Examines evidence of justice and care perspectives in 46 men's and 34 women's discussions of actual moral conflicts. Also considers whether an association between moral orientation and gender exists. While gender differences are found, findings suggest that people know and use both justice and care perspectives in their moral orientations. (RH)

A total of 40 children in the three primary grades were studied to determine if they would donate more to a worthy cause after having been exposed to a humorous situation, in contrast to exposure to a serious one. The children who had heard a serious story about sharing donated slightly more to help Ethiopian refugees than did children who had…

Gilligan's work on sex differences in moral reasoning, perception of violence, resolution of sexual dilemmas, and abortion decisions poses a major challenge to Kohlberg's theory because of its feminist perspective of moral development. Gilligan suggests Kohlberg's demonstration of males and females attaining different levels of moral development…

A moral judgment interview was administered to 100 elementary parochial school children. The relationship of intelligence, age, and sex to the quality of response in four areas of moral judgment was assessed. (MS)

According to Gilligan (1982) there are two different orientations for describing moral development: a justice orientation characteristic of males, and a care orientation characteristic of females. Gilligan claims that the care orientation is confounded with the justice orientation in Kohlberg's (1983) conceptualization of Stage 3: mutual…

A longitudinal study of the moral development of 52 upper middle class adolescents and their parents was undertaken to evaluate the validity of Kohlberg's six-stage model of moral judgment development. (BRT)

Kindergarten and first grade children participated in a training program designed to facilitate moral development. Stories that stimulated discussion of solutions to moral issues were read to children in the treatment group. Children in the treatment group, compared to controls, improved significantly in three of four specific areas tested.…

Reviews Kohlberg's research on moral development and criticizes standard issue scoring, a measure of individual developmental stages of moral judgment. Discusses problems with the Moral Judgment Interview's content and scoring, suggesting longitudinal, comparative, and gender-related research needed to resolve problems of validity and reliability.…

Sixty college students, representing three of Kohlberg's moral judgment stages, were exposed to a compliance situation. Self-awareness was experimentally increased in 30 subjects. Those in moral stages 3 and 4 complied significantly more than stage 5 subjects. Results are discussed in terms of a cognition-behavior relationship. (Author/SJL)

The purpose of this study was to compare the relative merits of two causal models in which moral reasoning, sex, and social class were used to predict classroom behavior problems. Model A implied that conduct problems would decline linearly as moral maturity increased. Model B implied that the lowest as well as the highest levels of moral maturity…

Piaget's and Kohlberg's interview and scoring methods for assessing moral judgment in children were empirically compared. Based on cognitive development and social learning theories, six hypotheses were tested on 139 elementary school children. After being interviewed, the children participated in a moral conduct task. Multiple linear regressions…

Perry's scheme of intellectual and ethical development was examined for sex differences with respect to content areas for which sex differences have elsewhere been suggested: occupational choice, interpersonal relationships, and sexual identity. In addition, the content area religion and ego development, as measured by Loevinger's sentence…

Among Koreans tested on Rest's Defining Issues Test, females, urban people, and older subjects showed significantly more responses demonstrating principled morality than did males, rural people, and younger subjects. Comparisons with American results showed greater age differences in stages of moral development among Americans. Both groups showed…

Norman Williams' moral development theory was tested with students, ages 7, l0, l2, and l5, in Durham, England. Tentative support resulted for his classification scheme and conclusion that moral development is cumulative in nature and that it occurs within four parallel modes: expedient, altruistic, intuitive, and heteronomous. (SJL)

Provides data in support of Lawrence Kohlberg's moral development theory. Shows comparable moral judgments for boys and girls at ages 11 and 17, but higher moral reasoning in 14-year-old girls than in their male peers. (Author/RL)