1999 Volume 47 Issue 2 Pages 121-130
The present study investigated the influence of children's attitudes on their performance and the process of discussion of a moral task in terms of the assertiveness and cognitive empathy attitudes of elementary school children who scored at a lower level of moral development. Children scoring at a low level of moral development were paired with children scoring at a upper level, and divided into 4 groups on the basis of level of assertiveness and cognitive empathy. They participated 3 times in a moral discussion. The content of their utterances during the discussion and prepost differences in their moral level scores were analyzed. As regards the children who had scored at a low level of moral development, the levels of their assertiveness and cognitive empathy influenced the quality of their opinion and their partner's opinion, and that resulted in the differences of prompting moral stage development.
