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(c) Georg Lind
Edition: Dec. 18, 2011
Studies on the Measurement, Nature and Development of
Moral-Democratic Competence
Note that automated translations may contain fatal errors.
Moral Judgment Test (MJT) - Home page
Konstanz Method of Dilemma Discussion (KMDD)
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"Entities should not be multiplied without necessity." (William of Ockham, 1285–1347)"A statement that conveys more information has a greater informative or logical content; it is the better statement." (Karl Popper, 1972, Objective knowledge. An evolutionary approach. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, p. 55)
"Whether or not an interpretation of a test's properties or relations involves questions of construct validity is to be decided by examining the entire body of evidence offered, together with what is asserted about the test in the context of this evidence." (L.J. Cronbach & P.E. Meehl, 1955, p. 283)
New!
Saeidi-Parvaneh, S. (2011). Moral, Bildung und Religion im Iran – Zur Bedeutung universitärer Bildung für die Entwicklung moralischer Urteils- und Diskursfähigkeit in einem religiös geprägten Land. [Morality, Education and Religion in Iran. On the Importance of University Education for the Development of Moral Judgment and Discourse Competence in a Religiously Shapted Country.] Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz. http://kops.ub.uni-konstanz.de/volltexte/2011/13107/ , aternative source
Lind, G. (2008). The meaning and measurement of moral judgment competence revisited - A dual-aspect model. In: D. Fasko & W. Willis, eds., Contemporary Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives on Moral Development and Education. Cresskill. NJ: Hampton Press, pp. 185 - 220. PDF (password: kohlberg)
Acton, G.S. & Revelle, W. (2004). Evaluation of Ten Psychometric Criteria for Circumplex Structure. Methods of Psychological Research Online 2004, Vol. 9, No. 1, 1 - 27. ... more
"A common model for representing psychological data is simple structure (Thurstone (1947). According to one common interpretation, data are simple structured when items or scales have non-zero factor loadings on one and only one factor (Revelle & Rocklin (1979)1. Despite the common place application of simple structure, some psychological models are defined by a lack of simple structure. Circumplexes (Guttman (1954) are one kind of model in which simple structure is lacking." (p. 1).
The (quasi-) circumplex of stage-correlations has become one of the core validity criteria of the MJT. I borrowed this idea from Kohlberg (1958), who in turn borrowed it from Guttman (1954).
Abdu, Aminu (2008). Socio-cultural factors in the patterns of empathy, prosocial reasoning and moral judgment among senior secondary school students in Nigeria. Unpublished Dissertation, Post Graduate School, Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria.(no page numbers are given)
[The data reported in the tables in this study are highly contradictory. According to some tables, the average C-score in this study is about 11, in other tables it is about 28. I recommend a thorough re-analysis of all data. GL ... more]
Anderson, N.H. (1991). Moral-social development. In: N.H. Anderson, ed., Information integration theory. Volume III: Developmental, pp. 137-187. Hillsdale, NJ: L. Erlbaum.
Anderson, N.H. (1973). Functional measurement of social desirability. Sociometry, 36, 89 - 98. ... more
I borrowed ideas from Anderson's concepts of information integration and functional measurement for constructing the MJT. GL
Anderson, S. W., Bechera, A., Damasio, H., Tranel, D., & Damasio, A. R. (1999). Impairment of social and moral behavior related to early damage in human prefrontal cortex. Nature Neuroscience, 2 (11), 1032-1037.
These authors were among the first who discovered the unique functions of the frontal brain, especially the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFC) for the integration of (conscious) symbolic reasoning on the one side and affective and emotional impulses originating in the limbic system. They show that if this part of the brain is impaired, people can still use their symbolic functions and cognitive skills but can no longer control their moral behavior. See also Prehn et al. (2008).
Barnett, R., Evens, J., & Rest, J. (1995). Faking moral judgment on the Defining Issues Test. British Journal of Social Psychology, 34, 267-278. see also Lind (1996).
Bataglia, Patricia (1999). The development of moral competence in psychologists. The development of moral competence in psychologists. Paper presented at the AME conference, Nov. 1999, Minneapolis.
Bataglia, Patricia (2009). A Validação do Teste de Juízo Moral (MJT) para Diferentes Culturas: O Caso Brasileiro (Moral Judgment Test (MJT) Adaptation for Different Cultures: Brazilian Case.) Psicologia: Reflexão e Crítica, 23(1), 83-91. ... more
Bataglia, P., Agati (Schillinger), M., Torres, S., Zanoni Crivelaro, D.B., et al. (2002). The development of moral competence and religious commitment in Brazil. Paper presented at the Meeting of the Association for Moral Education, Chicago, Nov. 2002. ... more
Bataglia, P., Schillinger-Agati, M.M, Lind, G. & , Quevedo, T.L. (2003). Testing the segmentation hypothesis with an Extended Version of the MJT. Poster presented at the meeting of the Association for Moral Education, Krakow, July 19, 2003. ... more
Beck, Klaus (1995). Methodologische Probleme und empirische Befunde. In: E.H. Hoff & L. Lappe, eds., Verantwortung im Arbeitsleben, pp. 114-128. Heidelberg, Germany: Roland Asanger Publ.
"[D]as von Lind entworfene (freilich von ihm anders verstandene) Messinstument, der 'Moralisches Urteil-Test' (MUT; 1978). Er präsentiert dem Probanden ein Stimulusmaterial, für das die psychische Funktion 'moralische Urteilsbildung' sensibel sein und auf welches sie daher modifizierend wirken müßte mit der Folge eines entsprechenden Verhaltensoutputs. So gesehen provoziert er ein (Antwort-/Ankreuz-)Verhalten, dessen inter- und intrapersonale Variation im wesentlichen auf die unterschiedliche 'Bearbeitung' des systematisch variierten Simulusmaterials (Geschichte, Pro-Contra-Argumente) in der 'Funktionsstelle: Moralische Urteilsbildung' zurückzuführen sein dürfte." (p. 119)
"Insofar the MJT can be seen as an measurement instrument which is relevant for Kohlberg's theory (see also Heidbrink, 1991, p. 110-121 and 137-150)." (p. 120, my translation GL)
Bennato, A. &
Oraisón, M. (2000 ?). La intervención ético-pedagógica
en la formación docente. Una propuesta para su tematización
y aplicación.
Available from: http://www.unne.edu.ar/cyt/2001/9-Educacion/D-018.pdf
Biggs, Donald, Colesante, R., Agafonov, A., Felming, J., & Campbell, K. (1999). Education about controversial issues: the role of tolerance, moral judgment, and course involvement. Symposium at the AME conference in Minneapolis, Nov. 1999.
Broughton, J. (1978). The cognitive-developmental approach to morality: A reply to Kurtines and Greif. Journal of Moral Education 1, 81-96.
John Broughton brilliantly refutes the critique of Kohlberg's measurement approach by Kurtines and Greif.
Brügelmann, Hans (1979). Erfahrungen mit dem Test zum 'Moralischen Urteil' (M-U-T) bei Konstanzer und Tübinger Jura-Studenten. (Experiences with the Moral Judgment Test applied to law students in Konstanz and Tübingen, Germany.) In: G. Lind, ed., Moralische Entwicklung und soziale Umwelt. Konstanz Tagungsbericht, S. 74-81.... more
Brunswik, Egon (1955): Representative design and probabilistic theory in a functional psychology. Psychological Review, 62 (193-217.
I have borrowed from Brunswik the diacritical method for making inferences on hidden dispositions of behavior for constructing the MJT. GL
Bühn, Andrea (1995). Die Rolle von moralischer Urteils- und Wahrnehmungsfähigkeit im Prozeß der Fach- und Berufswahl von Studerierenden. Unveröffentl. Diplomarbeit, im Fach Psychologie an der Universität Konstanz.
The gains of moral judgment competence by field of study. Cross-sectional comparison of 1st-4th semester students with 5th-10th semester students (Grund- versus Hauptstudium). The law students gained most (p. 45).
Law Psychology Civic engineering Physics
Çiftçi, Nermin (2001). Ahlâkî Yarki Testi MUT´un Teorisi ve Türkçe Versiyonunun Geçerligi. Kuram ve Uygulamada Egitim Bilimerli 1/2, Aralik 2001, 295-321. (Validation study of the Turkish MJT)
Cohen, Semantha (2 011). Pragmatic Morality. Does cuing moral judgment lead to moral action? Unpublished research paper, Hunter College, City University of New York.
Small study with N = 10 subjects, sampled in Washington Square Park: "The dependent variable was whether or not the participant was willing to take a donation form for the charity of the Food Bank for New York City and consider donating to that charity. ... The mean Cscores for those who donated and those who did not can be seen in Figure 2. The mean C-score for those who accepted a donation form was 41.15 (SD = 33.47) and was 27.54 (SD = 15.30) for those who did not accept a donation form." PDF [Access, pw = "kohlberg"]
Colesante, Robert & Biggs, Donald (2001). A controversy about the measurement of moral development: Stage preference or moral consistency? Paper Presented at the Association for Moral Education Conference held in Vancouver, BC, October 25 - 27, 2001... more
Table 1 (appendix)
"Data for this study were collected in two general education courses at a mid-sized state University in the northeastern United States from Spring 1997 to Fall 2001. 570 students completed a questionnaire on the final day of their classes; 144 were later dropped (about 25%) from analysis because of incomplete responses on the Moral Judgment Test." (p. 6)
Note: The study reports an unusually high rate of incomplete responses. This underscores the very low C-score found amongst these college students. The authors do not report any circumstances which may account for these scores. It is also interesting to note that the C-score hardly increases from freshman to senor year, indicating the college education has no impact on the development of moral judgment competence.
Colesante, Robert & Biggs, Donald (2002). A test of the dual aspect theory of moral judgment competence. Unpublished manuscript. ... more
Comunian, Anna Laura & Gielen, Uwe P. (1995). A study of moral reasoning and prosocial action in Italian culture. Journal of Social Psychology.
Comunian, A. L. & Gielen, U. P. (2006). Promotion of moral judgement maturity through stimulation of social role-taking and social reflection: an Italian intervention study. Journal of Moral Education, 35 (1), 51-69.
"Abstract: We examined social role-taking and moral judgement improvement after an educational group-oriented intervention emphasizing guided reflection and role-taking dimensions among 11 groups, made up of a total of 61 female and male Italian university students. They were compared to a control group of 59 students. We twice applied Italian adaptations of two role-taking and two moral development measures, originally developed by Gibbs and by Lind respectively in the USA and in Germany. Good empirical upport for the reliability and validity of the American and German instruments was noted in the Italian setting. Students assumed more responsibility in a variety of social roles, exposed themselves increasingly to social role-taking opportunities, and showed increased moral judgement maturity after the educational intervention. An active orientation toward role-taking opportunities was related to higher levels of moral judgement among both men and women."
Derkum, H., Echterhoff, G. & Schneider, W. (1992). Wege zur Verhaltensänderung junger Menschen im Straßenverkehr und zur Reduzierung von Verkehrsunfällen. Teil II: Befragung von Freizeit- und Verkehrsverhalten jungen Menschen und Umfrage unter Polizeidienststellen im Bundesgebiet. Köln Forschungsmeinschaft Auto-Sicht-Sicherheit.
Desplaces, D. E., Melchar, D. E., Beauvais, L. L., & Bosco, S. M. (2007). The impact of business education on moral judgment competence: An empirical study. ... more
Study of 899 business students, mostly undergraduates (78 graduate students) of three universities in the northeastern region of the U.S. Almost no correlations of moral judgment competence (C-score, MJT) with age (r =.08) and gender (0.01). The perception with "ethical culture" of one's institution was r = 0.000. Unfortunately, it does not say how the single question for this variable was worded (p. 80). In contrast the P-score of the DIT-correlated with gender (r = 0.17) with women indication somewhat stronger preferences for principled moral reasoning than man [contradicting Carol Gilligan's assumption that women prefer morality of care over principles of justice.]
The fact that all correlations were lower than r = 0.1 may be caused by the rather low C-scores of these business students which severely limit the variance of the C-scores and, as a consequence, also all correlations with other variables. The authors did not report the overall mean but it can be imputed from a quote as being below C = 18.0: "The mean C-Index of respondents who did not report witnessing unethical behavior was 17.22 (SD = 13.56) compared to a mean of 18.26 (SD = 12.95) for those who did report witnessing unethical behavior." (p. 82). The amount of perceived cheating in their institution was used as an index for 'unethical behavior'.
De Waal, Frans (2008). Primaten und Philosophen. wie die Evolution die Moral hervorbrachte. München: Hanser.
"Homo homini lupus -- der Mensch ist dem menschen ein Wolf -- lautet ein uraltes lateinisches Sprichwort, das Thomas Hobbes einem breiteren Publikum bekannt machte. ... das Sprichtwort zeichnet sich durch zwei schwerwiegende Fehler aus. ERstens tut es den Kaniden unrecht, die zu den geselligsten und kooperativsten Tieren auf unserem Planeten zählen... Zweitens, und das ist noch schlimmer, stellt es da unserer eigenen Spezies mitgegebene soziale Wesen in Abrede." (p. 21)
"Im Abendland gibt es die Neinung, Emotionenen als verweichlicht und soziale Bindung als chaotisch zu betrchten, so dass sich die Theoretiker lieber der Kognition als der maßgeblichen Seite menschlichen Verhaltens zugewandt haben. Wir feiern die Rationalität. Und dies, obowhl die psychologische Forschung nahe legt, dass menschliches Verhalten zuallererst aus schnellen, automatisierten emnotionalen Einschätzungen herrührt und nur in zweiter Linie aus langsameren Bewusstseinsvorgängen..." (p. 24)
"Darwin .... 'Es scheint mir in hohem Grade wahrscheinlich zu sein, dass jedwedes Tier mit wohlazugebildeten sozialen Instinkten (Eltern- und Kindesliebe eingeschlossen) unausbleiblich ein moralisches Gefühl oder Gewissen erlangen mürde, sobald sich seine intellektuellen Kräfte so weit oder nahezu so weit wie beim Menschen entwickelt hätten.' [Darwin 1971: 122]" (p. 32)
Kommentar: Endlich redet ein Biologe nicht immer nur vom "egoistischen Gen" (Dawlins), sondern von Kooperation und Reziprozitt als wichtige Leistungen der Evolution. Frans de Waal kritisiert auch zurecht den 'Dualismus', wonach die Moral eine kulturelle Leistung unabhängig von der Evlolution sei, und beklagt, dass die Emotionen und sozialen Gefühle von vielen als etwas angesehen werden würden, das der menschlichen Natur fremd und aufgesetzt sei. Aber er verkennt, dass er selbst einem Dualismus unterliegt, wenn er die Emotionen und Gefühle als das Primäre ansieht und Kulturleistungen als etwas, das kein Produkt der Evolution sei. Hier versteht auch de Waal sein Vorbild Darwin falsch, wie das von ihm selbst wiedergegebene Zitat oben zeigt! Für Darwin sind auch Intelligenz, Kultur und andere kognitive Leistungen ein Produkt der Evolution und als solche zu beachten. Moralische Emotionen sind zwar automatisiert und schnell, aber sie sind leider auch 'dumm' und undifferenziert und können miteinander in unauflösbare Konflikte geraten. Und genau für diesen Fall, der in hochkomplexen Gesellschaften beim Menschen sehr häufig vorkommt, benötigen wir kognitive Fähigkeiten. Um beiden Aspekten der menschlichen Natur gerecht zu werden, benötigen wir also eine Zwei-Aspekte-Theorie der Moral und keine einseitige Emotionstheorie (Lind, 2008; 2009).
DuBois, James (1997). The moral judgment of medical personnel. A cross-cultural study about brain death and organ explantation. Unpublished dissertation, University of Vienna, Austria.
"I agree with Lind that a high level of inconsistency in answering test items may indicate authentic patterns of reasoning rather than factors which would render performance on the test invalid." (p. 45)
"It is important to note that in the study by Rest, Thoma, and Edwards the C score was calculated using data collected from the DIT. This is problematic because one cannot possibly arrive at a C score using a test which does not require one to evaluate both arguments for and against the decision made in solving the dilemma. ...
It is absolutely impossible to capture that which the C score is meant to measure without providing arguments pro and con; because the DIT does not do this, it seems theoretically invalid to try to generate a C score using DIT data: whatever it is that Rest, Thoma and Edwards produced, it was not the C score which Lind measures with his MJT." (p. 46)The data show a substantial correlation between moral judgment competence (MJT) and a positive attitude towards mercy killing [F(1,178) = 7,59; r = 0.41; my calculation of r; GL] and organ transplantation [F (7,185) = 4,20; r = 0.15; my calculation of r; GL] p. 242
DuBois, James (1998). Medical personell and the logic of moral judgment. Delivered to the American Educational Research Association, Section J (Post-secondary Education) Symposium: “Does Medical Education Fail to Promote Moral Competence – and Why Does It?” San Diego, CA, April 13,1998. ... more.
DuBois, J. (1999). Attitudes Toward Death and Organ Procurement: The Influence of National, Professional, Religious, and MJT Variables. Delivered to Association for Moral Education, University of Minnesota, November 19-20.
Duriez, Bart & De Marez, P. (2000). Voorstelling en validering van de Morele Ordeel Test (MOT), de Nederlandstalige versie van de Moral Judgment Test (MJT). Internal Report. Leuven, Belgium, K.U. Leuven.
Duriez, B. & Soenens, B. (2006). Religiosity, moral attitudes and moral competence: A critical investigation of the religiosity-morality relation. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 30, 1, 76-83. ... more
Eigenstetter, Monika (2007). Verantwortung in Organisationen: Entwicklung und Validierung simulationsorientierter Instrumente zur Diagnostik verantwortungsvollen Entscheidens und Handelns im Arbeits-, Gesundheits- und Umweltschutz. Unveröffentlichte Dissertation, Universität Jena. ... more
The following graphs from Eigenstetter (2007) show that moral judgment competence correlates negatively with the gloabal rating of vague rating-dimensions by observers, but that it correlates positively and quite high (r = 0.39) with the observed competence ("quality of solution"). In contrast, this competence does not correlate with self-observed "integrity" (r = 0.06) and "internal locus of control" (r = 0.03).
[Auszug meiner Stellungnahme zu dieser Studie:] "Die Annahme, dass Regel- und Vorbildverhalten und moralisches Urteil positiv zusammenhängen, konnte für die [Assessment Center-] AC-Übung nicht bestätigt werden." (p. 169). Genau das sagt die Bildungstheorie vorher! ...
Die Einschätzkriterien [Ihrer Beobachter] sind sehr allgemein und es werden sehr verschiedenartige [Kriterien] zu einheitlichen Kriterien verbunden. Wie Kritikfähigkeit und Perspektivenübernahme durch kurze Beobachtungen gemessen werden können, ist sehr fraglich. Auch ist problematisch, beide zusammen zu fassen. Hohe Reliabilitäten deuten weniger auf gute Validität hin als darauf, dass letztlich nur ein Stereotyp, vermutlich die allgemeine Angepasstheit des Probanden an die Erwartungen der Arbeitswelt gemessen wurde. Dazu würden auch die erstaunlich hohen negativen Korrelationen mit dem C-Wert sprechen. Menschen mit hoher Urteilsfähigkeit sind, so scheint es, auch verantwortungsfähig, aber nicht immer pflegeleicht. Gerade weil sie sich ihrer Verantwortung bewusst sind, ecken sie im Alltag manchmal an, wo es selten um die großen moralischen Ziele des Unternehmens oder gar der Menscheit geht.
Genau das hat Ihre Studie auch ergeben: "Je eher man sich an Straferwartung und Gehorsam orientierte, desto eher wurde man in der AC-Übung als sozial kompetent eingestuft." (p. 169). ...
Bestätigt wird meine Vermutung auch durch Ihre Befunde zur Kontrollüberzeugung und Integrität, die auch überwiegend negativ waren. Aus Sicht der Bildungstheorie macht das alles Sinn."(Mail-Wechsel am 5.2.2008; GL)
Emler, N., Renwick, S. & Malone, B. (1983). The relationship between moral reasoning and political orientation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 1073-80.
Emler et al. showed that the DIT's P-score could be faked upward if participants were instructed to simulate the moral judgment behavior of political adversaries. Especially participants who located themselves on the right side of a political self-description scale and had lower P-scores, could simulate their scores upward when being asked to put themselves into the shoes of a self-describd "leftist" or "liberal." Emler et al. concluded that Kohlberg's theory of moral judgment competence was disproven by this experiment. Moral judgment was merely an attitude or ideology but not an ability.
However, the replicating of this study with the MJT instead of the DIT, showed that when moral judgment competence instead of moral attitudes or preferences were measured, the scores could not be faked upward (see Lind, 2008).
In another experiment, Wasel (1994, see below) also showed that moral judgment competence, as measured with the MJT, could not be faked upward and that the precision of the simulation depended on the participants' own degree of moral judgment competence. Both experimental studies corroborate the notion that moral judgment has a strong competence aspect (Lind, 2002).
Forsthofer, Rudolf (2002). Sozialisationseffekte in Beruf und Studium. Zum moralischen Urteil bei Studierenden der Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften in Deutschland? Zeitschrift für Sozialpsychologie, 33(4), 229-239.
Comment: The C-scores of these students are very high. However, the author does not report how the sample was drawn and are left to speculate that they were volunteers and thus a positively selected group of students. Because of the specifity of both samples (volunteer students from only one university and two fields of study, no conclusions can be drawn about the influence of 'culture' and 'field of study.' Yet, as part of a larger picture, these data may still prove to be valuable. For example, it seems unlikely that we would get such high C-scores anymore today (2008). Moral judgment competence seems to regress generally (see, e.g., Schillinger, 2006). (GL)
Gielen, Uwe & Lei, Ting (1991). The measurement of moral reasoning. In: L. Kuhmerker, ed., The Kohlberg legacy for the helping professions, pp. 61-81 Birmingham, AL R.E.P. Books.
"The [MJT] has been applied in a number of European capitalist and socialist countries and has led to novel interpretations of the Kohlbergian research enterprise." (p. 76)
Glanzer, D., Nipe, G., & Lind, G. (2007). Does cross-cultural experience foster moral judgment competence in college students? Poster presentation at the Meeting of the Association for Moral education (AME) in New York, Nov. 2007 ... more
"The cross-cultural findings could be interpreted in light of prior findings (Schillinger, 2006) that students in certain “unfavorable” (with lower opportunities for responsibility-taking) learning environments actually decrease in MJT scores. That scores increase for cross-culturals with home-stays may indicate a “favorable” learning environment.
There was a significant positive correlation between university required service learning hours and moral judgment scores (r = .17), in contrast to no significant correlation between moral judgment scores and community service outside the EMU curriculum.
Moral judgment scores were correlated with self-reported measures of religiosity. The most diagnostic item was “I can be OK without religion” (r = 0.25). Overall, higher religiosity scores predict lower c-scores.
The overall pattern of responses to religiosity items indicates some ambivalence about identifying oneself as a religious person. While 94% of respondents believe in God, only 32% agree that they are religious persons." (p. 1)
Glasstetter, S. (2005). Moralerziehung nach Lawrence Kohlberg - Die Auswirkungen der Just-Community in einem geschlossenen Heim für delinquente Jugendliche. (Moral education according to Lawrence Kohlberg -- The effect of just community in an institution for delinquent juveniles.) Diplomarbeit, FB Psychologie der Universität Landau.
Grabow, Mainard (1990). Die Entwicklung moralischer Urteilsfähigkeit in der Erzieherausbildung. (The development of moral judgment competence in kindergarten teacher education.) Frankfurt, Germany: Lang Publ.
"[For assessing the moral judgment competence level] the much tested and validated MJT by Georg Lind has proven to especially useful for this research." (p. 7)
"[The analysis of the relationshio between the MJT and open responses to the dilemmas] revealed a remarkable correlation between the C score of the students and the ethical quality of their arguments." (p. 349)
"It became evident that the indices of the MJT are highly valid in regard to the assessment of moral judgment competence." (p. 353; all my translations, GL)
Gommel, M. & Kessler, H. (2006). Medical Ethics Seminars, Moral Judgement Competence and Authoritarianism. Presentation at the annual meeting of the Association for Moral Education in Fribourg, July 2006.
Source: Gommel & Kessler (2006). The Y-axis represents the C-sore. Red circels added. The data indicate a shaprt decrease of moral judgment competence in spite of two semesters of ethics training. They also indicated a dramatic 'secular' decrease of moral judgment competence (of more than 10 C-points) over a period of about 20 years. The Lind are cited from: Lind, G. (2000). Moral regression in medical students and their learning environment. Revista Brasileira de Educacao Médica, 24 (3), 24-33.
Greene, J. & Haidt, J. (2002). How (and where) does moral judgment work? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6, 12, 517-523.
"There is no specifically moral part in the brain... We believe that the ordinary concept of moral judgment refers to a variety of more fine-grained and disparate processes, both 'affective' and 'cognitive'." (p. 523)
Comment: There is probably no hypothesis which was more quickly refuted than this one. Prehn et al. (2008) were able to locate a specific part in the brain, namely the right prefrontal dorsa-lateral cortex as the area which was active when moral decisions were to be made. GL
Griffin, J. (2001.
Using a web based collaborative learning management tool to teach professional
issues. 2nd Annual LTSN-ICS Conference, London © 2001 LTSN Centre
for Information and Computer Sciences.
Available from: http://www.mk.dmu.ac.uk/~pjefferi/PhDWorkshop.doc
Grodzinsky, F. Griffin, J. & Jefferies, P. (2002). The Impact of using Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Tools on Moral Reasoning in A Multi-Institutional Computer Ethics Module. Paper for ETHICOMP 2002, University of Lisabon, Portugal. http://www.ccsr.cse.dmu.ac.uk/conferences/ethicomp/ethicomp2002/abstracts/34.html
Gross, Michael L. (1994). Jewish Rescue in Holland and France during the Second World War: Moral cognition and collective action. Social Forces, 73, 463-496.... more (presently not available. See also commercial download)
Finding: (Former) rescuers ("Retter") of Jewish people during World War II showed higher moral judgment competence (C-score = 18.0) than comparable non-resuers (C-score = 11.0) (p. 491). At the time of this study, the participants were all above 80 years of age.
Comment: In their diploma research project, Jessica Bächle and Barbara Britten (personal communication) found a C-score of about 10.0 in inhabitants of an elderly home. There age was mostly 80 and above. GL
(My graphic illustration, GL). The findings by Gross (1994) show that saving Jews ("Retter") was associated with a high level of moral judgment competence. While the question of causal relationship remains open in this study, it is interesting that such a correlation between moral judgment competence and life-saving under great risk could be found in this retrospective study fifty years after the behavior had taken place. See also Gross (1997).
Gross, M. L. (1995). Moral reasoning and ideological affiliation: a cross-national study. Political Psychology, 17, 317-338.
Gross, M. L. (1995). Moral judgment, organizational incentives and collective action: Participation in abortion politics. Political Research Quarterly, 48, 507-534.
Gross, M. L. (1997). Ethics and activism: The theory and practice of political morality. Cambridge, MA Cambridge University Press.
"The test produces two sets of scores in an effort to distinquish between the affective and cognitive aspects of moral judgment, that is, between the moral preferences which one has and the ability to use them consistently. In this way the MJT [Moral Judgment Test, in German: MUT] offers a significant improvement over the single score interview technique which conflates these two elements." (p. 248)
"The MJT is not a paper-and-pencil version of Kohlberg's Moral Judgment Interview (MJI), nor does it aspire to measure the same things. However, Lind claims that the MJT measures what Kohlberg originally intended to measure -- the cognitive or competence aspect of moral judgment. Kohblerg's test provides only a 'compound' measure of cognitive and affective/attitudinal aspects of moral judgment. If pure measurement of the competence aspect is desired, then the MJT is the only test available for this purpose and, in this sense, superior to Kohlberg's MJT." (pp. 248-249)
(My graphic illustration, GL.) In his study, Gross (1997) found a higher moral judgment competence in "pro choice" activists (who defend the right of women to chose between aborton and non-abortion) than in rigorous anti-abortionists.
Gross, Nadja (2009). The language of love?! – The influence of the KMDD on emotions in French class. Invited presentation at the international conference "Can morality be taught? Is it a competence?" in Konstanz, July 27 - 31, 2009.
(My graphic illustration, GL.) In Gross' correlational study of 11th grade high school students ( N = 20), moral judgment competence shows an amazingly high corelation with good grades in music, math and other subjects. The correlations are negative because in Germany the best grade is "1" and the worst grade "6". [corrected 2011, GL]
Guttman, L. (1954). A new approach to factor analysis: The radex. In P. F. Lazarsfeld (Ed.) Mathematical thinking in the social sciences (pp. 258-348). Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
Guttman's idea that personality traits rarely form a simple, uni-dimensional pattern but are more adequately described as a (quasi-) simplex order, has been successfully applied by Kohlberg (1958). to his six-stage-model of moral orientations (or stages). He showed that the six orientations or stages are inter-correlated in such a way that "neighboring" orientations (e.g., stage 2 and 3) correlate higher with one another than more "distant" stages (e.g., stage 2 and 5). In a re-analysis of Kohlberg's data Lind (1978) showed that a rotated principle component analysis of these data results in a 'weak' circumplex structure. Most, if not all, data from MJT studies show a stronger circumplex stucture (Lind (1978; 2008). See also Acton & Revell (2004).
Habermas, Jürgen (1983). Moralbewusstsein und kommunikatives Handeln. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
"Die Integration von Erkenntnisleistungen und Gefühlseinstellungen bei der Begründung und der Anwendung von Normen kennzeichnet jedes ausgereifte moralische Urteilsvermögen. Erst dieses Konzept der Reife macht die Erscheinung des moralischen Rigorismus als Beeinträchtigung des Urteilsvermögens sichtbar." (p. 194)
"Da Kompetenzen immer nur an ihren greifbaren Äußerungsformen, also anhand von Performanzphänomenen dingfest gemacht werden können, stehen diese theoretischen Ansätze vor besonderen Meßproblemen. Nur in dem Maße, wie diese gelöst werden, können die performanzbestimmenden Faktoren von den theoretisch postulierten Fähigkeiten isoliert werden. ... Es ist gewiß eine grobe Vereinfachung, moralische Urteile als Maß für Kompetenz, und moralische Handlungen als Maß für Performanz zu betrachten." (p. 199)
Habermas, J. (1990). Moral consciousness and communicative action. (C. Lenhard & S. W. Nicholson, Trans.). Cambridge: MIT Press.
In this book, Habermas shows the relationship between Kohlberg's moral development theory and his theory of communication ethics. For the MJT this book is also relevant, because Habermas makes some interesting comments on the measurement of morality. For example, he acknowledges that 'competence' cannot be assessed without assessing 'performance'. see above Habermas, 1983; GL
Haering, Theodor (1913). Untersuchung zur Psychologie der Wertung (auf experimenteller Grundlage) mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der methodlogischen Fragen. Archiv für die gesamte Psychologie, 26.
"Denn diese Unvollständigkeit [des Materials] kann auf keine andere Weise überwunden werden, als durch eine systematische Variation des Objekts der Untersuchung, d.h. des Wertphänomens. Nur dann, wenn möglichst viele Modifikationen des Wertphänomens der Untersuchung planmäßig unterworfen werden, ist an eine annähernde Vollständigkeit des Materials und damit auch seine umfassende Geltung des Resultats zu denken. Diese Forderung der systematischen Variation des Objekts ist aber nichts anderes, als ein weiteres Hauptmerkmal der experimentellen Methode." (S. 277)
"Die experimentelle Behandlung des Wertphänomens erscheint somit als ein dringendes Erfordernis der gegegenwärtigen Lage der Werttheorie selbst." (S. 278)
"Because the incompleteness [of the material] can be overcome no other way than by systematic variation of the objects of the study, that is, the value phenomenon. Only then, when as many modifications of the value phenomenon are submitted to a planned study, can we think of an approximate completeness of the material and, therefore, also of the general validity of the findings, This request for systemativ variation of the object is nothing else than a main feature of the experimental method."
"The experimental treatment of the valoue phenomenon appears therefore as a n urgent requirement of the current status of the theory of values itself." (my translation, GL)
Hamlin, J. K., Wynn, K., & Bloom, P. (2007). Social evaluation by preverbal infants. Nature, 450, 557-560. ... more
“Our findings indicate that humans engage in social evaluation far earlier in development than previously thought, and support the view that the capacity to evaluate individuals on the basis of their social interactions is universal and unlearned.” (p. 559)
Haste, Helen (2002). An interview with Georg Lind. International Journal of Group Tensions, 31(2), 187-215. ... more
Heidbrink, Horst (1984). Zur Validität der moralischen Urteilstheorie von L. Kohlberg. Ergebnisse einer empirischen Studie (On the validity of Kohlberg's moral judgment theory. Findings from an empirical study). In K. Ingenkamp, ed., Sozial-emotionales Verhalten in Lehr- und Lernsituationen, pp. 323-338- Landau, Germany: Erziehungswissenschaftliche Universität. (manuscript)
Heidbrink, Horst (2010). Moral judgment competence and political learning. Lind, G., Hartmann, H.A. & Wakenhut, R., eds., Moral judgment and social education, pp. 259-271. New Brunswik, NJ: Transaction Publisher.
Heidbrink, H. (1995). Zur Existenz von Moralstufen. Eine strukturelle Validitätsanalyse. (The validity of moral stages. A structural validity study.) In: E.H. Witte, ed., Sozial Kognition und empirische Ethikforschung, pp. 77-96. Lengerich, Germany: Pabst Publ.
"The large size of the V(st) [validity coefficient] in both studies can be interpreted as a clear support for the MJT, and also for the validity of Kohlberg's theory." (p. 91; my translation)
Herberich, Strefanie (1996. Abhängigkeit moralischer Urteilsfähigkeit bei Studierenden von Gelegenheiten zu "Verantwortungsübernahme" und "angeleiteter Reflexion". (The dependency of moral judgment competence of students on role-taking and guided reflection.) Unpublished master thesis, University of Konstanz, Germany, Department of Psychology.
Hernandez, Roberto & Moreno, Cristina (2000. Light and Shade: Understanding and/or Misunderstanding Moral Development in Latin-American Contexts. Symposium paper, AME meeting in Glasgow 2000. ... more
Herrmann, Dieter (2000). Religiöse Werte, Moral und Kriminalität. In: J. Allmendinger, ed., Gute Gesellschaft? ... more
Anmerkung zu dem Text. Die Studie von Herrmann und die zwei von ihm zitierten Studien von Scheffel und von Kröber et al. mit dem MUF und dem MUT beruhen offensichtlich auf falschen Auswertungen. Der für diese beiden Instrumente zentrale C-Werte (früher: DetStufe) wurde offenbar nicht berechnet, nur einige Werte für moralische Einstellungen. Eine Stufen-Zuordnung, wie von den Autoren dieser drei Studien vorgenommen wird, kann mit den Instrumenten nicht erfolgen. Daher sind auch die Befunde zum Zusammenhang zwischen Delinquenz und den Testwerten in diesen Studien nicht interpretierbar.
Bei fachgerechter Auswertung des MUT zeigen sich beim MUT konsistent negative Korrelationen der moralischen Urteilsfähigkeit mit Delinquenz (Lind (2002; Wischka (1982; Huber (1993; Glasstetter (2005).
Higgins, A. (1995). Educating for justice and community: Lawrence Kohlberg's vision of moral education W.M. Kurtines & J.L. Gewirtz Moral development: An introduction, pp. 49-81. Boston Allyn & Bacon.
"However, one should note that there are cognitive aspects to all of Rest's components, and Kohlberg's idea of a stage as a structured whole or a world view cuts across Rest's componential model. ..." (p. 53)
Huber, Rudi (1993). Zur Förderung der moralischen Urteilsfähigkeit. Evaluation einer Intervention bei jugendlichen Strafgefangenen. Konstanz Unveröff. Diplomarbeit, FG Psychologie.
Ishida, Chiharu (2006). How do scores of DIT and MJT differ? A critical assessment of the use of alternative moral development scales in studies of business ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 67, 1, 63-74. ... more (restricted access)
Comment: The Ishida's main conclusion is that there is "a clear distinction between the DIT and the MJT." (p. 63). "The key finding is found in the subjects who scored lowest in the MJT scale, but the highest in the DIT scale. This is particularly surpsiring because both scales are desigend to measure the degree of moral development" (p. 71).
This is less surprising if one acknowledges the fact that both tests are based on totally different theories and that they do NOT measure the same but something quite different. While the DIT measures the preference for principled moral reasoning, the MJT measures moral judgment competence, i.e., the ability to rate arguments in regard to their moral quality rather than in regard to their opinion-agreement and the like. See also: Lind (2008).
Study: N = 134 undergraduate students in a marketing course of an American university. The average C-score of these students was extremely low (C = 17,95). In contrast to the DIT, the MJT correlates negatively with ethical absolutismus, which is defined as the absolute validity of ethical principles without exception, and positively with exceptionalism. The absolute effect size is: aES = -12,0, which very high and might even be higher if the C-score would be higher and its distribution in the sample broader.
This finding supports my multi-deontological point of view. According to his view, most, if not all, ethical principles must allow for exceptions because most situations require us to apply more than one moral principle. As Kohlberg (1958) wrote: "Thus the choice is difficult in the sense ... of doing justice to all the values which the self believes are true and important." (p. 128). If we would not allow for exceptions, such dilemma-situations would be unsolvable. Mono-deontological ethics (like Kant's and Rest's position) cannot deal with contradicting moral principles and dilemmas because they imply an absolutist position. Exceptions, however, must not be made at random but must be justified by other ethical principles. Thus multi-deontological theory is clearly different from crude situationism. (GL)
Critique: Though the author gives mostly correct quotes and descriptions of the MJT, some are inaccurate. Most importantly, the MJT is not based on Kohlberg's stage theory of moral development (like the DIT) but has been constructed on my Dual-Aspect-Theory of moral behavior and development (see Lind, 2010). The C in C-score does not stand for consistency but for competence. The authors does not mention that the MJT, confronts the participant with a moral task, namely to rate counter-arguments. The MJT is not based on Kohlberg's scheme of six stages. The arguments in the MJT represent only the moral orientations which characterize these stages. It is not possible to get stage scores with the MJT. Rest never studied the correlations between the MJT and the DIT, but has created a pseudo-C-index for the DIT and correlated it with the P-index of the DIT. Since the DIT does not contain a moral task and thus is not a competence test, this C-index is meaningless. (GL)
Kant, Immanuel (1785). Grundlegung einer Metaphysik der Sitten. Werkausgabe Bd. VII, editor: Weischedel. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp (1956).
Erster Satz: "Es ist nichts in der Welt, ja überhaupt auch außer derselben zu denken möglich, was ohne Einschränkung für gut könnte gehalten werden, als allein ein guter Wille." (first sentence)
First sentence: "Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good, without qualification, except a good will. Intelligence, wit, judgement, and the other talents of the mind, however they may be named, or courage, resolution, perseverance, as qualities of temperament, are undoubtedly good and desirable in many respects; but these gifts of nature may also become extremely bad and mischievous if the will which is to make use of them, and which, therefore, constitutes what is called character, is not good." (quoted from Project Gutenberg; http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/ikfpm10.txt; 21 Feb. 2009).
Kant, I. (1787). Kritik der praktischen Vernunft. Ausgabe: Hamburg Felix Meiner Verlag (1959).
"Man muss wenigstens auf dem halben Wege schon ein ehrlicher Mann sein, um sich von jenen Empfindungen auch nur eine Vorstellung machen zu können." (p. 46)
Rough translation: "One must be already half-way a honest man in order to have at least an image of [moral] feelings.""Wo ich empfinde, das bin ich. Ich bin also ebenso unmittelbar in der Fingespritze wie in dem Kopfe. ... " (p. 41)
"... Meine Seele ist ganz im ganzen Körper und ganz in jedem seiner Teile." (p. 42)
Rough translation: "Were I feel, that I am. This means, I am just as well in my finger-tips as in my head..." (p. 41). "... my soul is fully in my whole body and fully in each of its parts." (p. 42)
Kant argues here against theories which consider mind and body, cognition and affect as separate entities, like Descartes did. Modern neurological findings reported, e.g., by Damasio (Descartes' Error) fully support Kant's theory. Damasio even uses a similar phrase without, however, citing Kant: "We think with the tips of our fingers, and feel with the top of our cortex." (quote from memory). I have advanced this theory as Dual-Aspect Theory of behavior. (GL)
Kirschenmann, Martina (2006). Auswirkung der moralischen Urteilsfähigkeit bei Studenten auf das fachliche Lernen an der Hochschule. [Effects of moral judgment competence on academic learning in higher education.] Unpublished Diploma Thesis (Master), University of Konstanz, Dept. of Psychology ... more
Moral judgment competence was measured with the MJT at the beginning of the first semester. "Zwischennote" (equivalent to average grade at BA level) was assessed two years later. The best grade is "1,0". The data are taken from the German FORM panel study by Peisert, Bargel et al (for a description, see Lind, 2002).
Kim, Soyoung (2006). A comparative study on measurement instruments for moral judgment: selecting an appropriate instrument Paper presented at the meeting of the AERA, San Francisco, April 10, 2006.
Summary: In a direct comparison between the DIT's P-score and the MJT's C-score, the latter showed to be more sensitive to the effects of an educational intervention than the former (12,9 versus 9,0 points gain); see mail exchange.
Kim, S. (2008). Semiotic mediation and social mediation. The basics of growth in moral judgment competence. Saarbrücken: Verlag Dr. Müller.
"The result of the pilot study (Kim & Baylor, 2005) indicated that the MJT was more sensitive to instructional interventions for both semiotic text and group discussion in a similar context of this study than other motral judgment instruments. Furthermore, the coding scheme was also systematic and comprehensive in the contect of the pilot studies, so that the outcome score was stable within individuals and groups." (p. 71)
"The religious influence on the participants' moral reasoning was apparent in this study. ... However, the religious influence on morality and moral judgment waa sometwhat controversial in this study and needs further literature review before incorporating it into future study. Some participants tended to consider religious values as part of their semiosis to enrich their [moral] reasoning, whereas other participants had relaitively fixed moral shema that fit into any situation so that their semiosis was more simplified." (p. 154)
"As the results of this study suggest, the influence of social interaction on moral judgment should be considered as an important factor in moral education research." (p. 155)
Comment: The special value of this study lies in the theoretical part. Using Vygotsky's approach and semiotics to re-interprete moral development theory stimulates new ways of thinking on this. Unfortunately, the empirical part is less convincing. As measurement, this interventional study did not use the validated standard version of the MJT but only one dilemma in the pretest, posttest and follow-up and every time a different dilemma (workers, doctor, judge steinberg), so we cannot know whether the change of the C-sore is due to the intervention or the dilemma type. The findings chapter concerns mostly technical aspects of fitting complex statistical models to the data but say hardly anything about the author's hypotheses regarding the effects of the interventions on moral judgment competence. Rarely any mean scores and correlations are reported. Only the mean C-score of the third measurement is given. The only graphical presentation of the main findings (figure 11, p. 105) is a pain for the reader. When trying to understand the various "levels", the figure caption is of little help. The overall finding (see quote above, p. 155) is not too suprising after 40 years of intervention studies which demonstrate strong effects of dilemma discussion on the development of moral judgment competence.
Knack, Stephen & Keefer, Philip (1997). Does social capital have an economic payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112, 4 (Nov., 1997), pp. 1251-1288. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2951271.pdf]
Abstract: "This paper presents evidence that "social capital" matters for measurable economic performance, using indicators of trust and civic norms from the World Values Surveys for a sample of 29 market economies. Memberships in formal groups-Putnam's measure of social capital-is not associated with trust or with improved economic performance. We find trust and civic norms are stronger in nations with higher and more equal incomes, with institutions that restrain predatory actions of chief executives, and with better-educated and ethnically homogeneous populations."
Kodwani, D. & Schillinger, M. (2009). Ethics to Accountants: Challenges of a Global Qualification. Presentation at the international conference "Can morality be taught?", University of Konstanz, Germany, July 27 - 31, 2009. ...more
Study of 320 accountant students of The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), Glasgow, using the MJT .. more (user = lind-kurs, password = kohlberg).
Kohlberg, L. (1958). The development of modes of moral thinking and choice in the years 10 to 16. University of Chicago. Unpublished doctoral dissertation.
Correlation r between moral judgment competence (Stage scoring) and behavior (teacher's rating):
Teacher's rating of Correlation with Moral Judgment Score (Moral Judgment Interview) - conscience .46 [taken from Table 15, p. 138] - fairmindedness .45 [taken from Table 15, p. 138] - obedience .24 [taken from Table 15, p. 138] - school work effort .03 [taken from Table 15, p. 138] - social participation .65 [calculated from F1,59 = 44.18; p. 140)
Kohlberg, L. (1964). Development of moral character and moral ideology. In M.L. Hoffman & L.W. Hoffman, eds., Review of child development research, Vol. I. New York: Russel Sage Foundation, p. 381-431.
This article contains the famous definition which was the starting ground for constructing the Moral Judgment Test. Kohlberg defines here moral judgment competence as „the capacity to make decisions and judgments which are moral (i.e., based on internal principles) and to act in accordance with such judgments" (p. 425)
Kohlberg, Lawrence (1974) 'Education, Moral Development and Faith ', Journal of Moral Education, 4:1, 5 - 16. (pdf; user = lind-kurs, pw = kohlberg)
"Abstract: The Natural Law perspective holds that there are universal principles of justice acknowledged everywhere. Justice is a continuing preoccupation of the child. The development of the notion of justice in children has been found to follow six stages, the order of which is constant across different societies. The different stages have been found to be associated with different inds of behaviour in moral situations. Moral education must be based upon an understanding of this development. There is evidence that the development of religious faith follows a parallel sequence of stages and it is important to understand the relationship between the two." (p. 5)
Kohlberg, L. (1979). The meaning and measurement of moral development. Heinz Werner Memorial Lecture. Worcester, MA: Clark University Press. Reprinted and edited in:
Kohlberg, L. (1984). The psychology of moral development. Vol. 2: Essays on moral development. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
Kohlberg's methodological writings has had a strong impact on my own thinking and, eventually, on the construction of the Moral Judgment Test, though ironically my test is quite different from Kohlberg's own instrument, the Moral Judgment Interview. Here is a collection of my favorite quotes:
"What we conceptualize as moral reasoning is a cognitive competence, necessary but not sufficient for given kinds of motivation and conduct." (p. 400).
"In studying moral behavior we are concerned with studying action in which the subject gives up someting or takes risks where not doing so would appear to be to his or her immediate advantage. ... Thus, it is the overcoming of these situational pressures on either a verbal or a physical level that constitutes the test of moral behavior." (p. 522)
"Proponents of behavioristic conceptions of moral conduct typically define conduct as moral if it conforms to a socially or culturally accepted norm. All of us recognize this is intuitievly incorrect, since moral exemplars like Socrates, Ghandi, and Martin Luther King consistently acted in opposition to, and in order to change, social norms -- in terms of the moral principles of Stage 5 or 6." (p. 392).
The test constructor must postulate structure from the start, as opposed to inductively finding structure in content after the test is made. [...] If a test is to yield stage structure, a concept of that structure must be built into the initial act of observation, test construction, and scoring; it will not emerge through pure factor-analytic responses classified by content." (pp. 401-402)
"The structures we seek to tap in test construction and arrive at in test scoring are abstractable from responses as their form or quality." (p. 402)
"The responses of subjects to the dilemmas and their subsequent responses to clinical probing are taken to reflect, exhibit, or manifest the structure. ... There can be no error in the sense of a mistake in inferring from a judgment to some state of affairs concurrent with, predent to, or subsequent to the [scorer's] judgment." (p. 407)
"[Structure] is a construct rather than an inference, and is warranted only on the grounds of 'intelligible' ordering of the manifest items. One might say that the hypothetical structure is the principle of organization of the responses. To treat is on the same level as the responses would be, in Ryle's sense, to commit a category mistake." (p. 408)
"From the point of view of stage theories like Piaget's or mine, test reliability and test construct validity are one and the same thing." (p. 424)
"Rest's conception of construct validity, however, is the notion of moderate-to-high correlations with other tests or variables expected to be associated with the test or variable in question. ... We believe Rest's method is useful for exploratory examination of the correlates of moral maturity, but not for testing theoretical propositions derived from the cognitive-developmental theory." (p. 195)
Kohlberg, L. (2010). Foreword. In: G. Lind et al., eds., Moral judgment and social education, pp. xv - xvii. New Brunswik, NJ: Transaction Publ. Inc.
"[In the MJT] individual preferences are factored into stage, content, dilemma, and interactive components in the [scoring] procedure. I believe this to be a highly promising approach" (p. xvi).
Krämer-Badoni, T. & Wakenhut, R. (2010). Morality and the military life-world. G. Lind, H.A. Hartmann & R. Wakenhut, eds.,Moral judgment and social education, pp. 205-220. New Brunswik, NJ: Transaction Publ. Inc.
Krebs, D. & Rosenwald, A. (1977). Moral reasoning and moral behavior in conventional adults.Merrill Palmer Quarterly, 23, 77-87.
Percentage of participants failing to fulfill a contract (to return an important questionnaire) Stage 5 0 % Stage 4 9 % Stage 3 60 % Stage 2 66 % N = 31 college students; r = 0.57 [my calculation; GL]
Krebs, D., Denton, K.L., Vermeulen, S.C., Carpendale, J.I. & Bush, A. (1990). The structural flexibility of moral judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Krebs and his colleagues were among the first to discover situational factors influencing moral judgment behavior. However, I believe they mix up behavior with competence and thus are wrongly postulating a situational dependency of moral judgment competence. People, we found, differ a lot in regard to there consistency and differentation of judgment behavior, which we now take as a sign of differing moral judgment competence (see, e.g., Lind, 2002). GL
Kriauciuniené, Roma (2009). Future foreign language teachers' moral attitudes and their development at university. The summary of doctoral dissertation. Social Science, Education, Teacher education. Klaipéda.University, Lithuania.
Average C-score of N = 526 university students (1.-4. year, foreign language teacher students): C = 0.17.
LaLlave, J. (2006). Moral judgment competence and attitude as moderators of decisions concerning war through preferences of frames and arguments on the Iraq war. Dissertation, Unviersity of Konstanz ... more
Juan LaLlave uses the basic ideas of our method of experimental questionnaires, on which the MJT is based, for his study of arguments pro and con the Iraq war. His study shows the fruitfulness of this method. Yet his measurement instrument is a new development and is not just another version of the MJT. Therefore, the author's claim that he is also "using the theoretical validity [...] of the moral judgment test (MJT) Lind (1985)" (p. iii), is unwarranted. The theoretical validity of his test still needs to be established. GL
At 12:40 28.04.2008, Juan responded:
Hi Georg,
Yes, I do agree that the wording was not sufficiently clear, as my aim was to express to the reader that the dual aspect theory as the basis for the Experimental Questionnaire Methodology as exemplified by the MJT demonstrated not simply reliability, but also validity. That is what I meant by the term theoretical validity. If the reader were to interpret that the theoretical validity of my instrument had been established, then certainly this is an error and it was not my intent.
I think we are in agreement that one study can neither establish nor validity nor reliability. However the basic design as exemplified by the MJT has been extensively tested and the structure of a vignette followed by arguments in favor and against the vignette are a valid method for discussions based on your dual aspect theory.
My new experimental questionnaire helped to further demonstrate the validity of your dual aspect theory confirming a logical correspondence with the structure of you MJT.
Best regards, Juan.
Lee, Chi-Ming (2001). My very first impression of the annual conference of the Association for Moral Education 27th annual conference in Vancouver, 2001.... more
"The first activity I attended was the workshop given by Dr. Georg Lind in Harbour Centre on Wednesday morning. The topic was 'Moral Judgment Test.' Around twenty people joined the session; the passionate discussion and warm atmosphere gradually thawed me out of the cool confinement of being uncomfortable and cheered rookies like me with a big welcome...." (unpublished report, GL)
Lee, Chi-Ming (2005). Teachers' Moral Development and Their Perceptions of School Environment: Pre-service and In-service Teachers in Taiwan's. Paper to be presented in the 31 th Annual Conference of Association for Moral Education, Cambridge, MA, Nov. 2-5, 2005. ... more.
"The author used MJT, which was March 21,2004 Chinese translation version, precisely fulfilled the criteria of cross-cultural validity. Consistency reliability alphas were .736 for pre-service teachers, and .708 for in-service teachers. Re-test reliability alphas were .619 for pre-service teachers, and .619 for in-service teachers as well in this study." (p. 9)
Lee, Won Dong (2010). An empirical research on the moral judgment competence of Korean young students: focused on comparing P-index of KDIT and C-index of MJT. Doctoral dissertation, Department of Ethics Education, Teachers College, Gyeongsang National University, Sourth Korea.
Some findings of this study:*
Level of Education: Mean C-scores of different education groups (p. 94) Elemetary school students 20.0 (Middele school) students 14.2 (High school) students 17.6 University students 13.6 Preference hierarchy:
Mean acceptance (-4 to +4) of moral orientations by university students (values are probably transformed to extend from 1 to 9) (p. 93)5.2 6.4 4.3 4.3 5.2 6.8 Affective-cognitive parallelism:
Correlation between C-score and the six moral orientations (p. 128).26
.36 .12 .27 .30 .24 * Comment: The MJT-data of this study are not valid. The Korean MJT is not yet validated and certified as cross-culturally equivalent. The data from this study indicate that this version is not valid: Neither the validity criterion of preference hierarchy from "stage1" to "stage 6" is supported by the data, nor the criterion of affective-cognitive parallelism. It is also very unlikely that elementary students have higher C-scores than university students. My recommendation: Refrain from publishing studies with this version of the MJT until it is fully valid and certified.
GL
Lenz, B. (2006). Moralische Urteilsfähigkeit als eine Determinante für Drogenkonsum bei Jugendlichen. [Moral judgment competence as a factor of substance consumption in adolescence.] Master thesis, Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz. ... more
Fig. 7 in: Lenz (2006, p. 35). The moral judgment competence ("C-Wert") of 9th graders (N = 72) who report to have already been binge-drinking (black columns) and who have not (grey columns) grouped by those who reported only few personal problems (left side) and those who reported many (right side) (the combined effect of many problems and low C-score was r = 0,40; p< 0.05). This findings suggests that binge-drinking is most prevalent in those students who have experienced many personal problems and, at the same time, do not have a sufficiently high moral judgment competence to cope with these problems. (GL)
Fig. 9, Lenz (2006, p. 42). The moral judgment competence of three groups of 9th graders (N = 73): who have never used cannabis, tried it only, and consumed it regularly (from left to right). An absolute difference between C-scores larger than 5 can be considered psychologically significant. (GL)
Lerkiatbundit, S., Utaipan, P., Laohawiriyanon, C., & Teo, A. (2006). Randomized controlled study of the impact of the Konstanz method of dilemma discussion on moral judgement. Journal of Allied Health, 35(2), 101-108. ... more (password required)
"The [MJT] was translated from English into Thai and validated in 247 students in grade nine, grade twelve, and first and second year pharmacy students. Overall, the scale satisfies four validity criteria: preference hierarchy, quasi-simplex structure of stage preference, affective-cognitive parallelism, and positive correlation between education and moral competence score (C-index). Test-retest reliability with onemonth interval was 0.90."
Levy-Suhl, M. (1912). Die Prüfung der sittlichen Reife jugendlicher Angeklagter und die Reformvorschläge zum § 56 des deutschen Strafgesetzbuches. [The examination of the moral maturity of juvenile delinquents.] Zeitschrift für Psychotherapie, 232-254. ... more
Levy-Suhl was one of the leading representatives of the moral psychology which florished at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centrury in Europe. In this early interview study with juvenile delinquents he found out that delinquency could hardly be accounted for by a lack of moral principles. He speculated that rather some developmental factor must account for this. GL
Lind, G. (1978). Wie misst man moralisches Urteil? Probleme und alternative Möglichkeiten der Messung eines komplexen Konstrukts.[How does one measure moral judgment? Problems and possibilities of measuring a complex construct.] In G. Portele, ed., Sozialisation und Moral. Weinheim: Beltz, pp. 171-201. ... more
Lind, G. & Wakenhut, R. (1980b). Erfassung von moralischem Urteil mit standardisierten Fragebogen. [The assessment of moral judgment with a standardized questionnaire]. Diagnostica, 26, 312-334. ... more
Lind, G. (1982). Experimental Questionnaires: A new Approach to Personality Research. A. Kossakowski & K. Obuchowski, eds., Progress in psychology of personality, pp. 132-144. Amsterdam, NL: North-Holland. ... more
Lind, G. (1982). Der ‘Moralisches-Urteil-Test’ (m-u-t) in der Kritik – Eine Replik auf Schmieds Analyse. Diagnostica, 28, 80-89. ... more
Lind, G. (1996). Testing Moral Judgment Competence. A critical review of the attempt by Rest, Thoma and Edwards to calculate a C-Score from the DIT. Konstanz, manuscript. ... more
For Rest, Thoma and Edwards, the MJT misses the benchmarks they had developed in order to show the validity of the DIT. However, as this paper shows, their evaluation is inadequate: Their analysis misses most of the distinct features of the MJT. Moreover, their "C index" is based on an attitude test [the DIT] rather than on a competence test and thus has a completely different meaning than our C score.
Lind, G. (1996). A Re-analysis of the DIT-Faking-study by Barnett, Evens
and Rest (1995). Konstanz, manuscript. 
Barnett et al. (1995) argue that their study shows no increase of P-score of those subjects who were instructed to simulate their scores upward (by responding like liberals or left wingers). However, our re-analysis of their findings shows that, after a necessary adjustments of their findings, the experimental instruction indeed has led to an increase of the P-score. This supports the interpretation by Emler et al. (1983) that the DIT score can be faked upward.
Lind, G. (2000). The importance of responsibility-taking opportunities for self-sustaining moral development. Journal of Research in Education 10(1), 9-15. ...more . See also Schillinger (2006); Lupu (2009); Saeidi (2011).
Lind, G. (2002). Ist Moral lehrbar? Ergebnisse der modernen moralpsychologischen Forschung. [Can morality be taught? Research findings from modern Moral Psychology]. Second Edition. Berlin: Logos-Verlag. ISBN: 3-897-22255-8
Lind, G. (2005). The Cross-Cultural Validity of the Moral Judgment Test: Findings from 28 Cross-Cultural Studies. Presentation at the conference of the American Psychological Association, 18-21, 8. 2005, Washington, D.C. ... more
Lind, G. (2006). 30 Years of MJT-Research: Strong support for the cognitive-developmental theory of moral development and education. ... more (mansucript)
Lind, G. (2006). The Moral Judgment Test: Comments on Villegas de Posada's critique. Psychological Reports, 98 , 580-584. ... more
Lind, G. (2006). Moral cognition or affect or both? Test and educational implications of Piaget's parallelism theory. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in San Francisco, April 7 - 11, 2006. ... more
Lind, G. (2008). The meaning and measurement of moral judgment competence revisited - A dual-aspect model. In: D. Fasko & W. Willis, eds., Contemporary philosophical and psychological perspectives on moral development and education. Cresskill. NJ: Hampton Press, pp. 185 - 220 ... PDF (password: kohlberg)
Lind, G. (2010)2. Attitude change or cognitive-moral development? In Lind, G., Hartmann, H.A. & Wakenhut, R., eds. (2010). Moral judgments and social education, pp. 173-192. New Brunswik, NJ: Transaction Publisher. ... more
Lind, G. (2010)2. The theory of moral-cognitive judgment: A socio-psychological assessment. In Lind, G., Hartmann, H.A. & Wakenhut, R., eds. (2010). Moral judgments and social education, pp. 21-53. New Brunswik, NJ: Transaction Publisher. ... more
Lind, G. & Wakenhut, R. (2010)2. Testing for moral judgment competence. In Lind, G., Hartmann, H.A. & Wakenhut, R., eds. (2010). Moral Jugment and Social Education. Studies in the Psychology and Philosophy of Moral Judgment and Education, pp. 79 - 105. New Brunswik, NJ: Transaction Publisher. ... more
Lind, G. (2010). Moral Competence: A “New” Paradigm for Promoting Global Democracy and Peace (Foreword, summary, bibliography, and selected slides). Invited Lynn Stuart Weiss Lecture at the 118th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association at San Diego, California, August, 2010 ... more
For more publications by Lind on the MJT, see list of publications.
Loevinger, Jane (1954). The attenuation paradox in test theory. Psychological Bulletin, 51, 493-504.
Loevinger, J. (1957). Objective tests as instruments of psychological theory. Psychological Reports, 9, 635-694.
Like Kohlberg, I have been much inluenced by Loevinger's conception of psychological measurement. In her 1957 paper, Jane Loevinger advances the view that test construction and theory development in psychology must go hand in hand, because otherwise both cannot be improved. Loevinger (1954) was also one of the first to discover that so-called test-reliability, as defined in 'classical' test-theory, is not a precondition of test-validity but may in many case impede it. However, it should be noted that 'modern' test-theories (e.g., Rasch scaling) does not solve Loevinger's problem because, like classical test theory, they do not explicate their implicite psychological assumptions and thus cannot be falsified through data. They rather immunize themselves against falsification by selecting fitting items. GL
Lupu, Iuliana (2009). Moral, Lernumwelt und Religiosität. Die Entwicklung moralischer Urteilsfähigkeit bei Studierenden in Rumänien in Abhängigkeit von Verantwortungsübernahme und Religiosität. [Morality, learning environment, and religiosity. The development of moral judgment competence of university students in romania in relationship to responsibility-taking and religiosity. My tansl., GL] Doctoral dissertation, Deptartment of Psychology, University of Konstanz, Germany. ... Source (KOPS) [see also Schillinger, 2006; Lupu & Lind, 2009; Saeidi, 2011]
(Graph taken from Lupu & Lind, 2009) The graph shows that only students who enjoy at considerable opportunities for responsibility-taking (red line), make progress regarding their moral judgment competence. See also Schillinger (2006).
(Graph taken from Lupu & Lind, 2009.) The graph shows that opportunities for responsibility-taking promote the development of moral judgment competence (left side), but that students with dogmatic religiosity do not profit from such a favorable learning environement.
Lupu, I. & Lind, G. (2009). How do education processes and religiosity interact in the development of moral judgment competence? Poster presented at the conference of the Association for Moral Education in Utrecht, July 2009. Poster
McNamee, S. (1977). Moral behavior, moral development and motivation.Journal of Moral Education, 7(1), 27-31.
High positive correlation between moral judgment competence (Kohlberg's Stages) and experimentally observed helping behavior:
F= 19,4, df =1/88, p<0,01, r = 0,53. (p. 28)
Mansbart, Franz-Josef (2001). Motivationale Einflüsse der moralischen Urteilsfähigkeit auf die Bildung von Vorsätzen. (Motivational influence of moral judgment competence on the formation of intentions.) Unpublished master thesis (Diplomarbeit). Dept of Psychology, University of Konstanz, Germany. See also Prehn et al. (2008).
The above figure summarizes the findings by Franz-Josef Mansbart in terms of relative effect sizes (correlation coefficient r), computed by GL.
Mieg, H.A. (1994). Verantwortung. Moralische Motivation und die Bewältigung sozialer Komplexität. [Responsibility. Moral motivation and the coping with social complexity.] Opladen, Germany: Westdeutscher Verlag.
Allegedly, this study disproves the causal relationship between moral judgment competence and behavior found by Krebs and Rosenwald (1977). "Completely contrary to the classical findings by Krebs and Rosenwalt (1977), the variable moral judgment competence [as measured with Lind's MJT; GL] correlated positive with the length of return time. The higher their moral judgment competence the later did they send back their questionnaires" (p. 143).
However, the author's data contradict his own assertion. The actual correlation between the C-index of moral judgment competence and the return-time of the questionnaires is reported to be r = 0.19 (p. 140). Hence, Mieg's study is another support of Kohlberg's theory that moral judgment competence is a better predictor of behavior than moral attitudes or beliefs.
Mischel, W. & Shoda, Y. (1995). A cognitive-affective system theory of personality: Re-conceptualizing situations, dispositions, dynamics, and invariance in personality structure. Psychological Review 102, 246-268.
The authors proposes a dual-aspect theory of behavior which is in many respects to the one we forward in our work, except that the authors falls short of presenting a proper measurement instrument. GL
Montgomery, Diane (n.d.). Online study with the MJT and other instruments.
Moreno, Cristina (2005). Moral education in higher education and the transformation of a concern: a historical account. Paper presented at the 31st annual meeting or the Association for Moral Education. Cambridge, Mass. November 3-5, 2005. ... more (password required)
Mouratidou, K., Chatzopoulos, D., & Karamavrou, S. (2007). Moral development in sport context: Utopia or reality? Hellenic Journal of Psychology, 4, pp. 163-184. ... more
Mouratidou, K., Goutza, S., & Chatzopoulos, D. (2007). Physical education and moral development: An intervention programme to promote moral reasoning through physical education in high school students. European Physical Education Review, 13, 1, 41 - 56. ... more
Naylor, Gordon (1998). The experience of moral capabilities in a high school setting. Available from: http://www.rabbanitrust.org/papers2001/moral_capabilities.pdf
Nowak, E. & Lind, G. (2009). Mis-educative martial law – The fate of free discourse and the moral judgment competence of Polish university students from 1977 to 1983. In: M. Zirk-Sadowski, B. Wojciechowski, & M. Golecki, eds., Between complexity and chaos. Torun, Poland: Adam Marszalek publisher, pp. 129-152. ... more
Chinese version:
丈娃• i苦瓦克井治﹒林德 / 王佐皮@ 淨 (2009). 教育意又不賞的軍事管制法 一1977 年至1983 波三大半生的. 自由表迷和道德判斷能力的命逞。【在】巴fr- 托什遲依切霍夫斯基(Bartosz Wojciechowski), 主為【波】~萊克，芥fr- 克-辭多夫斯基(Marek Zirk-Sadowski) & 【波】~留什. J ﹒哥某英基(Mariusz J. Golecki), 匠活f車間里說性 月2是由芝個. 全球化肘代的法哲掌. 過中園人民大掌出版社 . Torun, Poland: adam maszalek. … more
Nunner-Winkler, Gertrud (1978). Probleme bei der Messung des moralischen Urteils mit standardisierten Verfahren. In: L. Eckensberger, ed., Entwicklung des moralischen Urteilens, pp. 337-358 Saarbrücken.
"... the expert rating, which link given responses to the different stages of moral orientations, is prinicpally based on the same [. . .] hermeneutic process as the coding of spontaneous responses of interviewees to open interview. In both cases the response is analyzed in regard to the structure of the argument it contains, and tested to which Stage of moral orientation it belongs in structural terms." (my translation, GL)
Pascarella, Ernest T. (1997). College's influence on principle moral reasoning. Educational Record, Summer/Fall 1997, pp. 47-55.
Comment: This meta-analysis is based on Steven McNeel's data. Clearly, colleges fosters the preference of principled moral reasoning (as measured with Rest's DIT, P-score). Liberal arts colleges do so the most, bible colleges do so the least. The latter have almost no impact on this moral orientation. "This is just the opposite of what one would expect." (Pascarella, p. 51). However, this research is limited as no data are reported as to impact of colleges on the moral judgment competence of the students. (GL)
Patino, Susana (1999). Professional ethics education and learning environments 25th. Conference
of the Association for Moral Education Minneapolis, Minnesota, November
1999.
Contact: Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey,
ITESM, Campus Monterrey, Sucursal de Correos “J” c.p. 64849
Monterrey, N.L. México.
Peterßen, Wilhelm (2002. Rezension von 'Ist Moral lehrbar?' Unterrichtswissenschaft, 2002, 381-382 (Manuscript version).
Pittel, S.M. & Mendelsohn, G.A. (1966). Measurement of moral values: a review and critique. Psychological Bulletin, 66, 22-35.
In this early survey of research literatur, the authors found hardly an measurement approach which would satisfy even the most basic requirements of sound moral psychological. Especially, they criticized that most approaches judge individuals' moral behavior and values from an externalistic point of view, disregarding what the individuals believe or what guides their behavior.
Plitzko-Gries, Gabi (2002). Die Effekte von Berufstätigkeit auf die moralische Urteilskompetenz: Bildung versus Sozialisation. (The effects of employment on moral judgment competence: Education versus socialization.) Berlin, Germany: Logos Verlag.
Podolskiy, Oleg (2007). Dissertation.
A colleague alerted me about this dissertation, which contains at its beginning the following (mis-)quote:
"Summing up the state of the art Lind (1995/2004) asserts that there still exists a gap between the understanding of maintenance and measurement of moral competence till now and the results achieved by means of existing methods do not allow confidently confirming a fact of presence of certain moral competence but also do not deny this fact." (Podolskiy, 2007, p. 4)
This is a misquote. It is the opposite of what I wrote. I wrote that the MJT, which we have developed, closes this gap. This is so clearly stated that it cannot be misunderstood.
With this misquote Mr. Podolskiy tries to make me the top witness against my own test. Such behavior certainly does not agree with the ethical standards of scientific research. GL
Prehn, K., Wartenburger, I., Mériau, K., Scheibe, C., Goodenough, O.R., Villringer, A., van der Meer, E.; Heekeren, H.R. (2006). Neuronale Korrelate interindividueller Unterschiede in der moralischen Urteilsfähigkeit. Klinische Neurophysiologie, 37, 67 ... Abstract
"Although there was no correlation between C-scores and response times during either task, changes in brain activity in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex DLPFC, BA 45/46) during normative as compared to grammatical judgments covaried with C-scores. A region of interest analysis showed that Cscores correlated negatively with blood oxygen level-dependent responses in right DLPFC during normative (rNORM = -0.47, p<0.05) but not during grammatical judgments (rGRAM = -0.05, p = 0.41)."
Prehn, K., Wartenburger,I., Mériau, K., Scheibe, C., Goodenough, O.R., Villringer, A., van der Meer, E., & Heekeren, H.R. (2008). Influence of individual differences in moral judgment competence on neural correlates of socio-normative judgments. Social Cognitive and Affective Neurosience. 3(1), 33-46. ... more. See also Mansbart (2001)
"Abstract
Recent neuroimaging studies identified a network of brain regions contributing to moral cognition. To investigate how individual differences in moral judgment competence are reflected in the human brain, we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while twenty-three participants made either socio-normative or grammatical judgments and correlated fMRI responses with individual scores in moral judgment competence assessed using the Moral Judgment Test. We replicated previous findings on a cerebral network involved in moral cognition and provide the first evidence that activity in this network is modulated by individual differences in moral judgment competence. Participants with lower moral judgment competence recruited the left ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC, BA 10/11) and the left posterior superior temporal sulcus (PSTS, BA 39) more than participants with greater competence in this domain when identifying social norm violations, indicating the role of social-cognitive and emotional processes involved in moral judgment. Moreover, we found that moral judgment competence score was inversely correlated with activity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC, BA 45/46) during socio-normative relative to grammatical judgments. Greater activity in right DLPFC in participants with lower moral judgment competence indicates increased recruitment of rulebased knowledge and its controlled application during socio-normative judgments. Thus, individual differences in moral judgment competence are reflected in two brain regions commonly associated with moral cognition (VMPFC, PSTS) as well as in the right DLPFC. These data support current models of the neurocognition of morality according to which both emotional and cognitive components play an important role." | online
Putnam, Robert (2000). Bowling alone. The collaps and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Quote from Spiegel 44/2010: "Vor ein paar Jahren sorgte [der Harvard-Soziologe Robert Putnam] mit dem Buch"Bowling Alone" für Wirbel, die These war, dass immer mehr Amerikaner Bowling spielen, allein und nicht im Verein, weil der moderne Amerikaner kaum mehr mit anderen Amerikanern spricht, schon gar nicht mit solchen, die anderer Meinung sind - ein Land vereinsamt." (p. 75)
(My transl.:) "A few years ago [the Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam] caused some stir-up with his book 'Bowling alone'; his theses was that ever more Americans play bowling alione by themselves and not in a club, because the modern American hardly talks anymore with other Americans, the least with those who have another opinion -- a country becomes lonesome." (p. 75)
Rego, S. & Schillinger-Agati, M. (2011). Desenvolvimento moral e ambiente de ensino-aprendizagem nas escolas médicas. In: J. J. Neves Marins & S. Rego, eds., Aducacao medica. gestao, cuidado, avaliacao, pp. 114-130. Sao Paulo: Hucitec Editora.
Roberts, D. H. & Koeplin, J.P. (2001). Gender's and moral reasonings's impact on contingency disclosure. ... more
Roberts, D. H. & Koeplin, J.P. (2002).
Impact of cognitive moral judgment ability on knowledge of red flags. Research on accounting ethics , Volume 8, pp. 125-143, 2002.
"Note: This paper won the third McLaughlin Prize for Research in Accounting Ethics in 2000. The prize carried with it a plaque and a cash award of $10,000." (Koeplin, CV).
Saeidi-Parvaneh, S. (2011). Moral, Bildung und Religion im Iran – Zur Bedeutung universitärer Bildung für die Entwicklung moralischer Urteils- und Diskursfähigkeit in einem religiös geprägten Land. [Morality, Education and Religion in Iran. On the Importance of University Education for the Development of Moral Judgment and Discourse Competence in a Religiously Shapted Country.] Doctoral dissertation, Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz. http://kops.ub.uni-konstanz.de/volltexte/2011/13107/ , aternative source [see also Schillinger, 2006, Lupu, 2008, Lupu, 2009, and Lupu & Lind, 2009.
"[...] As one would expect, dogmatic religiosity was very high among the Iranian students. Dogmatic religiosity does hamper the development of moral judgment and discourse competence and even causes regression. Individual as well as contextual dogmatic religiosity increases moral segmentation, that is, it does not affect the students moral competence in total but only their ability to solve moral problems for which a religious dogma exists. Dogmatic-religious people do not only agree with their religious community on the solution of issues of religious salience (e.g., mercy-killing), but also refrain from even thinking about those issues. College education by itself, that is, the pure length of study, does not seem to foster the development of moral and dis-course competence of the students. However, as this and many others studies have shown, moral regression and moral segmentation can be overcome, and moral competence be fostered, by providing students with opportunities of responsibility-taking and guided reflection, and even more effectively by special kinds of dilemma-discussions. As the Iranian students reported, such favorable learning opportunities were rather scarce in their university." (Summary)
Source: Saeidi (2010). S. 82
Transl.: Fig. 22: Effect of dogmatic religiosity and quality of education [i.e., opportunities for responsbility-taking] on moral judgment and discourse competence.
Scheurer, H. (1993). Persönlichkeit und Kriminalität. Eine theoretische und empirische Analyse. Regensburg, Germany: S. Roderer Publ.
Die Studie von Scheurer beruht offensichtlich auf falschen Auswertungen. Der für den MUT zentrale C-Werte (früher: DeterStufe) wurde offenbar nicht berechnet, nur Werte für moralische Einstellungen. In folge sind auch die Befunde zum Zusammenhang zwischen Delinquenz und moralischer Urteilsfähigkeit in dieser Studie nicht interpretierbar. Bei fachgerechter Auswertung des MUT zeigen sich beim MUT konsistent negative Korrelationen der moralischen Urteilsfähigkeit mit Delinquenz (Lind, 2002; Wischka (1982; Huber (1993; Glasstetter, 2005).
Schillinger, Marcia (2006). Learning environments and moral development: How university education fosters moral judgment competence in Brazil and two German-speaking countries. Aachen: Shaker-Verlag. ... mehr [see also Lupu, 2008, and Lupu & Lind, 2009; Saeidi, 2011).
This graph from Schillinger (2006) supports the hypothesis that a favorable learning environment (opportunities for responsibility-taking and guided reflection) are a pre-condition for the development of moral judgment competence in university students. This hold true for both groups of students involved in this study, Brazilian and German/Swiss.
Schillinger-Agati, Marcia & Lind, G. (2002). Learning Environment at the University Level: ORIGIN/u. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Moral Education in Chicago, Nov. 2002. ... more
Schillinger-Agati, Marcia & Lind, G. (2003). Moral Judgement Competence in Brazilian and German University Students. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association, Chicago, April 2003. ... more
Schillinger-Agati, M. (with Sergio Rego) (2011). Desenvolvimento moral e ambiente de ensino-aprendizagem nas escolas médicas.... more
Schmied, Dieter (1981). Standardisierte Fragebogen zur Erfassung des Entwicklungsstandes der moralischen Urteilskompetenz. (Standardized questionnaires for measuring the development of moral judgment competence.) Diagnostica, 27, 51-65. [see replique, above]
Schmitt, Manfred (1982). Zur Erfassung des moralischen Urteils: Zwei standardisierte objektive Verfahren im Vergleich. (On the assessment of moral judgment: Comparing two standardized instruments.) University of Trier, P.I.V.-Bericht Nr. 4 (report #4). ... more
"Diese Vorteile eines experimentellen Fragebogens (vgl. auch LIND 1982, SCHMITT & MONTADA 1982) machen den m-u-t attraktiv und meines Erachtens dem DIT überlegen." (p. 12) ["The advantages of an experimental questionnaire (...) make the MJT attractive and, in my opinion, superior to the DIT." (p. 12; my translation, GL)]
Schmitt, Manfred (2001). Rezension "Lind: Ist Moral lehrbar? Ergebnisse der modernen moralpsychologischen Forschung." (Berlin, Logos). Zeitschrift für Soziologie der Erziehung und Sozialisation, 21, 103-105.... more
"Der Autor stellt seine Bildungstheorie der Moral drei konkurrierenden Theorien gegenüber, (1) der Sozialistationstheorie, die unter Moralentwicklung das soziale Lernen spezifischer Normen versteht, (2) der Emergenztheorie, die Moralentwicklung mit Reifung gleichsetzt und (3) den kognitiven Theorien Piagets und Kohlbergs, die Moralentwicklung als invariante, irreversible und universell gültige Sequenz zunehmend differenzierter und integrierter Urteilsstrukturen auffassen. Mit Piaget und Kohlberg teilt Lind die Konzeption von Moral als Fähigkeit, nach universalisierbaren Prinzipien zu urteilen. Diese Fähigkeit (kognitiver Aspekt) lässt sich am strukturellen Aufbau der moralischen Argumente, mit denen Urteile und Entscheidungen begründet werden, erkennen. Gemeinsam mit einer gefühlsmäßigen Bindung an das bevorzugte moralische Prinzip (motivational-affektiver Aspekt) konstituiert sie moralisches Handeln." (Abstract)
Scholz, Manfred (1996). Experimentelle Überprüfung der Auswirkung von Dilemma-Diskussionen auf die moralische Urteilsfähigkeit von Gymnasiasten. [Experimental study of the effect of dilemma discussion on the moral judgment competence of high school students.] Konstanz, Germany. Unveröffentlichte Diplomarbeit, FG Psychologie.
Findings: No substantial increase of moral judgment competence. This was one of the first intervention studies using the MJT and prelimnary versions of the Konstanz Method of Dilemma Discussion. Since then, effect sizes increases considerable as a result of several methodological improvements.
The higher the moral judgment competence (measured with Lind's MJT) the better the grades in German and Math:
German: r = 0.48; Math: r = 0.28. 11th grader; N = 37; pretest findings.
Schorpp, Maria (2003). Durch Moralerziehung zur Demokratie. uni-info, 9/3. ... more
Schreiner, Günter (1991. Undemokratischer Schulalltag? Vergleichende Erkundungen in Ost- und Westdeutschland. Teil 1: Aus der Sicht der SchülerInnen, Zeitschrift für internationale erziehungs- und sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung, 17-49.
"Beklagt werden könnte ... allenfalls, daß die [ost-deutschen] SchülerInnen die Argumente der Gegenseite tendenziell unterbewerten [also einen niedrigen C-Wert haben; GL] und insofern noch ziemlich weit davon entfernt sind, die Bedingungen einer demokratischen Streitkultur zu akzeptieren." (p. 42)
Schwegler, Karin (1999). Dauerarrest als Erziehungsmittel für junge Straftäter. [Permanent arrest as a mean to educate youg delinquents.] München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag.
"In contrast with the interview method, the MJT has these advantages:
- it is more economical,
- it is more objective,
- it is more transparent, which is of advantage for the critical examination of its theoretical (content) validity and the differentiated analysis of moral judgment behavior and its determinants,
- it allows us to assess moral judgment competence independently of the individual's ability of articulation and argumentation,
- it allows us to infer the intensity of the preference for a certain moral orientation not - like in the Kohlberg Interview method -- from the number of statements but directly from the responses." (p. 205; my translation, GL)
Senger, Rainer (2010). Segmentation of soldiers' moral judgment. In G. Lind, H. A. Hartmann & R. Wakenhut, eds., Moral judgments and social education, pp. 221-242. New Brunswik, NJ: Transaction Publisher.
Seitz, Clarissa (1991). Demokratiefähigkeit und moralisches Urteilen bei Schülern - Ein Vergleich von einheimischen und Aussiedlerkindern. Universität Konstanz: Diplomarbeit im Fach Psychologie.
Seitz (1991) shows in her study of secondary school students grade 8 to 13 (Gymnasium) that moral judgment competence (C-score, MJT) correlates positively with understanding of democratic institutions (r = .24), tolerance of ambiguity (r = .35), anti-authoritarianism (r = .33) and objection against the use of violence (r = .20). GL
Sobral, Francisco (2003). Adolescência na escola: O desafio do desenvolvimento integral um estudo sobre as opções pedagógicas e organizacionais de uma escola kentenichiana. Dissertação apresentada à Universidade Católica Portuguesa. ... more
Siegmund, Ulrich (1979). Das moralisches Urteilsniveau von religiösen Studentengruppen.[The moral judgment level of religious student groups.] In: G. Lind, Hg., Moralisches Entwicklung und Soziale Umwelt. p. 13-21 Konstanz Arbeitsberichte der Forschungsprojekts Hochschulsozialisation. ... mehr
Slovácková, Birgita (2001). Moral Competence and Moral Attitudes of Students at the Medical Faculty of Charles University in Hradec Králové. Univerzity Karlovy v Hradci Králové. In: Psychiatrie//_, roc. 5, c. 2, 2001, p. 74-79, clánek puvodní. ... more
"Abstract. The author explores the morale of 310 Czech an 70 foreign students at the Medical Faculty of Charles University in Hradec Králové. With the MJT methodology (Moral Judgement Test, Georg Lind), she evaluates moral competence and moral attitudes depending on several factors – age, school year, sex, nationality, religion and life satisfaction. The level of moral judgement (moral attitude) is post-conventional during their entire studies (i.e. the 5th and 6th stages according to Kohlberg). Moral competence in Czech students is significantly decreasing as they grow older whereas in foreign students it is non- significantly increasing. In Czech students, moral competence is significantly increasing when there is greater life satisfaction. The influence of the other factors (sex, nationality and religion) on moral competence has not been proven either in Czech or in foreign students."
(Czech university medical students; N = 360; Graphic by GL)
Slovackova, B. & Slovacek, L. (2007). Moral judgment competence and moral attitudes of medical students. Nursing Ethics, 14(3), 320-328. ... pdf [same study as Slovackova, 2001]
Spinoza, Baruch: Theologisch-politische Abhandlung. ... more
Torgerson, W.S. (1968). Theory and methods of scaling. New York: Wiley.
By showing that to response scaling the same experimental principles can be applies as to stimulus scaling, Torgerson has taught me that there are better methods than classical and modern' test theory (see also the references by Travers, Loevinger, Cronbach & Meehl, and Kohlberg). GL
Travers, R.M. (1951). Rational hypotheses in the construction of tests. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 11, 128-137.
Like Loevinger (1957) and Cronbach & Meehl (1955), but in contrast with mainstream psychology, Travers strongly believes that the development of psychological tests must go hand in hand with psychological theorizing.
Urbansky, Eva (2003). Die Regression moralischer Urteilsfähigkeit. Eine Querschnittstudie zur moralischen Regression durch Langzeitarbeitslosigkeit. (Uni Leipzig?) ... more
Villegas de Posada, C. (2005. Some problems in use of the Moral Judgment Test. Psychological Reports, 96, 698-700. [see rejoinder by Lind, 2005, above]
Verwei, D., Hofhuis, K., & Soeters, J. (2007). Moral Judgement within the Armed Forces. Journal of Military Ethics, Vol. 6, No.1 (19-40.
"Abstract. This article presents the findings of a study into the moral judgement of Dutch officers, officer-candidates and university students. The study was based on the Moral Judgement Test developed by Lind, which aims to analyze the moral skills of respondents in judging ethical dilemmas. In this quantitative study among military (wo)men, four dilemma's were used: two standard ethical dilemmas that were formulated by Lind, and two specific military dilemmas based on experiences from military practice, developed by the authors. All four dilemmas proved to be reliable in statistical terms. The results show that the military respondents in general produce high scores on the test, which indicates that their moral awareness is quite elaborated. The study also revealed a number of factors - e.g., gender, religion and previous experience with moral dilemmas - explaining differences in moral judgement between respondents. Although the results have shown to be unequivocal, some critical remarks can be made with regard to the test as such. Given the fact that the structure of the test leaves many moral considerations undisclosed, it is recommended to use the test in combination with a qualitative research methodology. This would shed more light on moral sensitivity, empathy and moral character in the face of pressure." ... more
Comment by the editor: Unfortunately, this article fails to analyze the main index of the MJT, the C-index. The C-index would have disclosed an important aspect of moral judgment behavior, namely moral judgment competence, which cannot be assessed through "qualitative reserch methodology." Analyzing "reliability" of the MJT is inadequate because the MJT is based on the theory that "inconsistency" of the responses are not to be discarded as "error of measurement" but should be seen as a sign of (low) moral judgment competence. (Lind, 2008). Adding qualitative research methodology will not make up for the severe shortcomings of this study. A correct analysis of the MJT data would have. (GL)
Voss, J. & Bolan, H. (2000). Measure of moral judgment as predictors of academic cheating behavior. Unpublished paper, Fall 2000
There was no correlation betwenn the MJT and the Social Desirability Scale (Marlowe-Crowne).
Wakenhut, Roland (1983). Zur politischen Sozialisation von Wehrpflichtigen in der Bundeswehr. (On the political socialization of recruits of the Bundeswehr.) In: K. Hegner, E. Lippert & R. Wakenhut, eds., Selektion oder Sozialisation. Zur Entwicklung Des politischen und moralischen Bewußtseins in der Bundeswehr. Opladen, Germany: Westdeutscher Verlag.
Wakenhut, R. (1989). Militär und moralischer Diskurs. In G. Lind & G. Pollitt-Gerlach, eds., Moral in 'unmoralischer' Zeit, pp. 171-190. Heidelberg, Germany: Asanger.
Wakenhut, R. & Krämer-Badoni, T. (1978). Theorie der Entwicklungsstufen des moralischen Bewußtseins und interaktionistische Einstellungsforschung. Versuch einer Integration. In: L. Eckensberger, ed., Entwicklung des moralischen Urteils, pp. 211-251. Mimeographed reader, University of Saarbrücken, Germany.
Wakenhut, R. (1979). Effects of military service on political socialization of draftees. Armed Forces and Society, 5, 626-641.
Wakenhut, R. (1981). Überlegungen zur moralischen Segmentierung. (Thought on moral segmentation.) University of Augsburg, Germany, unpublished paper.
Wakenhut, R. (1982). Lebensweltliche Moral und moralische Segmentierung bei Unteroffizieren der Bundeswehr. (Life world morality and moral segmentation of sergeants of the Bundeswehr.) In: P. Klein, ed., Das strapazierte Rückgrat. Unteroffiziere der Bundeswehr, pp. 309-327. Baden-Baden, Germany: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft.
Walker, L. J. & Frimer, J. A. (2008). Being good for goodness' sake: Transcendence in the lifes of moral heroes. In: F. Oser & W. Veugelers, eds., Getting invlved. Globale citizenship and sources of moral values. Rotterdam, NL: Sense Publishers.
There is a "secular skew within moral psychology and education with [Kohlberg's] insistant claim that moral and religious domains were independent." (p. 309) ..."complexity of relationship..." (p. 309)
The authors set up two empirical propositions:
"Proposition 1 is that transcendence acts to motivate and amplify moral functioning. That is, transcendence imparts credence to moral thought and motivates individuals to carry out their judgment. However, this motivating influence occurs irrespective of how moral or immoral these judgment are in actuality: thus, it could be expected that transcendence would be associated with a considerable range of moral outcomes, both positve and negative. ...
Proposition 2 is that there are various groundings for mature moral functioning, not only transcenden but also secular. Thus, we posit that, although morality may lead some individuals to concerns about transcendence, it will not do so for everyone."
Comment: Both propositions do not meet the criteria for good science, namely "falsifiability" (Karl Popper). Its predictions are lack specifity. Almost any outcome of an experiment can be said to support this theory. If transcendence (religiosity) motivates both good and bad behavior, moral an immoral acts, this concept does not help us at all to understand moal behavior and to foster it. Proposition 2 states that if people act morally good, we also cannot conclude from this that they are motivated by some transcendence. This is not because the relationship is "complex" but because we do not know anything about it. "Complexity2 lies in the eyes of the beholder. (GL)
Wasel, Wolfgang (1994). Simulation moralischer Urteilsfähigkeit. Moralentwicklung: eine kognitiv-strukturelle Veränderung oder ein affektives Phänomen? (Simulation of moral judgment competence. Moral development: a cognitive-structural or an affective phenomenon?] Konstanz Unveröffentlichte Diplomarbeit, Fachbereich Psychologie.
In his experiment, Wasel assessed the moral judgment competence (MJT) of N = 102 social workers who participated in a 2-week workshop seminar. Towards the end of this seminar, he gave them also a socio-metric task, asking them to say whom they liked most to colaborate with. In addition, Wasel asked his participants to fill out the MJT again, but this time they should simulated how their best-liked mate would fill it out.
In agreement with the competence theory of moral judgment, the participants who had to put themselves into the shoes of someone with higher judgment (C-score) competence than their own, could not cope with this task. Only those participants whose target person had a lower judgment competence than oneself, could simulate their (lower) judgment competence (p. 42)..
Wasel also found that the precision of simulatiom was the better the higher the participant's own moral judgment competence was (r = 0.30 , P< 0.05; Wasel, p. 45).
Finally, Wasel found that the moral judgment competence of the group members who were socio-emtrically chosen was somewhat higher than the general moral jdugment competence of the group: an average C = 46,2 versus C = 40,9 (p. 45). The latter two findings were also predicted by Kohblerg's assumption that moral judgment has a strong competence aspect, and disproves the assumption by Emler et al. (1983) that moral judgment ist purely a matter of attitude and moral ideology.
Wischka, Bernd (1982). Moralisches Bewußtsein und Empathie bei Strafgefangenen. (Moral consciousness and empathy of prisoners.) Unpublished Master thesis, University of Marburg, Germany. Department of Psychology.
Wren, Thomas E. (2002. Review of 'Can morality be taught?' Ethos (manuscript version).
Weiß, S. & Zierer, K. (2010). Der MUT (Moralisches-Urteil-Test). In: K. Zierer, ed., Kompendium "Schulische Werteerziehung". pp. 238-246 Baltmannsweiler Schneider Verlag Hohengehren.
Yang, Shaogang & Wu, Huihong (2008). The features of moral judgment competence among chinese adolescents. Asia Pacific Review, 9, 3. 296-307.
"Abstract. In this paper, we used the "Moral Judgment Test" (MJT), an instrument that was developed by German psychologist, Georg Lind in 1976, along with some additional items, administered after the standard MJT. The participants were 724 Chinese adolescents whose ages ranged from 14 to 27 years of age. The results show that there was considerable fluctuation between grades in C scores, without the regularity seen in prior studies conducted in Western cultural contexts, but with senior college students generally showing higher C scores than freshmen. No significant differences in C scores were found between male and female students, between students with various professions, between key schools and the regular schools and between the two-year and the four-year college students. The possible implications of these findings for Chinese moral education are also discussed. (Contains 2 figures and 6 tables.)" Full text: http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/EJ835202.pdf
Comment: In this sample, education seems to foster moral judgment competence only during secondary school, but not during higher education. (All validity checks by the authors came out perfect.) GL
