Abstract
Based on Piaget's work on the moral judgment of the child and the works on attitude change, two hypotheses were set up. Hypothesis 1 was,“the change in moral judgment is more likely when one is made to express by role-playing a moral judgment contrary to his (her) own than when one hears such moral judgment expressed by others”, and hypothesis 2 was,“a change from subjective judgment (judgment in terms of intention) to objective judgment-(judgment in terms of consequence) is less likely to occur than a change toward the opposite direction and that even if it does occur, it would not last long.” Based on these hypotheses, the effects of role-playing and its hearing on changes in moral judgment were examined.
Subjects: 34 children in 2nd grade of an elementary school. First, a questionnaire on moral judgment cosisting of 6 items, that were formed by referring to Piaget's works, was carried out (pretest). Subjects expressing objective judgments in the pretest were grouped as C group, while those expressing subjective judgments were grouped as I group. Next, using 2 items given in the pretest, half the subjects of each group are made to express opinions based on judgment contrary to their own, and it is recorded on videotape (R group). The remaining halves of groups C and I are made to watch the videotapes in which others are expressing opinions based on judgment respectively to one's own (H group). Immediately after these manipulations and again after 5 weeks, questionnaires on moral judgment (however, new items were included) given.(post-test 1, 2). Changes found between pretests and post-tests 1 and 2 were analyzed according to conditions.
No significant difference was found between groups R and H concerning changes toward the intended direction, and thus hypothesis 1 was not supported. However, an interaction effect was seen between R-H and I-C. In group I, the R group showed greater changes than the H group as expected from the hypothesis; but in group C, the H group showed greater changes, contrary to the hypothesis. According to Piaget, subjects expressing objective judgment are regarded as those with inadequate decentration. Theiefore, it may be thought that such subjects found the task itself difficult, the task of taking another role.
Next, group I showed a change toward the intended direction significantly less than group C and thus supported the first half of hypothesis 2. As for the endurance of change, group I showed significantly less change in post-test 2 than in post-test 1 and thus supported the last half of hypothesis 2. Nevertheless, this tendency did not reach a significant level in the HI group, for the change itself found in post-test 1 was very small in comparison to other groups. It is considered that a change from subjective judgment to objective judgment is difficult to produce under the manipulation of hearing others opinions, in which the pressure toward attitude change is comparatively weak.
Lastly, in post-test 1, the change did not quite generalize among the items other than the ones used in exerimental manipulation. Consequently, the change brought about by the manipulation of this experiment is regarded as a change in moral judgment specific to respective situations and not as a general tendency in moral judgment as treated by Piaget. Yet, these two are not totally unrelated, for the very tendency of change in moral judgment is realized by the long-term accumulation of manipulations that change specific moral judgments. The experimental manipulations handled in this experiment may be classified as the condition, children's experiences in social relations, wich Piaget considered as one of the factors responsible for bringing about the developmental change of moral judgments.
