VARIABILITY IN STRUCTURED WHOLENESS - CONTEXT FACTORS IN KOHLBERG,L. DATA ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF MORAL JUDGMENT

This study is designed to assess the variability in the development of moral judgment and to reconstruct it on the basis of cognitive contex t factors represented by characteristics of moral dilemmas and issues. With use of the original stage scores of the issues in Kohlberg's lon gitudinal sample, which consisted of eight age groups between 10 and 3 6 years, the hypothesis was tested that for age groups with convention al reasoning transpersonal dilemmas pull for higher stage scores than do personal dilemmas, whereas for preconventional age groups moral jud gments of nonauthoritative issues are more advanced than authoritative issues. Results confirmed these hypotheses and have implications for a contextual constraint theory of moral judgment.