Abstract
The purpose of the present research was to clarify some aspects of the development of Japanese young people’s moral judgment, from the point of view of Kohlberg’s theory of moral development. The participants were 2,697 students (47% males, 53% females), including 609 fifth- and sixth-graders, 1,666 middle-school students, 262 high school students, and 160 university students. The participants’ developmental stage was measured by the Defining Issues Test. Using a new standard for evaluating each stage of development, the participants were classified into 8 stages. The results supported Kohlberg’s theory. It was found that more than 70% of the participants who were in the fifth and sixth grades of elementary school had already reached the conventional level. The developmental process was clarified with a cognitive structured model of each stage. In choosing values, the elementary and secondary school students tended to select from low-stage viewpoints to high-stage ones, whereas the high school and university students tended to select in the reverse direction. Gender differences were found in many of the age groups. The girls’ developmental stages tended to be significantly higher than the boys’. In addition, the results suggested that more boys than girls chose the stage 3 viewpoint. The findings of the present study suggest that when one’s developmental level becomes higher, developmental differences decrease and moral judgment becomes more stable.
