A cognitive-developmental approach to adult moralization

Abstract

It was hypothesized that (1) adults who had participated in six weekly sessions of cognitive-developmental moral education would improve more in moral judgment scores than would control participants who had not had the educational treatment, and (2) there would be no difference in moral judgment scores between people over 50 years old and people under 50 years old. Subjects were 35 men and 44 women aged 20 through 77 living in five states in three geographic regions: midwest (n = 22), southwest (n = 31), and southeast (n = 26). Regional groups were found to be equivalent as to pretest scores, age, educational level, and sex distribution when these variables were submitted to one-way analysis of variance. The Defining Issues Test (DIT) was administered to experimental and control participants before and after a six week moral education intervention. DIT P and D indexes were used. DIT P and D posttest scores for experimental and control participants were submitted to one-way analyses of covariance with pretest scores controlled. Posttest scores were higher for experimental participants on the DIT P index, F = 18.86, p < .001, and on the DIT D index, F = 17.10, p < .001. Results were similar when education was controlled. Posttest scores were higher for experimental than control participants on the DIT P index, F = 13.93, p < .001, and the DIT D index, F = 8.50, p < .01. There were no differences between experimental and control groups on pretests when education was controlled. No differences were found between people over 50 years old and people under 50 on either pretests or posttest on the DIT P and D indexes when education was controlled. Data provided by people ages 47 through 52 were removed in order to create greater age spread, but there were still no age differences. Statistical analyses supported both hypotheses. Implications are that adults can change in response to a moral education intervention, and that older adults can do as well as younger adults. Moral judgment scores for this study were lower than the norms established when the test was being developed in Minnesota. Controls in this study eliminate age, education, and regional differences as probably reasons for differences in the scores.