moral judgment and self presentations.J. Res. Personal. 15: 57–63.
Kohlberg, L. (1969). Stage and sequence: The cognitive-developmental approach to socialization. In Goslin, D. A. (ed.),Handbook of Socialization Theory and Research. Rand McNally, Chicago.
Kohlberg, L., and Candee, D. (1984). The relationship of moral judgment to moral action. In Kohlberg, L. (ed.),Essays on Moral Development (Vol. 2): The Psychology of Moral Development. Harper & Row, New York.
Kohlberg, L., and Colby, A. (1983). Reply to Fischer and Saltzstein. In Colby, A., Kohlberg, L., Gibbs, J., and Lieberman, M. (eds.),A Longitudinal Study of Moral Judgment, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development (Vol. 48, Nos. 1–2, Serial No. 200). University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Kohlberg, L., Scharf, P., and Hickey, J. (1972). The justice structure of the prison: A theory and intervention.Prison J. 51, 3–14.
Krebs, D., Denton K., Carpendale, J., Vermeulen, S., Bartek, S., and Bush, A. (1989). The many faces of moral judgment. In Luszcz, M. A., and Nettelbeck, T. (eds.),Psychological Development: Perspectives Across the Life-Span. Elsevier Science Publishers, Amsterdam.
Leming, J. (1978). Intrapersonal variations in slate of moral reasoning among adolescents as a function of situational context.J. Youth Adoles. 7: 405–416.
Levine, C. G. (1979). Stage acquisition and stage use: An appraisal of stage displacement explanations of variation in moral reasoning.Human Develop. 22: 145–164.
Linn, R. (1984). Practising moral judgement within the day care center: A look at the educator's moral decision under stress.Early Child Develop. Care 15: 117–132.
Linn, R. (1987a). Moral disobedience during the Lebanon war: What can the cognitive-development approach learn from the experience of the Israeli soldiers?Social Cognition 5: 383–402.
Linn, R. (1987b). Moral reasoning and behavior of striking physicians in Israel.Psychol. Rep. 60: 443–453.
Lockwood, A. L. (1975). Stage of moral development and students' reasoning on public policy issues.J. Moral Educ. 5: 51–61.
Piaget, J. (1965).The Moral Judgment of the Child. Free Press, New York (Original work published in 1932).
Rest, J., (1983). Morality, In Mussen, P. H. (ed.), Flavell, J. H., and Markman, E. (Vol. eds.),Handbook of Child Psychology (Vol. 3, 4th ed.). John Wiley & Sons, New York.
Rest, J. R. (1986).Moral Development: Advances in Research and Theory. Praeger, New York.
Smetana, J. (1982).Concepts of Self and Morality: Women's Reasoning About Abortion. Praeger, New York.
Sparks, P., and Durkin, K. (1987). Moral reasoning and political orientation: The context sensitivity of individual rights and democratic principles.J. Personal. Social Psychol. 52: 931–936.
Walker, L. J. (1988). The development of moral reasoning.Ann. Child Develop. 5: 33–78.
Walker, L. J., de Vries, B., and Trevethan, S. D. (1987). Moral stages and moral orientations in real-life and hypothetical dilemmas.Child Develop. 58: 842–858.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
This research was supported by Grant No. 410-87-1115 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Received B.A. and M.A from Simon Fraser University. Research interests include moral development, and the influence of social interaction and language on the development of reasoning.
Received Ph.D. from Harvard University. Research interests include moral development, altruism, and self-deception.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Carpendale, J.I.M., Krebs, D.L. Situational variation in moral judgment: In a stage or on a stage?. J Youth Adolescence 21, 203–224 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01537337
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01537337