MORAL JUDGMENT AND ATTITUDINAL MATURITY REGARDING ECOLOGY

This study is based on Kohlberg's theory of moral development. The fir st research study reported here established categories which appeared in sample of 72 male and female subjects'responses to an open question naire on attitudes toward ecology, and revealed a significant correlat ion between maturity of moral judgment (measured by the Sociomoral Ref lection Objective Measure) and maturity of attitudes toward ecology. S tudy 2 investigated attitudes toward ecology ill three age/school grou ps: eight-grade, first year of high school, and university students. R esults of all ANOVA and subsequent paired comparisons revealed increas es in maturity of attitudes toward ecology with advances in age/school grade. Differences in categories which emerged from a content analysi s of the responses are also discussed.