The Moral Judgment Test (MJT) was developed to measure simultaneously affective aspects independent from cognitive aspects of moral behavior. The affective aspect is reflected by the preference towards the six Kohlbergian stages of moral orientation. Lind (2000) defends the position that the MJT measures moral judgment competence from individuals independent from their moral orientations. Moral judgment competence reflects, thus, in which way (consistent or not) personal moral principles (which are cognitively organized) are applied in moral judgment situations.
Hypothesis 2 is confirmed in its three sub-hypotheses (a, b and c). Affection and cognition are independent and parallel aspects of the same behavior. Through the use of the MJT these aspects can be separately analyzed and the results are in agreement with the predictions of the dual-aspect theory and the “Bildungstheorie”. The affective aspect can be separately measured through the MJT and the hierarchical preference of moral stages does not depend on culture or education.
5.2.1 Hypothesis 2a: Affective-cognitive parallelism
Hypothesis 2a refers to the assumption that there is a positive correlation between cognitive and affective aspects of moral judgment (Lind, 2000). The MJT index for moral judgment competence (C-score) should correlate with subject’s attitudes towards each of the Kohlbergian
5.2. HYPOTHESIS 2 93 six moral stages. The more consistent students are in using moral principles in their judgments, the more positive is their orientation towards higher moral development stages.
As expected, the MJT’s index for moral judgment competence (C-scores) correlates with the subject’s attitudes towards each of the six stages of moral orientation: it correlates highly negatively with attitudes towards lower stages and highly positively with the higher stages (figure 5.5). This means, students who have higher levels of competence in moral judgment (cognitive aspect) are the ones who prefer higher stages of moral development (affective aspect) for the solution of moral conflicts. In other words, the higher the student’s consistency in applying moral principles in dilemma situations is, the higher is the preference for higher stages of moral development and the lower is their preference for the lower ones.
Stages of moral orientation (Kohlberg)
Correlation with C-score (MJT)
1 2 3 4 5 6
-1,0 -0,8 -0,6 -0,4 -0,2 0,0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1,0
Figure 5.5: Correlation between moral judgment competence and stages of moral orientation (N=1149).
5.2.2 Hypothesis 2b: Affective aspect
Hypothesis 2b refers to the question whether there is a positive correlation between the affective aspect of moral development and the hierarchical preference for moral stages.
In Lind’s (2000) theory, the hierarchical preference for moral stages as defined by Rest (1973) is (in the MJT) the indicator for the affective aspect of moral behavior. The moral attitudes towards the Kohlbergian stages are defined as the subject’s mean acceptance of all arguments of a specific stage. Higher stages should be more preferred than the lower ones. It is expected that the hierarchical preference remains the same irrespective of culture.
Figure 5.6 depicts the hierarchical preference order for the Kohlbergian stages. It confirms the preference hierarchy postulate. The MJT has two dilemmas, and, for each dilemma, arguments in favor and against the respondent’s decision are presented. Each of the six Kohlbergian stage arguments (six pro and six con in each dilemma) should be rated in a -4 (I completely reject it) to 4 (I completely accept it) scale. Figure 5.7 shows that the attitudes are ordered in a way where higher stages (5 and 6) are most and lower stages are least preferred.
Stages of moral orientation (Kohlberg)
Mea n pr efer ence
1 2 3 4 5 6
-8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8
Figure 5.6: Means of preference for the Kohlbergian stages of moral orientation in the MJT (N=1149).
In addition, the cognitive-development theory postulates that the preferences for each moral orientation (stage) are systematically correlated to form a quasi-simplex-structure (Kohlberg, 1963). This means, stage preference in each level correlates most highly with its neighbor levels.
The correlation decreases as the levels are increasingly distant.
5.2. HYPOTHESIS 2 95 Figure 5.7 demonstrates that this criterion is fulfilled through the use of the MJT. For instance, the correlation between stages 2 and 3 is the highest found whereas the correlation between stages 2 and 5 is the lowest. The stage order is in agreement with previous findings from Kohlberg and Lind (Lind, 2000).
Factor 1
Factor 2
1 2 3
4
5 6
-0,1 0,0 0,1 0,2 0,3 0,4 0,5 0,6 0,7 0,8 0,9
-0,1 0,0 0,1 0,2 0,3 0,4 0,5 0,6 0,7 0,8 0,9
Figure 5.7: Factor loadings of the six moral orientations, principled component analysis, vari-max rotation (quasi-simplex-structure).
Figure 5.8 shows that the pattern of hierarchical preference of moral stages is similar for both cultures, in the way that higher, more complex stages (5 and 6) are most, and lower stages (1 and 2) are least preferred. However, some differences can be observed between both cultures:
Brazilian students tend to accept stage 3 arguments, which are rejected by German-speaking subjects. In addition, Brazilian students tend to prefer stage 3 over stage 4 arguments. German-speaking students on the other hand, prefer stage 5 arguments over stage 6 ones. The large difference regarding particularly stage 3 preference could indicate cultural or social factors interfering with patterns of hierarchical preference and preference order as proposed by Rest (1973).
The present findings support the claim that the six Kohlbergian stages of moral orientation are not culture related. They reveal a general agreement among different cultures about a
preference for cognitively higher moral principles, but show particular exceptions which should be further investigated. These results confirm the prognoses from the dual-aspect theory and the “Bildungstheorie”, that the affective aspect can be separately measured through the MJT.
Brazil (n=618)
German sp.
(n=531)
1 2 3 4 5 6
Stages of moral orientation (Kohlberg) -8
-6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8
Mea n pr efer ence
Figure 5.8: MJT affective aspect: means of preference for the Kohlbergian stages of moral orientation by culture.
5.2.3 Hypothesis 2c: Cognitive aspect
Hypothesis 2c deals with the assumption that the MJT C-score, or competence score, is a measure independent from the affective aspect.
Results reflect different structural characteristics used to produce moral judgment. They reflect different degrees of moral judgment competence levels and, thus, confirms the predictions of the dual-aspect theory. The C-scores (table 5.3) from Brazilian students (C-score = 18,7;
n= 618) are different to those from German-speaking students (C-score = 30,1;n= 531). As seen previously, the affective aspect given by moral orientations (Kohlbergian stages) follows a similar pattern for both cultures, with only few variations in regard to mean values for the
5.3. HYPOTHESIS 3 97 hierarchical stage preference. The cognitive aspect seems, on the contrary, to be influenced by cultural differences.
A preliminary analysis shows that students in German-speaking countries are more consistent in applying moral principles in solving moral conflicts than Brazilian students. This means, they seem more able to consider the quality of each argument in a moral judgment. Brazil-ian students seem to be less consistent in applying moral principles to the judgment of moral arguments. The reason could be that factors other than the quality of arguments are taken into consideration when producing a moral judgment. In particular, subjects tend to avoid arguments that are against their own opinion towards a specific dilemma. A deeper analysis in a further section shows that the Brazilian data should be understood respecting its cultural characteristics and in this particular case, the different profile from students attending compet-itive and non-competcompet-itive universities. A comparison between those cultures is possible only when those factors are considered.
The interaction between the variables culture and moral judgment competence can be analyzed through an analysis of variance. Results show that the effect of culture on moral judgment competence is statistically significant with large effect-sizes: F(1,1146) = 148,47, p = 0,0000, r = 0,34.
Considering that the participants in both cultures had the same level of education, those results seem to point to the direction of cultural aspects affecting the development of moral competence.
This does not mean, however, that the correlation found reflects only characteristics of different cultural or social systems. The question seems more related to which factors are responsible for the development of new competencies and whether this effect works independent from culture.