Moral Stages and Moral Orientations in Real-Life and Hypothetical Dilemmas

• DOI: 10.2307/1130221
• Publication Date: 2006-06-20T00:56:38Z
• Authors: Lawrence J. Walker; Brian de Vries; Shelley D. Trevethan
• Keywords: 05 social sciences; 0503 education

WALKER, LAWRENCE J.; DE VRIES, BRIAN; and TREVETHAN, SHELLEY D. Moral Stages and Moral Orientations in Real-Life and Hypothetical Dilemmas. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1987, 58, 842-858. We examined 2 influential theories of moral reasoning: Kohlberg's moral stage model and Gilligan's moral orientation model. 3 issues were of particular interest: (a) the relation between reasoning about hypothetical and real-life dilemmas, (b) the validity of Gilligan's notion of sex-related moral orientations (response vs. rights), and (c) the relation of moral orientation to moral stage. Participants were 80 family triads (mother, father, and child, total N = 240), with children drawn from grades 1, 4, 7, and 10. In individual interviews, they discussed hypothetical dilemmas and a personally generated real-life dilemma, which were scored for both moral stage and moral orientation. Content analyses were also conducted for the real-life dilemmas. Results indicated consistency in moral stage between responses to hypothetical and real-life dilemmas, supporting the notion that stages are holistic structures. However, few individuals showed consistent use of a single moral orientation. The evidence regarding the relation between sex and orientation was inconsistent. Among other results, sex differences were evident in dilemma content but were not evident in orientations when dilemma content was controlled. The sexes did not differ in stage of moral development; however, there were moral stage differences as a function of moral orientation.