The Development of Moral Judgment from an. Information Integration Perspective: An Update. Aaron Bolin. Northern Illinois University

Transcription

1 Moral Development 1 The Development of Moral Judgment from an Information Integration Perspective: An Update Aaron Bolin Northern Illinois University

2 Moral Development 2 Theories of moral development such as those of Piaget (1965) and Kohlberg (Colby & Kohlberg, 1987) have been criticized for being vague and hard to experimentally test. Anderson (1991) outlined information integration theory (IIT) as a way of identifying the judgment parameters (scale value and weight) and integration rules that are relevant to any domain of judgment. By translating theoretical concepts from the fields of judgments of information based on information about intentions and consequences, judgments of achievement, person perception, moral choice, and reward allocation into IIT terms, specific theoretical predictions can be tested experimentally. The present paper will review representative research investigating these five judgment domains from an IIT perspective. Person Perception Norman Anderson suggested that if we look at a person as a complex informational field then we can apply IIT to explain the process of person perception (1980, p. 17). Researchers responded to this suggestion and published many studies concerned with the nuances of person perception. Representative findings from this research concerning the development of person perception are reviewed below. One widely reported finding in IIT research is that children use simple linear strategies, such as adding and averaging, to integrate information into a judgment. Butzin and Anderson (1973) were the first to examine children s integration strategies from an IIT perspective. Although not concerned with person perceptions per se, their study set the stage for other developmental research in this area. Five to twelve yearold children were asked how much they would like to play with pairs of toys, each

3 Moral Development 3 varying in attractiveness. Children used an averaging rule to integrate information and arrive at a judgment. Similarly, Singh, Sidhana, and Saluja (1978) found that six and seven year-old children used an averaging rule in making judgments of playgroups based on the personal attractiveness of members and the number of toys the group had to offer. Citing previous research which showed adult judgments generally conform to an averaging rule, Hendrick, Franz, and Hoving (1975) wanted to see if averaging represented the true psychological process underlying all judgment processes. They reasoned that since young children have not yet learned the concept of mathematical averaging, if they were found to use averaging as an integration strategy in person perception, then it would seem reasonable that averaging is a basic psychological process. To test this hypothesis, Hendrick et al. asked kindergarteners, and, second, fourth, and sixth graders to judge likableness of a person described by pairs of desirable and undesirable adjectives. Children did indeed use an averaging rule in making person impression judgments with inconsistent information. Peevers and Secord (1973) examined the developmental changes in person perceptions. Participants from five age groups ranging from kindergarten to college provided verbal descriptions of three people they liked and one person they disliked. Participants verbal descriptions were coded along four dimensions: descriptiveness, involvement, consistency, and depth. With increasing participant age, people are seen in a more differentiated way. The developmental path seemed to flow from (1) describing people in terms of their possessions and situation to (2) describing them by their behavior to (3) describing them using psychological constructs to (4) describing

4 Moral Development 4 them using individualized traits. Peevers and Secord also reported that the number of psychological constructs used in describing a person increased sharply with age and that even very young children could understand psychological traits, but rarely used them spontaneously. Barenboim (1981) related similar evidence for a developmental sequence of increasingly differentiated person impressions with increasing age. Barenboim s findings indicated that young children first base their person impressions on behavioral comparisons. As they get older, children begin to formulate abstract psychological constructs from these behavioral comparisons, which in turn leads to the use of psychological comparisons for the basis of person impressions. Heller and Berndt (1981) criticized the work of Peevers and Secord (1973), Barenboim (1981), and other researchers for methodological issues that could have produced an underestimation of the complexity of children s person impressions. By asking participants to make predictions about behavior based on various constructs, Heller and Berndt (1981) demonstrated that even young children could understand abstract psychological constructs (their findings suggests that young children s attributions about others are more organized and differentiated than the previous studies have reported). Although Heller and Berndt (1981) did show that young children, if primed, are able to understand psychological constructs, spontaneous person impressions are probably more in line with the developmental sequence outlined by Barenboim (1981). However, it seems clear that even young children can use complex integration rules to assimilate multiple pieces of information when forming person perceptions.

5 Moral Development 5 In a recent application of IIT to person perception, Collins and Brief (1995) wanted to uncover the symbolic meaning of teacher behaviors in the Milgram paradigm. Using both Russian and American participants, Collins and Brief varied descriptions of teacher behavior in the Milgram paradigm from defiant disobedience to polite obedience. One of the most interesting aspects of the study is that participants would make inferences about teachers, but would be unable to recreate their reasoning. In other words, participants knew what they knew, but didn t know how they knew it (p. 103). This finding confirms work by other researchers and is significant because it adds weight to the argument in favor of using IIT methods which can uncover the reasoning people use when making judgments. Additionally, Collins and Brief reported that all groups valued disobedience, but preferred polite disobedience to defiant disobedience. Another recent application of IIT to the study of the development of person perception concerned how people view memory loss. In two experiments, Erber (1989) compared how older participants (62-82) and younger participants (18-29) used information about a target person s age (either 30 or 60) and memory loss (more serious or less serious) to make appraisals of memory failures. Erber s findings indicated that participants rated older targets more stringently than younger targets. Participants also rated the target with more serious memory loss worse than the one with less serious memory loss. More importantly, older participants rated older targets with more serious memory loss significantly better than young participants rated the same targets. This finding is particularly relevant, because it provides evidence for continued development of person perception well into adulthood. In general, research on the development of person perception from an IIT

6 Moral Development 6 perspective has been helpful in identifying developmental changes. This research has shown that person perception becomes more differentiated and organized with age (Barenboim, 1981). In addition, from very early in life people use averaging to integrate information about the attributes of others (Hendrick et al., 1975). Research also suggests that self report is not a reliable source of information concerning judgment strategies because people are unaware of the strategies they use (Collins & Brief, 1995). Finally, recent research provides evidence that person perception continues to develop throughout the lifespan (Erber, 1989). Moral Choice Moral development refers to the growth of the individual s ability to distinguish right from wrong (Rich & Devittis, 1994). Theories of moral development typically posit a series of unidirectional hierarchical stages through which individuals pass at different rates but always in the same order. The theories of moral development as set forth by Piaget (1965) and Kohlberg (Colby & Kohlberg, 1987) are the two most prominent and researched models. According to Piaget, progression in morality is driven by cognitive maturation. Based on a small sample of male, middle-class children, Piaget concluded that moral development takes place in stages that are innate, invariant, hierarchical, discrete, and culturally universal. At the first stage of Piaget s theory, heteronomous morality, a young child bases his moral judgments on unilateral respect for authority figures. Piaget called this a morality of constraint in which absolute moral values are maintained out of respect for authority figures. According to Piaget, reasoning at this

7 Moral Development 7 stage is very linear and concrete. The main point is that morality centrates on one piece of information because young children are not cognitively capable of considering (integrating) several things simultaneously. The second stage in the Piaget model is autonomous morality in which a more subjective sense of autonomy and reciprocity leads to relativistic reasoning. At this stage, children are capable of integrating many things simultaneously which enables them to consider relationships and co-occurances when forming judgments. Kohlberg originally set out to test Piaget s model with a structured moral judgment interview that he developed, but ended up proposing a theory of his own (Colby & Kohlberg, 1987). Kohlberg s model is similar to Piaget s in that moral development takes place in a series of innate, invariant, hierarchical, discrete, and culturally universal stages. Kohlberg also assumes that moral development can be accelerated by promoting thinking and problem solving. At the first stage of the Kohlberg model, pre-conventional reasoning, people are concerned about the rewards and punishments associated with different moral choices. At the next level, conventional moral reasoning, people make moral choices based on the acceptance of rules, expectations of others, and conventions (contracts) that guide human interaction. At the final level of moral development, which Kohlberg calls post-conventional moral reasoning, individual s make moral choices based on internalized, abstract principles of justice and equality. One major point on which Kohlberg differs from Piaget is that Kohlberg considers the use of absolute moral principles as characteristic of mature moral reasoning while Piaget considers moral relativism as more mature. In general, moral development theory is based on four central premises: 1) the

8 Moral Development 8 reasoning behind moral decisions (not decisions themselves) represents the manifestation of morality; 2) different reasoning, or rationales, can be ordered for maturity; 3) people progress linearly and universally through discrete stages of reasoning; and 4) stages are linked to a progression in cognitive processes (Kaplan, 1989). Research in this area has traditionally examined the moral choices that individuals make when confronted with conflicting situational demands. Kohlberg s Moral Judgment Interview consist of a series of moral dilemmas in which an individual first chooses the most preferred course of action for a fictitious story character who must decide between two moral alternatives, and then provide the reasoning behind the choice (Colby & Kohlberg, 1987). A paper-pencil varient of the interview is the Defining Issues Test (DIT) developed by Rest (1973), which classifies individuals as belonging in Kohlberg s stages based on answers to dichotomous moral choice items, and subsequent selection of the most applicable rationales for the choice from a list ranging from pre-conventional to postconventional rationales. Kaplan (1989) ran a series of experimental studies to test five areas of interest devised from the theories of Piaget and Kohlberg. First, he wanted to see if progression in moral reasoning lies in values or reasoning. Second, he wondered if moral development consisted of orderly change in emphasis on and preference for certain rationales. Third, he wanted to see if moral development is continuous and gradual or conforms to a discrete stage-like model. Fourth, Kaplan wanted to see if progression in moral reasoning is from simple, linear models to more complex, configural models of integration. Fifth, Kaplan wanted to see if moral maturity is

9 Moral Development 9 characterized by relativistic or absolute reasoning. Kaplan made the following three predictions based on an application of IIT. First, values (scale value in IIT) should not change so long as the judgment dimension is constant -- punishment is just as negative regardless of age. Second, relative weighting of information should change according to the level of development. Finally, more mature rationales should receive more weight with greater psychological maturity (integration strategies should become more complex with age). Higher levels of moral development should be characterized by more relativistic reasoning, consistent with Piaget s theory. In IIT, values are synonymous with scale value, while weight and reasoning are synonymous with integration stragtegy. Kaplan then classified a sample of college students in terms of Kohlberg s stages based on their scores on the DIT. Participants made moral choices on 27 moral dilemmas, constructed from a factorial design with three likelihood levels and three rationale types. Participants at different levels of moral development (according to the DIT) did not differ in weighting or integration rule complexity. In other words, Conventional reasoners did not prefer conventional rationales more than preconventional reasoners. Instead, participants who got higher scores on the DIT simply chose moral choices stronger; a difference in values not in reasoning. Considering that many public schools use methods to advance moral reasoning based on Kohlbergian theory, Kaplan next sought to assess the effectiveness of such a program from an IIT perspective. By simply asking half of the participants to make moral choices on factorially constructed moral dilemmas before taking a course in moral decision making and asking the other half to make moral choices based on the

10 Moral Development 10 same dilemmas after taking the course, Kaplan assess changes in moral reasoning took place and the nature of these changes. Students trained in a Kohlbergian program showed a stronger preference for more moralistic choices, but surprisingly, used less configural reasoning (less relativistic). Trained students were more absolute in their decisions, used less complex integration rules, and were more moralistic. As a follow up, Kaplan devised a program that trained students in higher order reasoning, but not in values. He trained high school students how to use configural integration rules in non-moral tasks, such as (a) deciding how likely one would be to help a student by serving in an experiment, given informaiton about experimenter need and subject cost; (b) judging the guilt of a student accused of cheating based on his or her actions and the severity of penalties; (c) assigning a sentence to a defendant tried for car theft given his motives and the damage to the car; and (d) attributing suspiciousness to suspects in murder mysteries given their opportunites and motives. Next, he compared the performance of students trained using his program with a control group of students on factorially constructed moral dilemmas. Configural reasoning increased for the treatment group, but training in configural reasoning did not inculcate values. In the series of studies described above, Kaplan and colleagues showed that several of the core assumptions of moral theory do not accurately reflect development. Kaplan found evidence that participants integrated multiple types of reasoning considerations when making moral choices, suggesting that stages of moral development are not discrete. That is, all participants used pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional rationales in their decisons to some degree. In

11 Moral Development 11 addition, Kohlberg s theory proposes the use of absolute reasoning is a sign of maturity, but evidence suggests that mature moral reasoning is more relative and complex. Most importantly, Kaplan demonstrated the utility of IIT for clarifying and correcting moral theory. Kaplan writes, The integration conception and methodology (of IIT) is a means of testing implications of Kohlbergian and Piagetian stages while clearly distinguishing between values and reasoning, not assuming discrete stages, and avoiding the problems associated with dichotomous verbal choices and reports (p. 123). Judging Achievement, Effort, and Ability Research on judgments of achievement addresses two general questions. First, are there age differences in the weight given to ability vs. effort information when assessing achievement? Second, are there age differences in how this information is combined? In addition, the IIT approach has been used to determine whether or not there is a reversible causal schema underlying achievement judgments based on ability and effort, and ability judgments based on achievement and effort (Surber, 1985). Kun, Parsons, & Ruble (1974) were the first to address this issue from an IIT perspective. Children (ages 6, 8, and 10) and college students predicted how many puzzles a child could solve as a function of three levels of the target s ability and three levels of effort. The youngest children used an additive integration rule while older children and college student both used a multiplicative rule. Other findings indicated a developmental shift in weighting, with effort becoming increasingly more important than ability as age increased. Finally, Kun et al. reported that even the youngest children could integrate both pieces of information into a prediction; a finding contrary to the

12 Moral Development 12 centration hypothesis of Piaget who believed that young children could only use one piece of information at a time when forming judgments. Surber (1980) attempted to replicate the findings of Kun et al. (1974) using weight lifter performance as a stimulus. She obtained very similar results, with adults and older children multiplying and young children adding. These results led Surber (1985) to later conclude that children over nine years of age multiply when judging achievement based on ability and effort. However, later research by Surber and others suggests that more work in this area is necessary to discern the effect of task difficulty on judgments of performance and to more clearly delineate the course of individual development. Closely related to the study of achievement judgments based on effort and ability is research in the area of inverse compensation. Inverse compensation refers to knowledge that judgments of ability should be inversely related to effort if the level of performance is fixed. Research in this area is best represented by a study by Karabenick and Heller (1976). Adults, first, third, and fifth graders were asked to predict either effort or ability when given the value of the other with a fixed level of performance. Surprisingly, about half of the children demonstrated some appreciation of the inverse relationship between effort and ability by the first grade. In addition, Karabenick and Heller reported that the ability to infer effort from ability develops earlier than the ability to infer ability from effort. A subsequent study by Surber (1985) showed even college students can fail to exhibit reversibility. About half of her participants judged ability as increasing as effort increases for a fixed level of performance, while the other half judged ability to be

13 Moral Development 13 inversely related to effort. Based on these findings, and the findings of Karabenick and Heller (1976), Surber concluded that the development of inverse compensation is not related to age. She speculated that failure to exhibit inverse compensation may be largely due to the cognitive demands of the task interfering with judging ability. Gupta and Singh (1981) examined achievement attributions cross-culturally with a population of Indian subjects. Accepting the finding that most Americans over age six use a multiplying rule, Gupta and Singh hypothesized that Indians would use an equal weight averaging rule to integrate effort and ability information into a judgment of performance. Consistent with the hypothesis, attributions of performance by Indian participants obeyed an averaging rule. This finding raises the issue of developmental and cultural differences in the judgment process. For example, Indians assume that ability is fixed, and doesn t change with effort, while Americans assume extra effort enhances ability. Judgments Based on Intentions and Consequences Piaget (1965) pioneered work on the development of judgments based on information about intentions and consequences. Using a somewhat unsystematic interview technique, Piaget asked young children to judge which of a pair of fictitious story characters was naughtier when one character causes a lot of damage accidentally and one character caused a little damage intentionally. Piaget found support for his hypothesis that there is a developmental change from an emphasis on consequences to an emphasis on intentions. Note that the study design does not

14 Moral Development 14 separate the factors of outcome and intention, but contrasts only diagonal pairs of high and low levels of both. Surber (1977) also investigated the development of judgments based on information about intentions and consequences, but she took an IIT perspective and created a complete factorial set of stories. Participants varied in school level from kindergarten through college age. All participants used a weighted average integration rule in judging naughtiness. Furthermore, Surber found strong evidence that developmental changes in this area are continuous rather than discrete and are best described by changes in weight of intentions vs. outcomes. Consistent with the findings of Piaget, she also found that participants decreased the weight of consequences and increased the weight of intentions as their age increased. Finally, Surber reported that younger children showed a very strong primacy effect in which the stimulus presented first (either intent or consequence) received more weight in determining the final judgment. Surber (1982) later confirmed the finding of primacy effects in judgments based on information about intentions and consequences. Using kindergarten, second, and fifth grade participants, Surber systematically varied the presentation order of intentions and consequences. Surprisingly, she found recency effects at all three ages, but the effect was strongest for the kindergarteners. Surber also confirmed the developmental shift in weighting with older participants giving more weight to intentions. In addition, Surber confirmed findings in other areas of moral judgment research (Butzin and Anderson, 1973) that even young children can integrate multiple pieces of information into a judgment.

15 Moral Development 15 Leon (1980) examined how children form judgments when relevant information is missing. Specifically, Leon asked children to infer naughtiness when only information concerning intent is given. He found that participants inferred mild negative consequences when only intent was given. Participants integrated intent and consequences using a linear (adding or averaging) function (both children and adults). However, participants showed a decreased focus on damage as age increased. One advantage of using Leon s method is that he was able to detect an accident configural rule used by older participants that Piaget could not. However, the presence of an accident configural rule suggests that moral judgments are situation specific and relative just as Piaget suggested. Reward Allocation Reward allocation represents the final topic of discussion in this short review. The general paradigm of reward allocation is for participants to divide rewards between two people based on information about the amount of work done and their need for the rewards. Two topics of interest in this area include developmental changes in reward allocation rules and measuring growth in the capacity to combine informaiton (Surber, 1985). Anderson and Butzin (1978) were the first to look at the development of reward allocation judgments from an IIT perspective. Using children ranging from four to nine years in age, Anderson and Butzin ran a series of studies looking at various issues such as integration capacity, deservingness, and proportional reasoning. Contrary to

16 Moral Development 16 Piaget s centration hypothesis, Anderson and Butzin reported that some four year old children could integrate four pieces of information into a judgment. Integration capacity increased with age, such that by eight year of age most children could integrate four pieces of information. Finally, Anderson and Butzin showed that allocations are proportional to subjective deservingness (as determined from information about work performed and need). Enright, Enright, and Lapsley (1981) also reported evidence for developmental progression in reward allocation. Kindergarteners and third graders were classified as belonging to one of five stages of distributive justice development according to their scores on the Distributive Justice Scale. As predicted, older children were more advanced in distributive justice development. In addition, socio-economic class was related to distributive justice development, such that children from middle-class homes were more advanced than children from lower-class homes at both ages. Kaplan and Yehl (1986) studied trends in children s reward allocations within pairs of story characters differing in work output and effort. Children from first, fourth, and seventh grades were asked to allocate rewards between two children. The results showed that participants allocated more reward to the story character who put forth more effort and completed more work. But first graders gave the most weight to output while judgments from the other two groups were more influenced by effort. Conclusions Although only representative research has been reviewed in this paper, the utility IIT analysis for research in the area of moral development has clearly been

17 Moral Development 17 demonstrated. The findings of this body of research both clarify and correct some of the theoretical concepts of moral theory. For example, IIT research has shown that development in moral judgment is a continuous process that builds upon early progress rather than a series of discrete stages. In addition, IIT based research supports the Piagetian notion that moral maturity is characterized by relativistic reasoning and points to a change in weighting as the basis of change. IIT based research has also shown that even young children are capable of integrating multiple pieces of information using complex rules. Finally, IIT based research has shown that the cognitive processes of moral judgments are the same as those used in other judgment domains.

18 Moral Development 18 References Anderson, N. (1980). Information integration theory in developmental psychology. In Wilkening, F.,Becker, J., & Trabasso, T. (eds.). Information Integration by Children. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Anderson, N. & Butzin, C. (1978). Integration theory applied to children s judgments of equity. Developmental Psychology, 14(6), Barenboim, C. (1981). The development of person perception in childhood and adolescence: From behavioral comparisons to psychological constructs to psychological comparisons. Child Development, 52, Butzin, C. & Anderson, N. (1973). Functional measurement of children s judgments. Child Development, 44, Colby, A. & Kohlberg, L. (1987). The Measurement of Moral Judgment. NY: University of Cambridge. Erber, J. (1989). Young and older adults appraisal of memory failures in young and older adult target persons. Journals of Gerontology, 44(6), Enright, R., Enright, W., & Lapsley, D. (1981). Distributive justice development and social class: A replication. Developmental Psychology, 17(6),

19 Moral Development 19 Gupta, M. & Singh, S. (1981). An integration-theoretical analysis of cultural and developmental differences in attribution of performance. Developmental Psychology, 17(6), Kaplan, M. (1989). Information integration in moral reasoning: Conceptual and Methodological Implications. In Eisenberg, N., Regkowski, J. & Stark, E. (eds.). Social and Moral Values: Individual and Societal Perspectives. Hillsdale NJ: Erlbaum. Kaplan, M. & Yehl, M. (1986). Deservingness and equality in children s reward allocation: Developmental trends. Psychologia, 29(2), Karabenick, J. & Heller, K. (1976). A developmental study of effort and ability attributions. Developmental Psychology, 12(6), Kun, A., Parsons, J., & Ruble, D. (1974). Development of integration processes using ability and effort information to predict outcome. Developmental Psychology, 10(5), Leon, M. (1982). Rules in children s moral judgments: Integration of intent, damage, and rationale information. Developmental Psychology, 18(6), Piaget, J. (1965). The Moral Judgment of the Child. NY: Free Press. Peevers, B. & Secord, P. (1973). Developmental changes in attribution of descriptive choice concepts to persons. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 27(1), Rich, J. & DeVittis, J. (1994). Theories of Moral Development. Springfield IL: Thomas.

20 Moral Development 20 Surber, C. (1977). Developmental processes in social inference: Averaging of intentions and consequences in moral judgment. Developmental Psychology, 13(6), Surber, C. (1980). The development of reversible operations in judgments of ability, effort, and performance. Child Development, 51, Surber, C. (1982). Separable effects of motives, consequence3s, and presentation order on children s moral judgments. Developmental Psychology, 18(2), Surber, C. (1985). Applications of information integration to children s social cognitions. In Pryor, J., & Day, J. (eds.). The Development of Social Cognition. NY: Springer-Verlaz.

21 Moral Development 21 The Development of Moral Judgment from an Information Integration Perspective: An Update Aaron Bolin Northern Illinois University

22