THE DEVELOPMENT OF MORAL JUDGMENT IN PRESCHOOL-CHILDREN - CARE-ORIENTED OR AUTHORITY-ORIENTED

Objective: Our study attempts to find out at what age a gender-specifi c style of judgement is developing. The study intends to investigate t he correlation between the moral of care with those principles of mora l which Piaget, Damon and Kohlberg describe as being typical for the p reschool age, and if those gender-specific principles really exist whi ch are postulated by Gilligan. Method: 72 children (age: 4-6 years) we re given four cartoons describing a conflict. In two stories the confl ict was constructed between care-orientation and egocentric-orientatio n, the other two described a conflict between care-orientation and aut hority-orientation. The children were asked to decide for one of the t wo possible final pictures representing one of the conflicting orienta tions, respectively. Then, a half-structured interview was applied to assert which orientation had been the basis for the decision for one o f the final pictures. To make sure that gender differences, maybe, cou ld not be found in the moral judgement, but in the moral motivation as its pre-state, the children were asked to use a five-stage emotional scale in order to evaluate the protagonist's feelings in the final pic ture. Results: The results do not show any gender differences: gills o f preschool age show no differences from boys, neither in their moral judgement nor in their addiction of emotions. However, significant dif ferences of trends dependent on age can be found. In concordance with Piaget's and Damon's theories egocentric orientation decreases signifi cantly with age, while care orientation increases significantly with a ge. The results were be interpreted according to the theories of Piage t, Kohlberg and Damon and the further developments of Turiel, Nunner-W inkler and Keller.