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Results for “Moral Development”

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PubMed1997

A longitudinal study of adolescents' attitudes about assistance in the development of moral values.

A questionnaire-based study of 2,863 adolescents (ages 12 to 22 years), with data collected over 15 years, measured the extent to which informants believed that elementary, secondary, and college-age young people should receive guidance on moral issues from the family, school, clergy, peers, and/or the individual himself or herself. Averaging the ratings of all respondents over the first three categories yielded an overall authority score of 1.85, where a score of 2.00 represented a belief in moderate influence. Results showed a minimal difference in the ratings between genders, among different age groups, and across the different calendar years of questionnaire administration. Much more substantial differences existed among the actual influences investigated and across the ages of those to whom the influence was to be directed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1984

Lying and killing: language and the moral reasoning of twelve- and fifteen-year-olds by social group.

Twenty groups of children of different social class, ethnic, national and regional backgrounds were matched by non-verbal reasoning ability and school experience. Their moral stances on "lying" and "killing" and their reasons for those stances were recorded orally on a one-to-one basis, using a school setting conducive to concentration and uninhibited communication. Individual literacy levels had no influence on results. There was an impressive consistency in moral attitudes and in reasons offered for those attitudes across children of quite different social backgrounds. There was also a very common access to higher level, autonomous reasoning among the adolescents surveyed. A strong link between moral development and language development can be inferred from the findings, but the parallel is not clear cut.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Facilitating the development of moral insight in practice: teaching ethics and teaching virtue.

Abstract The teaching of ethics is discussed within the context of insights gleaned from ancient Greek ethics, particularly Aristotle and Plato and their conceptions of virtue (arete, meaning excellence). The virtues of excellence of character (moral virtue) and excellence of intelligence (intellectual virtue), particularly practical wisdom and theoretical wisdom, are considered. In Aristotelian ethics, a distinction is drawn between these intellectual virtues: experience and maturity is needed for practical wisdom, but not for theoretical wisdom. In addition to this, excellence of character is acquired through habitual practice, not instruction. This suggests that there is a need to teach more than theoretical ethics and that the ethics teacher must also facilitate the acquisition of practical wisdom and excellence of character. This distinction highlights a need for various educational approaches in cultivating these excellences which are required for a moral life. It also raises the question: is it possible to teach practical wisdom and excellence of character? It is suggested that virtue, conceived of as a type of knowledge, or skill, can be taught, and people can, with appropriate experience, habitual practice, and good role models, develop excellence of character and become moral experts. These students are the next generation of exemplars and they will educate others by example and sustain the practice of nursing. They need an education which includes theoretical ethics and the nurturing of practical wisdom and excellence of character. For this purpose, a humanities approach is suggested.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed1990

In search of an everyday morality: the development of a measure.

Current interest in moral theorizing has been dominated by Kohlberg's cognitive-developmental view. Haan (1982) has challenged psychology's reliance on this rationalistic focus and has argued for a rethinking of morality's meaning in accord with everyday human experience. In light of this challenge, the present study gives both theoretical and empirical support to the advancement of a morality for everyday life. Specifically, a new measure called the Visions of Morality Scale (VMS) is reported. The VMS is sensitive to three dimensions which are necessary for an everyday morality: (1) a human constitutive component which is universally experienced by all human beings (empathy); (2) the inclusion of a behavioral component which reflects actual behavior (pro-social inclinations); and (3) a view of morality that is multilevel (private, interpersonal, and social). A brief sketch of the VMS is provided. Results are presented from a study of 181 high school students which relate the VMS to empathy and political orientation. Highly significant relationships were found among morality, political orientation, and empathy. In addition, results revealed numerous sex differences. Finally, the implications of an everyday morality are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1975

The development of moral judgments concerning capital punishment.

Data from a 20-year longitudinal study of the development of moral judgment in American males indicate that the most mature stages evince moral condemnation of the death penalty. The authors conclude that American moral standards are evolving towards a view of execution as unjust punishment. They contend that a theory of punishment based on the highest stage of moral reasoning is more valid than lower-stage justifications for capital punishment, and that it provides a rational basis for asserting the immorality--and unconstitutionality--of capital punishment, irrespective of uncertainties as to the deterrent efficacy of the death penalty.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

The relationship between moral decision making and patterns of consolidation and transition in moral judgment development.

Following models that describe intraindividual correlates of stage transitions (S. S. Snyder & D. H. Feldman, 1984), this study assessed the relation between a measure of consolidation and transition in moral judgment development and the utility of moral concepts in sociomoral decision making. The study extends previous research in suggesting that individuals use moral concepts differently as they cycle through periods of consolidation and transition. With multiple cross-sectional and longitudinal samples, findings indicate that participants' reliance on a Kohlbergian moral framework as measured by the Defining Issues Test is highest during periods of consolidation and lowest during transitions. As participants move into periods of consolidation, the utility of moral stage information increases. Thus, this study indicates that the consolidation and transition model can be used to help identify individuals who are more or less likely to use Kohlberg's moral stages in their moral decision making.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed1990

Measuring nurses' moral judgments.

Studies of the moral reasoning of nurses yield inconsistent findings. Using Cronbach and Meehl's interpretive framework, the author demonstrates the lack of construct validity for Kohlberg's theory of moral development and related measures of moral reasoning. Gilligan's relational theory of moral orientations is proposed as an alternative theory worth testing in nurse samples.

Humans↗
PubMed2004

Ethical decision-making by students in physical and occupational therapy.

The professions of physical therapy (PT) and occupational therapy (OT) progressively have expanded their scope of responsibility, and practitioners often are placed in positions in which ethical decisions must be made. Few studies have reported the level of moral development and the effects of education on ethical decision making in PT or OT students. This research study was designed to determine the impact of the educational programs at the University of New Mexico (UNM) in PT and OT on the moral reasoning of the students as measured by the Defining Issues Test (DIT). The longitudinal design of this study followed two consecutive classes in each program (N = 94; 58 PT students and 36 OT students) from entry until graduation approximately 2 years later. The subjects completed a demographic survey and the DIT on the first day of class and again during their final semester (OT) or at graduation (PT). A factorial analysis of covariance was used to examine the effects of a professional degree program (PT and OT) and time (ENTRY and EXIT), after adjusting for the effects of age. The mean P score for this sample was between 45 and 46, which is within range for college and professional students. There was a significant relationship between age and the P score of the DIT. There were no significant differences between PT and OT students or between the entering and the exiting scores for either group of students. Based on the results of this study, these educational programs do not seem to be facilitating moral development in these students. The baseline level of moral development and the skills that PT and OT students use when making ethical decisions need to be established. Additional research is recommended with a larger sample size, including students in other locations. To optimize clinical practice, students must be taught how to make ethical as well as clinical judgments. Therapists must be capable of functioning in the changing health care environment, now and in the future. If the disciplines of PT and OT expect to graduate students who meet this challenge, the educational programs must take the responsibility for evaluating students and implementing curricula that facilitate ethical decision making.

Adult↗
PubMed1975

Moral judgment in sociopathic and normal children.

Mental age- and IQ-matched normal and sociopathic children were administered Kohlberg's moral development interview and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. The results revealed that level of moral reasoning was higher for normal than for sociopathic children at both mental age levels. Within each group, high-mental-age children tended to have higher moral judgment scores than low-mental-age children, suggesting the presence of a general cognitive factor underlying moral development. The poorer performance of the sociopathic children was interpreted as supporting the formulation that sociopathy is related to an arrest in moral development. Discussion focused on the relative lack of opportunities for role-taking and identification in the families of sociopathic children.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1997

Nursing students' responses to ethical dilemmas in nursing practice.

In literature as well as in nursing practice a growing concern about nurses' ethical competence can be observed. Based on the cognitive theory of moral development by Kohlberg, this research examined nursing students' ethical behaviour in five nursing dilemmas. Ethical behaviour refers not only to the ethical reasoning of nursing students but also to the relationship between reasoning and behaviour. Kohlberg's definition of morality was refined by adding a care perspective. The results show that the majority of students can be located in the fourth moral stage according to Kohlberg's theory, that is, the conventional level of moral development. This finding implies that students are still guided by professional rules, norms and duties, and have not (yet) succeeded in making personal ethical decisions on the basis of their own principles and acting according to such decisions.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

The consolidation/transition model in moral reasoning development.

The consolidation/transition model conceptualizes development as entailing a cyclical pattern of alternating consolidation and transition phases and posits that stage advance is predicted by a specific distribution of reasoning across stages indicative of disequilibrium (more reasoning above than below the mode, with a high degree of mixture). The validity of this model was examined in the context of moral reasoning development with the use of standard statistical techniques as well as Bayesian techniques that can better account for classification error. In this longitudinal study. 64 children and adolescents participated in 5 annual administrations of the Moral Judgment Interview. The distribution of their reasoning across stages was used to predict subsequent development. The results support the hypotheses regarding cyclical patterns of change and predictors of stage transition and demonstrate the utility of Bayesian techniques for evaluating developmental change.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Parental socialization styles and psychosocial development in 16 to 19 year old adolescents].

To study relationships between perceptions that 16 to 19 year old adolescents have about socialization styles and disciplinary methods used by their parents, with their view of the world, interpersonal relations, moral development, use of psychotropic substances and maladjusted behaviours, 241 adolescents--123 males--which belong to a follow up study on growth and development from northern metropolitan Santiago, Chile, were asked to answer a questionary of psychosocial development, previously elaborated by two of the authors (GS and CA). The most used socialization styles by these fathers and mothers were the negative power one (39.2% and 38.5%) and the inductive one (23.8% and 30.0%), while permissive styles occurred at much lower frequency (1.5% and 1.1%). Coincidence among parents in socialization styles was found in 47.7% and disagreement in 19.2% of cases. The inductive style and coincidence in it's use by both parents, were frequently associated to idealistic world views, autonomous and conventional moral development, satisfactory interpersonal relationships and low frequency of psychotropic consumption, and maladjusted behaviours while negative power based styles by both parents and disagreement of styles among them were rather related to realistic or negative world view, preconventional moral development, higher frequency of relational problems, psychotropic consumption and maladjusted behaviours.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

Ethical dilemmas faced by critical care nurses in clinical practice: walking the line.

The experience of the critical care nurse includes frequent ethical dilemmas, both in patient care and in professional relationships. The moral development of the critical care nurse is presented in terms of learning theory, perceptive transformation, and ethical theory as it applies to the predominantly female profession of nursing. Four case studies and verbatim accounts of the experiences of critical care nurses illustrate moral development.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Child compliance/noncompliance and maternal contributors to internalization in maltreating and nonmaltreating dyads.

Moral development in maltreated and nonmaltreated children was examined by coding child compliance and noncompliance behaviors in a mother-child interaction during a cleanup situation that followed a semistructured free play. Features of child compliance/noncompliance involve a shift from reliance on external controls to internal mechanisms, thereby reflecting child internalization of the maternal agenda. Differences in maltreating versus comparison mothers' use of control strategies (power-assertive and inductive techniques) and their relations to child internalization were examined. Eighty-nine mother-child dyads participated; approximately half of the children (n = 46) had documented histories of maltreatment and the remaining children (n = 43) were nonmaltreated, demographically similar comparison children. Maltreated children were divided into two subgroups: physically abused and neglected. Compared with nonmaltreated children, abused children were found to exhibit less internalization, whereas neglected children displayed significantly more negative affect. No differences were found between groups for the maternal control strategies. However, maltreated and nonmaltreated groups differed in the maternal variables that predicted child internalization. A lower level of maternal negative affect was linked to child internalization in maltreated children, whereas a lower level of maternal joy predicted internalization for the comparison children. The findings suggest that maltreated children exhibit both behavioral and affective differences in their moral development, with differential effects based on the type of maltreatment. The clinical implications for maltreated children's self and moral development are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

An ethical attitude in the analytic relationship.

An ethical attitude in the analytic process is essential. This paper presents a brief overview of theories of moral development and the origins of an ethical attitude. Moral development and integrity are discussed as basic aspects of an ethical attitude. An analytic attitude encompasses an ethical attitude. Differences between these attitudes are noted. Ethical dilemmas are presented in the context of the complexities involved in maintaining an ethical attitude in relation to the proscriptions of legal and ethical codes in the profession. An ethical attitude involves struggling with an outer authority as well as inner authority.

Attitude↗
PubMed1989

Rethinking moral reasoning theory.

Many nursing studies on moral reasoning and ethics have used Kohlberg's theory of moral development. The body of knowledge that resulted from these studies indicated that nurses and nursing students had consistently lower than expected levels of moral reasoning. Educational offerings were developed to assist nurses to improve their moral reasoning. This article explores the cognitive-developmental theory of moral development as one way of determining the moral development of nurses. Since this theory of moral reasoning focuses on the rational thought of the individual and does not consider the impact of the environment, it is of limited applicability in nursing. A new theory of morality needs to be developed--a more holistic one that will include both universal principles and contextual tissues.

Cognition↗