Research on moral development from a cognitive-developmental perspective has been undertaken predominantly with Western subjects and most often with males. To investigate variables associated with moral reasoning among Palestinian Arabs, 259 male and female university students between the ages of 18 and 26 completed Rest's Defining Issues Test…

This study was designed to help determine whether there are gender differences in the psychological and moral development of traditional-age college students. Two hundred thirty-three first-year and graduating students were given the Student Development Task and Lifestyle Inventory (SDTLI) and the Defining Issues Test (DIT) to determine whether…

Findings from research studies that use the Defining Issues Test (DIT), a test of moral judgment development, are described. These findings are relevant to three major questions in higher education research: (1) the question of student outcomes (i.e., what does college experience do for and to people?); (2) the question of the relevance and…

A sample of 245 Chicano, Black, and Anglo children, grades 2-9, from three midwestern states was chosen for a comparative study of moral judgment, to measure differences among the ethnic groups and to determine whether they made the same progression through Kohlberg's three levels of moral development. Subjects viewed video tapes of five moral…

This paper describes the rationale for the Defining Issues Test (DIT), an objective test of moral judgment which attempts to improve upon three aspects of Kohlberg's research: data collection, categorization of moral judgments (the scoring system), and method of indexing a subject's progress in a developmental sequence. In each case, the way in…

A group of 45 undergraduates discussed a moral issue with a confederate who had the same opinion (no-controversy) or opposite opinion (controversy). Subjects in the controversy conditions were induced to have a high level of defensiveness by a disconfirmation of personal competence or a low level of defensiveness by a confirmation. Subjects in…