This study was initiated to explore the decline in the demonstration of moral and ethical behavior among young people in many public school settings. Media reports of verbal and physical aggression, bullying, and defiance of adults in authority have been reported in some of the larger urban school districts. Several research studies have provided…

This study investigated children's conceptions of death from a developmental perspective. Subjects were 170 children from grades K-4. Children were tested for conservation and interviewed, following story presentations about an elderly woman's death, to assess their understanding of three concepts concerning death: irrevocability, cessation of…

The development of moral judgment in 11-year-old girls is discussed in terms of the evaluation of role taking ability. (ST)

This study investigated the effects of sex of child, age, rationale focus, rationale orientation, and maturity of moral judgment on resistance to deviation in 120 children (7 to 11 years old) using the standard punishment paradigm. Children were randomly assigned to a consequence- or intentions-focused rationale with an object or person…

It is suggested by this study that increases in moral judgment scores with age are related to increased generality of cognitive functioning. (Editor/CB)

Children from seven classes representing the year groups in a primary school were interviewed in groups of three or four to find out their understanding and views on issues related to the environment and science. The large majority showed considerable interest and concern about environmental issues related to their experience and understanding,…

Cross-lagged correlational analyses and multiple-regression analyses of the data collected in these two studies supports the causal model that, while intentionality and internality both emerge when a common cognitive construct develops, heightened internality also significantly enhances a child's ability to learn intentionality. (Author/JMB)

This study examined effects of interpersonal and intrapersonal cognitive conflict tasks on 54 fifth and 18 seventh grade children's sociomoral rule awareness. Preconventional stage children 9 years of age were paired in same-sex dyads with 9- and 11-year-old children intermediate between preconventional and conventional stage reasoning. Six legal…

The hypothesized central role of cognitive development in resolving moral dilemmas was examined in sixth grade and college-age females. Results indicated that sophisticated cognitive operations are a prerequisite to advanced moral judgments. (ST)

The purpose of this study was to examine possible relationships between moral and cognitive development in second- and fifth-grade children. Sixty children were used in the study. Levels of cognitive development were evaluated using four learning tasks and moral development was assessed by presenting four conflicting situations to each subject for…

This document presents a summary of a dissertation concerning the developmental relationship between moral judgment and person judgment. Subjects were 144 middle class male first graders and sixth graders from paroachial schools. The children watched three films of a boy doing damage. The experimentally crucial film showed the same boy…

In this study of perspective taking and moral judgment 20 children (10 boys and 10 girls) at each age level between 4 and 10 years were given Feffer's Social Role-Taking Task, a spatial perspective-taking task and Damon's Test of Positive Justice. Investigated were: (1) the specific developmental sequences for role taking, spatial…

A cross-sectional study of 300 children, ages 4-18 demonstrated that three evaluative dimensions (intent, ability and outcome) are used in forming moral judgments and achievement evaluations. Significant age trends were identified, lending support to a cognitive-developmental view of achievement motivation. (DP)

Two 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, two observers in the children's school environment recorded incidences of successful resolutions of interactions, amount of derogation, and the number of times…