ABSTRACT
The unification of two major approaches to moral judgment is the purpose of the present approach. Kohlberg's well-known stage theory assumes a sequence of discrete stages that underlie all moral judgment. Stage theory recognizes the problem of integrating considerations but gives no way to solve such integration, even with information from any one stage. And, of course, the stage concept denies any significant integration from different stages. Thus, research on moral judgment needs to study the integration problem which can be tested within Anderson's theory of information integration. The main purpose of the present study was to extend this unificationist approach to the issue of sexual morality. A novel task presents information from two very different stages. The results showed that in contrast to discreteness the stage informers were positively correlated in punishment judgments of both genders about consensual sex of juveniles. Furthermore, the subjects integrated considerations from those very different stages also in contrast to the hypothesis that only a single stage was operative at any time.
La unificación de dos enfoques principales para el juicio moral es el propósito de la presente aproximación. La bien conocida Teoría de las etapas del desarrollo según Kohlberg asume una secuencia de etapas discretas que subyacen a todo juicio moral. Dicha teoría de los estadios reconoce el problema de la integración de las consideraciones, pero no da ninguna opción de resolver este problema de integración, siquiera con la información de uno de los estadios. Por supuesto, el concepto de etapa niega cualquier integración significativa de diferentes etapas. Por lo tanto, la investigación sobre el juicio moral debe estudiar el problema de la integración que puede ser probado desde de la Teoría de Integración de la Información de Anderson. El objetivo principal del presente estudio fue extender este enfoque unificador a la cuestión de la moral sexual. Una nueva tarea presenta la información de dos etapas muy diferentes. Los resultados mostraron que en contraste con la propuesta de etapas discretas los estadios de los participantes correlacionaron positivamente con los juicios de castigo de ambos sexos, sobre el sexo consensuado de los menores. Además, los sujetos integraron consideraciones de diferentes etapas, lo cual también contrasta con la hipótesis de que sólo una única etapa era operativa en un momento dado.
ABSTRACT
The present study contributes to the unification of two major theories of moral judgment: Kohlberg ́s stage theory and Anderson ́s theory of information integration. The subjects were told about the thoughts of a burglar stealing something out of a car. These thoughts represented Kohlberg ́s stage 3 and had three levels. In addition, stage 1 was represented by thoughts about the Personal Risk of being caught, and stage 4 by thoughts about the Societal Risk when everyone would do so. The thoughts were presented singly and in combinations (Friends ́ Opinions x Personal Risk and Friends ́ Opinions x Societal Risk). The subjects judged how many hours of social work the actor deserves as punishment. The data supported the averaging model of information integration theory, whereas Kohlberg's theory has no way to handle the integration problem. Results in contrast to expectations from stage theory were, (1) the effect size of the stage 3 informer was very small compared with the large effects of the stage 1 and of the stage 4 informers the latter being larger than the former, (2) Personal and Societal Risk correlated positively not expected by Kohlberg ́s stage theory (AU)
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Subject(s)
Humans , Male , Female , Friends/psychology , Moral Development , Judgment , Morale , Psychology, Experimental/methodsABSTRACT
This paper seeks to unify two major theories of moral judgment: Kohlberg's stage theory and Anderson's moral information integration theory. Subjects were told about thoughts of actors in Kohlberg's classic altruistic Heinz dilemma and in a new egoistical dilemma. These actors's thoughts represented Kohlberg's stages I (Personal Risk) and IV (Societal Risk) and had three levels, High, Medium, and Low. They were presented singly and in a 3 x 3 integration design. Subjects judged how many months of prison the actor deserved. The data supported the averaging model of moral integration theory, whereas Kohlberg's theory has no way to handle the integration problem. Following this, subjects ranked statements related to Kohlberg's first four stages in a procedure similar to that of Rest (1975). Higher score went with larger effect of Societal Risk as predicted by Kohlberg's theory. But contrary to Kohlberg's theory, no age trends were found. Also strongly contrary to Kohlberg's theory, effects of Personal Risk (Stage I) and Societal Risk (Stage IV) correlated positively(AU)
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Subject(s)
Humans , Male , Female , Morale , Morals , Retrospective Moral Judgment , Altruism , Risk-Taking , Risk Groups , Cognitive Science/methods , Cognitive Science/trendsABSTRACT
In order to unify two major theories of moral judgment, a novel task is employed which combines elements of Kohlberg´s stage theory and of the theory of information integration. In contrast to the format of Kohlberg´s moral judgment interview, a nonverbal and quantitative response which makes low demands on verbal facility was used . Moral informers differing in value, i.e. high and low, are presented. The differences in effect of those two pieces of information should be substantial for a person at that specific moral stage, but small for a person at a different stage. Hence, these differences may diagnose the person's moral stage in the simplest possible way as the two levels of each of the thoughts were about typical content of the four Kohlbergian preconventional and conventional stages. The novel task allowed additionally to measure the influence of another moral concept which was about the non-Kohlbergian moral concept of recompense. After a training phase, pairs of those thoughts were presented to allow for the study of integration and individual differences. German and Korean children, 8, 10, and 12 years in age, judged deserved punishment. The patterns of means, correlations and factor loadings showed that elements of both theories can be unified, but produced unexpected results also. Additive integration of each of the two pairs of moral informers appeared, either with two Kohlbergian moral informers or with another Kohlbergian moral informer in combination with information about recompense. Also cultural independence as well as dependence, developmental changes between 8 and 10 years, and an outstanding moral impact of recompense in size and distinctiveness were observed(AU)
