Development in Judging Moral Issues : A Summary of Research Using the Defining Issues Test. Minnesota Moral Research Projects, Technical Report No. 3 / James Rest and Others.

Six papers, originally presented in different form at the 1977 Convention of the Society for Research in Child Development, highlight approximately 100 studies that have used the Defining Issues Test (DIT) of moral judgment. The DIT's standardized format and objective scoring makes comparisons possible among studies, and this body of research comprises the most substantial data base yet accumulated on a single measure of moral judgment. The purpose of this report is to present outstanding examples of several types of DIT studies, to summarize the findings of similar studies, and to discuss the theoretical implications regarding the nature of moral judgment and cognitive-developmental theory. The papers include: Charting the course of development through cross-sectional and longitudinal studies (James R. Rest); Cognitive and political attitude correlates of the DIT (James L. Carroll); Moral judgment intervention studies using the DIT (Jeanette A. Lawrence); The DIT related to behavior in an experimental setting: promise keeping in the prisoner's dilemma game (M. Kathryn Jacobs); Social cognition related to behavior in a naturalistic setting: a comparison of delinquents, predelinquents and nondelinquents (Edgar B. McColgan); and Indexing moral development (Mark L. Davison and Stephen Robbins). (Author/MV)

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