"Whether or not an interpretation of a test's properties or relations involves questions of construct validity is to be decided by examining the entire body of evidence offered, together with what is asserted about the test in the context of this evidence." (L. J. Cronbach & P. E. Meehl, 1955, p. 283)

-------------------

Note: As an effort to follow Ockham's advice, and reduce the number of concepts involved in my Dual-Aspect Theory of moral behavior, and to make my theory, as Popper reminds us, more informative and better testable, I have made a few terminological changes over the past four decades of research:

The main object of my research has always been, and still is, moral competence. Already in the past I have frequently used this term, but I have also used other terms for it like 'moral judgment' and 'moral reasoning.'. These latter terms are often used for designating the conscious process of ethical judgment and ethical reasoning rather than for the largely unconscious process of moral competence. INorder to avoid confusion, I no longer use them when I speak about moral competence. Yet in my older publication and in publications by other authors the other terms are still found.

Sometimes, I also use the term moral-democratic competence to indicate that moral competence applies to both, the 'individual' ability as well as to the 'social' ability to solve problems and conflicts on the basis of universal moral principles through thinking (individual) and discussion (social), instead of through violence, deceit, or bowing down to internal or external powers.

Accordingly, a few years ago I have renamed the once-called Moral Judgment Test (MJT) to Moral Competence Test (MCT) because the MCT lets us assess individuals' moral competence as it becomes visible in their actual pattern of responses to a specially designed moral task.

Georg Lind, January 2018.

Publications on findings, background, and interpretations related to the MCT (formerly called MJT):

Abstract
Objective: To investigate moral judgment competence in patients with the behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia
(bvFTD) compared to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and controls. Methods: N¼12 bvFTD, N¼22 ALS patients
and N¼19 neurological unimpaired controls were examined. In the ‘Moral Competence Test’ (MCT), participants had
to evaluate two moral dilemmas by predefined arguments to measure the consistency of their moral judgments. The‘Ethics Position Questionnaire’ (EPQ) addresses whether individuals prefer binding ethical standards, the Idler Index of
Religiosity (IIR) measures the level of religiosity. Cognition was assessed with the CERAD-plus. Results: BvFTD and
ALS patients exhibited a similar moral position as healthy controls but a significantly lower judgment consistency in the
MCT. MCT performance was independent from general cognitive functioning and not associated with moral orientation
and religiosity. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that not the moral position itself seems to be impaired in patients with
bvFTD, but rather their competence to transfer it into situational decisions. The fact that ALS patients have similar problems in applying moral principles in a consistent manner might indicate a deficit in execution of moral judgment, and this is in line with studies suggesting a damage of specific cerebral structures."

"Abstract: The previous moral psychological research on educational institutions highlighted the
influence on the development of moral orientation and competence. With the help of
the present quantitative study, the influence of early childhood education on moral
abilities has been explored. Since the moral education of children is often associated
with religious norms and values, and religions are debated in relation to their general
meaning and functionality, the religious moral education has been investigated.
Therefore, students of various disciplines from Berlin were asked about their religious
education in their early childhood and were examined on their current moral orientation
and competence. The Moral-Competence-Test by Lind and a self-constructed and
piloted questionnaire for the examination of religious education and religiosity have
been used for the measurement. The results of the online study have shown that the
moral skills of dogmatically educated students are significantly reduced, but not
related to the differences in educational experience or the current preservation of
religiousness." (p.1)

Note: As the author told me, the absolute effect size (differences of the mean scores) between dogmatic-religiously raised and other university students was huge, namely 31,7 C-points on a scale from 0 to 100! Such an effect size is not ´just "significant" but very large. GL.

(My graph on the basis of the data of Asli Akin's study; personal communication)

Abstract: "Research has found that moral competence is negatively associated with bullying behavior in schools, but the drivers of this association are not yet well understood. In this paper, we report on two studies which suggest that moral competence acts as a moderator of peer influence in the context of school bullying. Data were collected at two time points in three German higher secondary schools (grades 7–10, average age at measurement: 14.26 years). Using a cross-lagged panel design (CLPD), study 1 (N = 251) found adolescents with low moral competence to be susceptible to peer influence, while no such effect was found for adolescents with high moral competence. Study 2, a cross-sectional analysis (N = 748), found moral competence to be inversely related to the likelihood of an individual's conforming with the pro-bullying behavior of his or her peers. Neither study found corresponding effects for pro-social, defending behavior. Our findings further illuminate the associations between moral competence, peer influence, and school bullying. Some implications for bullying prevention are discussed."

"A common model for representing psychological data is simple structure (Thurstone (1947). According to one common interpretation, data are simple structured when items
or scales have non-zero factor loadings on one and only one factor (Revelle & Rocklin (1979)1. Despite the common place application of simple structure, some psychological
models are defined by a lack of simple structure. Circumplexes (Guttman (1954) are one
kind of model in which simple structure is lacking." (p. 1).

Comment: The (quasi-) circumplex of stage-correlations has become one of the core validity criteria of the MCT. I borrowed this idea from Kohlberg (1958), who in turn borrowed it from Guttman (1954).

Background: Thurstone's model is the basis of "classical test theory." This model assumes that each item of a test measures the same psychological property (e.g., general intenlligence) and possesses the same difficulty, so that all items are highly (linearly) correlated with each other. Ideally, these correlations are perfect (r = 1.0), yet assumed measurement error reduces these correlations. Gutman's model is similar. It also states that all items measure the same construct but that they differ in regard to their difficulty. Because of the way statistical linear correlations are defined, the correlation between items with different difficulty cannot be r = 1.0 even in the absence of measurement error. This is not a "lack" of simple structure but a consequence of the definition of linear correlation. Guttman argued that the correlations whould be highest for items with most similar difficulty and the similar the more different their difficulty is. When such a structure is given, a factor analysis results in two factors with factor loadings describing a circumflex (a quarter of a circle). See validation crieria for the MCT.

[The data reported in the tables in this study are highly contradictory. According to some tables, the average C-score in this study is about 11, in other tables it is about 28. I recommend a thorough re-analysis of all data. GL ... more]

Comment: Each day medical doctors have to solve many problems and conflicts. We expect them to cope with these problems and conflicts on the basis of their moral principles, which they doubtlessly have. But they need also moral competence, that is the ability to cope with them through thinking and discussion, instead of through power, deceit, or submission under the authority of others. In other words, the profession of medicine requires a rather high level of moral competence. Yet, as this important study shows, medical education does not foster this enough in Chile (but also in many other countries). The average C Index of 20,9 for these physicians is just the minimum which is needed for cooperating in a social environment (Lind 2016). This means that about half of the physicians is below that minimum. These physician can hardly practice their profession at the level which we should expect. This finding should motivate all who are responsible for medical education to provide opportunities for developing higher moral competence in medical students. The positive effect of postgraduate studies seems to support this request. (Note: I cannot detect any systematic correlation between years of practice and moral competence level. The variation of average scores could be due to sampling effects or quality of education when these age cohorts were studying.) Georg Lind

These authors were among the first who discovered the unique functions of the frontal brain, especially the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFC) for the integration of (conscious) symbolic reasoning on the one side and affective and emotional impulses originating in the limbic system. They show that if this part of the brain is impaired, people can still use their symbolic functions and cognitive skills but can no longer control their moral behavior. See also Prehn et al. (2008).

"Abstract: Analyzing Brazilian MCT data (Bataglia & Schillinger, 2002) separately in a
retrospective study, we have noticed that all the samples had much better results in
the Workers' Dilemma than in the Doctor 's Dilemma (i.e., Mercy Killing Dilemma).
This phenomenon has been called moral segmentation (Wakenhut, 1972 [, Krämer-Badoni & Wakenhut, 1985, GL]). The purpose
of the present paper is to present a history of our efforts at investigating the moral
segmentation phenom enon in Brazil. Some possible hypotheses and explana tions are
presented below." (p. 71)

Bataglia, P., Schillinger-Agati, M. M., Lind, G. & , Quevedo, T.L. (2003). Testing the segmentation hypothesis with an Extended Version of the MJT.* Poster presented at the meeting of the Association for Moral Education, Krakow, July 19, 2003. ... more[* now called Moral Competence Test]

"Perhaps 90% of the studies are methodologically inadequate, without
conceptual implication, and even foolish. ... Many concepts have not been well
represented by their operational indicators. Psychologists have been
extraordinarily causal and even irresponsible in developing measures to
represent concepts. ... Psychologists often employ research designs almost
guaranteed to obscure relationships that may be residing in the data." (p. 39,
40, 41)

Broughton, John (1978). The cognitive-developmental approach to morality: A reply to Kurtines and Greif. Journal of Moral Education 1, 81-96.

Comment: John Broughton brilliantly refutes the critique of Kohlberg's measurement approach by Kurtines and Greif.

The gains of moral competence by field of study. Cross-sectional comparison of 1st-4th semester students with 5th-10th semester students (Grund- versus Hauptstudium). The law students gained most (p. 45).

Abstract
The main objective of the study was to find out, if there is any relation between personal tendency towards infidelity and moral reasoning. Furthermore, we focused on the link between moral reasoning and assessing the significance of the various causes of infidelity (eligibility, normalcy, sexuality, search suggestions, social background and seduction). In the end, we analyzed gender differences in the overall tendency to infidelity and moral reasoning. To obtain the data we used the INFQ –Infidelity Questionnaire (Yeniçeri & Kökdemir, 2006) and the MJT – Moral Judgment Test (Lind, 2008).* The sample consisted of 151 respondents (75 men, 76 women) during young adulthood. The research results have shown a negative correlation between the tendency towards infidelity and moral reasoning and a negative relationship between moral reasoning and infidelity causes –search initiatives, social background and seduction. Statistically significant gender differences weren’t demonstrated.
Key words: moral reasoning; infidelity causes; young adulthood (moral competence)

* Comment by GL: The MJT has been renamed as Moral Competence Test (MCT). For a more frecent publication on the MCT, see: Lind, G. (2016). How to teach morality. Promoting deliberation and discussion, Reducing violence and deceit. Berlin: Logos.

The correlations between moral competence and infidelity are interesting. Yet they are small (from r=0,02 to 0,13) and rest on self-report data. A replication study with behavioral data would be desirable. This study should also include participants with higher moral competence. The mean level in this sample was relatively low (mean C = 15,7; p. 189).

Cohen, Semantha (2011). Pragmatic Morality.
Does cuing moral judgment lead to moral action? Unpublished research paper, Hunter College, City University of New York.

Small study with N = 10 subjects, sampled in Washington Square Park: "The dependent variable was
whether or not the participant was willing to take a donation form for the charity of the
Food Bank for New York City and consider donating to that charity. ... The mean Cscores
for those who donated and those who did not can be seen in Figure 2. The mean
C-score for those who accepted a donation form was 41.15 (SD = 33.47) and was 27.54 (SD = 15.30) for those who did not accept a donation form." PDF[Access, pw = "kohlberg"]

Colesante, Robert & Biggs, Donald (2001). A controversy about the measurement of moral development: Stage preference or moral consistency?
Paper Presented at the Association for Moral Education Conference held in Vancouver, BC, October 25 - 27, 2001... more

Table 1 (appendix)

"Data for this study were collected in two general education courses at a mid-sized state University in the northeastern United States from Spring 1997 to Fall 2001. 570 students completed a questionnaire on the final day of their classes; 144 were later dropped (about 25%) from analysis because of incomplete responses on the Moral Judgment Test." (p. 6) [* now called Moral Competence Test, MCT]

Note: The study reports an unusually high rate of incomplete responses. This underscores the very low C-score found amongst these college students. The authors do not report any circumstances which may account for these scores. It is also interesting to note that the C-score hardly increases from freshman to senor year, indicating the college education has no impact on the development of moral competence.

"Abstract:
We examined social role-taking and moral judgement improvement after an
educational group-oriented intervention emphasizing guided reflection and
role-taking dimensions among 11 groups, made up of a total of 61 female and
male Italian university students. They were compared to a control group of 59
students. We twice applied Italian adaptations of two role-taking and two
moral development measures, originally developed by Gibbs and by Lind
respectively in the USA and in Germany. Good empirical upport for the
reliability and validity of the American and German instruments was noted in
the Italian setting. Students assumed more responsibility in a variety of
social roles, exposed themselves increasingly to social role-taking
opportunities, and showed increased moral judgement maturity after the
educational intervention. An active orientation toward role-taking
opportunities was related to higher levels of moral judgement among both men
and women."

Study of 899 business students, mostly undergraduates (78 graduate students) of three universities in the northeastern region of the U.S. Almost no correlations of moral competence (C-score, MCT) with age (r =.08) and gender (0.01). The perception with "ethical culture" of one's institution was r = 0.000. Unfortunately, it does not say how the single question for this variable was worded (p. 80). In contrast the P-score of the DIT-correlated with gender (r = 0.17) with women indication somewhat stronger preferences for principled moral reasoning than man [contradicting Carol Gilligan's assumption that women prefer morality of care over principles of justice.]

The fact that all correlations were lower than r = 0.1 may be caused by the rather low C-scores of these business students which severely limit the variance of the C-scores and, as a consequence, also all correlations with other variables. The authors did not report the overall mean but it can be imputed from a quote as being below C = 18.0: "The mean C-Index of
respondents who did not report witnessing unethical
behavior was 17.22 (SD = 13.56) compared to a
mean of 18.26 (SD = 12.95) for those who did
report witnessing unethical behavior." (p. 82). The amount of perceived cheating in their institution was used as an index for 'unethical behavior'.

Abstract: "Research has found that moral competence is negatively associated with bullying behavior in schools, but the drivers of this association are not yet well understood. In this paper, we report on two studies which suggest that moral competence acts as a moderator of peer influence in the context of school bullying. Data were collected at two time points in three German higher secondary schools (grades 7–10, average age at measurement: 14.26 years). Using a cross-lagged panel design (CLPD), study 1 (N = 251) found adolescents with low moral competence to be susceptible to peer influence, while no such effect was found for adolescents with high moral competence. Study 2, a cross-sectional analysis (N = 748), found moral competence to be inversely related to the likelihood of an individual's conforming with the pro-bullying behavior of his or her peers. Neither study found corresponding effects for pro-social, defending behavior. Our findings further illuminate the associations between moral competence, peer influence, and school bullying. Some implications for bullying prevention are discussed."

DuBois, James (1997). The moral judgment of medical personnel. A cross-cultural study about
brain death and organ explantation. Unpublished dissertation, University
of Vienna, Austria.

"I agree with Lind that a high level of inconsistency in answering test items
may indicate authentic patterns of reasoning rather than factors which would
render performance on the test invalid." (p. 45)"It is important to note that in the study by Rest, Thoma, and Edwards the C
score was calculated using data collected from the DIT. This is problematic
because one cannot possibly arrive at a C score using a test which does not
require one to evaluate both arguments for and against the decision made in
solving the dilemma. ...
It is absolutely impossible to capture that which the C score is meant to
measure without providing arguments pro and con; because the DIT does not do
this, it seems theoretically invalid to try to generate a C score using DIT
data: whatever it is that Rest, Thoma and Edwards produced, it was not the C
score which Lind measures with his MJT."* (p. 46) [* now called Moral Competence Test]

DuBois, James (1998). Medical personell and the logic of moral judgment. Delivered to the American Educational Research Association,
Section J (Post-secondary Education) Symposium: “Does Medical Education Fail to Promote Moral Competence – and Why Does It?”
San Diego, CA,
April 13,1998. ... more.

DuBois, J. (1999). Attitudes Toward Death and Organ Procurement: The Influence of National,
Professional, Religious, and MJT * Variables. Delivered to Association for
Moral Education, University of Minnesota, November 19-20.[* now called Moral Competence Test]

"In this paper I will explore the idea that protection from
interpersonal violence is essential for making society more democratic,
and in turn that education which focuses moral- democratic competencies
is an appropriate means of helping people affected by interpersonal
violence. I will specifically explain how the self-empowerment of people
subjected to violence or endangered by the potential use of violence, can
make a positive contribution to violence prevention. This selfempowerment
goes hand in hand with the growth of competencies. I view
this matter as complementary to the issue of preventing potential
perpetrators from acting violently, by providing them with the
opportunity to foster their own competencies.
I will also discuss gender-based violence and the situation of women
affected by abuse, in order to support my claims with some
empirical evidence. In this context, the type of violence I refer to is physical
violence - acts of violence targeting the body of a person. Therefore, I will
also explore the problem of violence prevention in the context of the
struggle for women's emancipation and gender equality.
This paper will also refer to the idea of moraldemocratic
competencies, following Georg Lind, who bases many of his
ideas on the earlier works of his teacher, Lawrence Kohlberg. The view of
democracy as way of life, which Lind supports in his work, corresponds
to the vision of democratic relations in society which can be found in the
writings of feminist political thinkers such as Iris Marion Young, Nancy
Fraser and Ann Phillips."

Emler et al. showed that the DIT's P-score could be faked upward if participants were instructed to simulate the moral behavior of political adversaries. Especially participants who located themselves on the right side of a political self-description scale and had lower P-scores, could simulate their scores upward when being asked to put themselves into the shoes of a self-describd "leftist" or "liberal." Emler et al. concluded that Kohlberg's theory of moral competence was disproven by this experiment. Moral judgment was merely an attitude or ideology but not an ability. However, the replicating of this study with the MCT instead of the DIT, showed that when moral competence instead of moral attitudes or preferences were measured, the scores could not be faked upward (see Lind, 2008).

In another experiment, Wasel (1994, see below) also showed that moral competence, as measured with the MJT, could not be faked upward and that the precision of the simulation depended on the participants' own degree of moral competence. Both experimental studies corroborate the notion that moral judgment has a strong competence aspect (Lind, 2002).

Abstract
The authors conducted a cross-sectional short-term study using Lind’s Moral Judgment Test (MJT) to compare the moral competence (C-score) among students in the first and
eighth semesters from a medical school in the Northeast region of Brazil. This study also evaluates the influence of such factors as age and gender on moral competence. A difference
equal to or greater than 5.0 points (absolute effect-size) on the C-score was considered significant. A regression of moral competence among the students in their eighth
semester versus the students in the first semester (C-score: 20.5 and 26.2 points, respectively) was observed. In the analysis of the students’ performances in terms of MCT dilemmas,
the phenomenon of “moral segmentation” was observed in the both semesters, and the students performed better on the worker’s dilemma than on the doctor’s dilemma. Among
students in the same semester of study, older students had lower C-scores. When comparing performance by gender, there was no significant difference between men’s and women’s Cscores.
The finding of regression or stagnation in moral competence among the medical students merits deep reflection by those who work with the political-pedagogical projects of
medical schools and by the entire faculty to reevaluate and implement changes in the curriculum to adequately address medical students’ moral development.

Abstract: "The authors conducted a cross-sectional short-term study using Lind’s Moral Judgment Test (MJT)* to compare moral competence (C-score) among students
from a medical school in the Northeast region of Brazil and a medical school in the Northern region of Portugal. This study compares the C-scores of groups in the first and
eighth semesters of study within each medical school and groups from corresponding semesters between the two medical schools. This study also evaluates the influence of such
factors as age and gender on moral competence. A regression of moral competence among the students in their eighth semester versus the students in the first semester
of Brazilian medical school (p\0.001) and a stagnation of moral competence among students in their eighth semester versus the first semester students in the Portuguese
medical school (p = 0.06) were observed. For both the first semester and eighth semester groups, the students in the Portuguese medical school had higher C-scores than the students
in the Brazilian medical school. In the analysis of the students’ performances in terms of MJT dilemmas, the phenomenon of ‘‘moral segmentation’’ was observed in all of the
groups, and the students performed better on the worker’s dilemma than on the doctor’s dilemma. Among students in the same semester of study, older students had lower
C-scores. There was generally no significant difference between men’s and women’s C-scores." [* now called Moral Competence Test, MCT]

"Abstract: Democracy, Lind claims, is an ambitious idea on how people can and should, design and regulate their social life, an idea that touches both the realms of the theory of the state and of individual morality on a high level. And the core problem lies precisely at the point between ability and obligation because many people in this country have grown accustomed to a democratic government. People get the impression that democracy and its moral foundations are granted. The question of how we can enable people lo live in a democratic way is one of the most important questions today." (p. 1)

Comment: The C-scores of these students are very high. However, the author does not report how the sample was drawn and are left to speculate that they were volunteers and thus a positively selected group of students. Because of the specifity of both samples (volunteer students from only one university and two fields of study, no conclusions can be drawn about the influence of 'culture' and 'field of study.' Yet, as part of a larger picture, these data may still prove to be valuable. For example, it seems unlikely that we would get such high C-scores anymore today (2008). Moral competence seems to regress generally (see, e.g., Gommel & Keller 2006; Schillinger, 2006; Feitosa et al 2012; Hegazi & Wilson 2013; Lind 2013). (GL)

Translation: "In my view, the Konstanz Method of Dilemma Discussion is the best method to prevent shooting rampages at schools." (ad for Fuchs' booklet on the web)

Note: The author attemnded oneof my seminars and shows good knowledge of the KMDD. But he is not a certified KMDD-Teacher and, therefore, not authorized to teach this method. Anyone interested in using the KMDD is referred to the original literature on the KMDD and KMDD training programs.

"The cross-cultural findings could be interpreted in light of prior findings (Schillinger, 2006) that students in certain “unfavorable” (with lower opportunities for responsibility-taking) learning environments actually decrease in MCT scores. That scores increase for cross-culturals with home-stays may indicate a “favorable” learning environment.
There was a significant positive correlation between university required service learning hours and moral judgment scores (r = .17), in contrast to no significant correlation between moral judgment scores and community service outside the EMU curriculum.
Moral judgment scores were correlated with self-reported measures of religiosity. The most diagnostic item was “I can be OK without religion” (r = 0.25). Overall, higher religiosity scores predict lower c-scores.
The overall pattern of responses to religiosity items indicates some ambivalence about identifying oneself as a religious person. While 94% of respondents believe in God, only 32% agree that they are religious persons." (p. 1)

Source: Gommel & Kessler (2006). The Y-axis represents the C-sore. Red circels added. The data indicate a shaprt decrease of moral competence in spite of two semesters of ethics training. They also indicated a dramatic 'secular' decrease of moral competence (of more than 10 C-points) over a period of about 20 years. The data are cited from:
Lind, G. (2000). Moral regression in medical students and their learning environment. Revista Brasileira de Educacao Médica, 24 (3), 24 - 33.

Moral competence of kindergarten teacher students (N = 578) at different phases of their education (p. 197). The data are cross-sectional and the author mentions a fluctuation of students (p. 108), so it is unclear how much of the gains can be accounted for by educational efforts and opportunities.

Noteworthy are (a) the unusual high level of moral competence scores in this group already at the beginning of the education, and (b) the strong relationship of moral competence with the phase of education. It seems that this education is chosen by school graduates with a rather high level of moral competence, and that this education contributes to its promotion. It should be kept in mind however that the participants of this study are all from one school (in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany), and that the study took place 1985 to 1987. Median C-scores (p. 204):

"There is no specifically moral part in the brain... We believe that the
ordinary concept of moral judgment refers to a variety of more fine-grained
and disparate processes, both 'affective' and 'cognitive'." (p. 523)

Comment: There is probably no hypothesis which was more quickly refuted than this one. Prehn et al. (2008) were able to locate a specific part in the brain, namely the right prefrontal dorsa-lateral cortex as the area which was active when moral decisions were to be made. GL

Gross, Michael L. (1994). Jewish Rescue in Holland and France during the Second World War:
Moral cognition and collective action. Social Forces, 73, 463-496.... more (presently not available. See also commercial download)

Finding: (Former) rescuers ("Retter") of Jewish people during World War II showed higher moral competence (C-score = 18.0) than comparable non-resuers (C-score = 11.0) (p. 491). At the time of this study, the participants were all above 80 years of age.Comment: In their diploma research project, Jessica Bächle and Barbara Britten (personal communication) found a C-score of about 10.0 in inhabitants of an elderly home. There age was mostly 80 and above. GL

(My graphic illustration, GL). The findings by Gross (1994) show that saving Jews ("Retter") was associated with a high level of moral competence. While the question of causal relationship remains open in this study, it is interesting that such a correlation between moral competence and life-saving under great risk could be found in this retrospective study fifty years after the behavior had taken place. See also Gross (1997).

Gross, M. L. (1997). Ethics and activism: The theory and practice of political morality.
Cambridge, MA Cambridge University Press.

"The test produces two sets of scores in an effort to distinquish between the
affective and cognitive aspects of moral judgment, that is, between the moral
preferences which one has and the ability to use them consistently. In this
way the MJT [Moral Judgment Test, in German: MUT] * offers a significant improvement over
the single score interview technique which conflates these two elements." (p.
248) "The MJT is not a paper-and-pencil version of Kohlberg's Moral Judgment Interview (MJI), nor does it aspire to measure the same things. However, Lind claims that the MJT measures what Kohlberg originally intended to measure -- the cognitive or competence aspect of moral judgment. Kohblerg's test provides only a 'compound' measure of cognitive and affective/attitudinal aspects of moral judgment. If pure measurement of the competence aspect is desired, then the MJT is the only test available for this purpose and, in this sense, superior to Kohlberg's MJI." (pp. 248-249) [* now called Moral Competence Test]

(My graphic illustration, GL.) In his study, Gross (1997) found a higher moral competence in "pro choice" activists (who defend the right of women to chose between aborton and non-abortion) than in rigorous anti-abortionists.

Gross, Nadja (2009). The language of love?! – The influence of the KMDD on emotions in French class. Invited presentation at the international conference "Can morality be taught? Is it a competence?" in Konstanz, July 27 - 31, 2009.

(My graphic illustration, GL.) In Gross' correlational study of 11th grade high school students ( N = 20), moral competence shows an amazingly high corelation with good grades in music, math and other subjects. The correlations are negative because in Germany the best grade is "1" and the worst grade "6". [corrected 2011, GL]

"Abstract: To examine whether high moral reasoning competence of adolescents is associated
with low levels of bullying, and to understand whether moral disengagement mediates
or moderates this relationship, 925 German children ranging from 11 to 17
years of age (M = 14.18, SD = 1.21) completed questionnaires on moral reasoning
competence and moral disengagement in surveys at three different schools. The
children were classified according to their bullying role, based on a peernomination
procedure. Multinomial logistic regression analyses showed that moral
reasoning competence negatively predicted whether a student took an aggressive
role. Moral disengagement partially mediated this relationship. Corresponding
effects for defenders and outsiders were not found. These results extend previous
findings about the effect of moral reasoning on bullying in primary school. The
implications for the prevention of bullying are discussed."

Comment: "Moral reasoning competence" was assessed with the Moral Competence Test (MCT) and, therefore, should read "moral competence". Unfortunately the author do not report any mean C-scores and absolute effect sizes, but only z-scores and other processed scores which cannot be compared with findings from other studies.

Gulliksen (1950). Theory of mental tests. New York: Wiley.

Validity: "... the necessity arises for various statistical critria to determine whether
or not a given set of test data agrees with the theory, within reasonable
sampling limits. The theory, however, must first be developed without
considerations of sampling errors, and then the statistical problems in
conjunction with sampling can be considered." (p. 1; my emphasis added)

"The judgment of the subject matter expert must always play an important part
in the selection and rejection of items for an achievement test." (p. 365)

Comment: Gulliksen presents in his book probably the most concise description of the so-called 'classical test theory.' Often, however, the caveats he mentions in his book have been largely ignored.

Guttman's idea that personality traits rarely form a simple, uni-dimensional pattern but are more adequately described as a (quasi-) simplex order, has been successfully applied by Kohlberg (1958). to his six-stage-model of moral orientations (or stages). He showed that the six orientations or stages are inter-correlated in such a way that "neighboring" orientations (e.g., stage 2 and 3) correlate higher with one another than more "distant" stages (e.g., stage 2 and 5). In a re-analysis of Kohlberg's data Lind (1978) showed that a rotated principle component analysis of these data results in a 'weak' circumplex structure. Most, if not all, data from MCT studies show a stronger circumplex stucture (Lind (1978; 2008). See also Acton & Revell (2004).

In this book, Habermas shows the relationship between Kohlberg's moral development theory and his theory of communication ethics. For the MCT this book is also relevant, because Habermas makes some interesting comments on the measurement of morality. For example, he acknowledges that 'competence' cannot be assessed without assessing 'performance'. see above Habermas, 1983; GL

“Our findings indicate that humans
engage in social evaluation far
earlier in development than previously
thought, and support the view
that the capacity to evaluate
individuals on the basis of their social
interactions is universal and
unlearned.” (p. 559). Siehe auch Hepach et al. 2013.

Moral behavior must be measured "without any reference . . . to its motives or
its rightness or wrongness" (p. 11)

"Attendance at Sunday school or membership in at least two organizations which
aim to teach honesty does not seem to change behavior in this regard, and in
some instances there is evidence that it makes children less rather than more
honest." (p. 15)

"In one organization length of membership and rank achieved were positively
correlated with deceptiveness." (S. 411)

"The reader will recognize at once ... how difficult it is to deal
experimentally with motives when studying deception." (p. 391)

"It is not the quality of the isolated act which distinguishes the good man
from the bad, but the quality of the man as an organized and socially
functioning self." (p. 413)

"The main attention of educators should be placed not so much on devices for
teaching honesty or any other 'trait' as on the reconstruction of school
practices in such a way as to provide no occasional but consistent and regular
opportunities for the successful use by both teachers and pupils of such forms
of conduct as make for the common good." (S. 414; letzter Satz von Band 1 !)

"The concept of integration" - "As systems of response are attached to principles, laws, and ideals, as well
as to the concrete demands of immediately perceived situations. ...
It is this combination if the ideal and the practical that constitutes the
integrated art of living." (p. 358; volume III)

"Integration as an individual achievement" - "All our measures of reliability, validity, and theoretical validity are
reflections of the extent to which specifity has yielded to integration." (p.
360)

"The normal unit for character education is the group or small community,
which provides through cooperative discussion and effort the moral support
required for the adventurous discovery and effective use of ideals in the
conduct of affaires." (p. 379; last sentence of the book)

Haste, Helen (2002).
An interview with Georg Lind. International Journal of Group Tensions,
31(2), 187-215. ... more

In contrast with our internal definition of moral competence, Haste suggests an external definition: "What is `moral competence`? Minimally it means functioning at an optimal
level within the culturally-expected social and moral order. However this does
not entirely capture the dialectical relationship between individual, social
and cultural processes. Competence is about adaptation; it is not defined by a
set of skills, though it may require skills. It involves adaptive and flexible
reflections. It requires daption to change, but such adaptation may also
comprise the maintenance of continuity. ...
I identify five competences ...
- Managing ambiguity and uncertainty;
- Agency and responsibility;
- Finding and maintaining community;
- Managing and integrating emotion;
- Technological change." (p. 101)
"Competence is about adaptation. ... The adaptation is also to cultural
expectations, social practices and narratives of `the good` and the not so
good." (p. 110)

"Abstract: ... RESULTS The numbers of students who completed
the MCT in 2011 and 2012 were 394
and 486, respectively. The two studies showed
a significant difference and negative correlations
between the moral judgement competence
of medical students and both age and
year of medical course (p < 0.001). The findings
suggested the existence of a phenomenon
known as ‘moral segmentation’, which
increased significantly as students progressed
through medical education, and were significantly
linear between cohorts.

CONCLUSIONS Students show a decline in
moral judgement competence during medical
education. This probably reflects an
increase in moral segmentation rather than
an inhibition in moral development. The
challenge is to develop a curriculum that
will enable medical students to maintain, or
better, increase their moral judgement
competence." Figure 1 (p. 1025):

Comments by GL: These findings agree well with all previous studies of the development of moral competence of medical students. It is hard to call them into question anymore.
The segmentation is also remarkable, but there is also some loss in the workers' scenario. which at least indicates some overall loss of moral competence. In addition, we regard moral segmentation also a sign of low moral competence.
It is tricky to interpret MCT-results on the basis of Kohlberg's theory which is not compatible with the dual-aspect-theory underlying the MCT. We reject the idea that people must apply the same moral principle across situations. This may be a sign of moral rigidity. We rather demand that the subjects rate the arguments in the same manner across pro and contra (that is, regardless of their opinion-agreement).
I admit that the C-index is designed in a way that it goes up when the consistency across scenarios goes up. This was not a problem as long as we did not get much segmentation. I have developed an index which is independent of cross-scenario-consistency. Because it was correlated r > 0.90 with the standard C-index, I decided not to use it because it is very complex. When first studies came up with the segmentation-phenomenon, we decided to stick to the well-known C-index because it is well-known and because if morality is not universally applied, it is not really morality. This is philosophical statement and can be debated, of course.
The reasons for the regression of moral competence of medical students is well researched now and obvious: Medical students get too little opportunities for responsibility-taking, which causes their moral competence to regress. This interpretation is well supported by the studies of Lind (2000), Schillinger (2006), Lupu (2009) and Saeidi (2011).
We actually know what to do. The Medical School of Monterrey, Mexico, has successfully applied the Konstanz Method of Dilemma Discussion (KMDD). The University of Chile and the University of Sao Paulo are considering a similar program. We do not need more research but more reform of medical education.
The KMDD is in use for 20 years now and its effects and efficiency have been studied not only in one school but in many places including higher education (lately in China and Thailand). Its effect size (with only a few sessions) exceeds any other program. It is well above r > 0.50 (many would be happy if their effects could reach r = 0.30).
But, this effect size can be achieved only if the KMDD-teacher is trained and certified. Several studies show that un-trained teachers have zero effects with dilemmas (imagine a medical doctor who has very good therapies available but no training!). We must not underestimate the difficulty of moral behavior.
Brazilian studies also show that two widely used ethics training programs in medical education (intensive pedagogical training and problem-based training) have no effect: medical students regress just the same. I would be surprised if the UWS program shows larger effect sizes then that KMDD if objectively evaluated with the MCT. (See also Gommel & Kessler 2006; Rego et al 2011; Feitosa et al. 2013;Lind 2013).

"Young children help other people, but it is not clear why. In the current study, we found that 2-year-old children’s sympathetic
arousal, as measured by relative changes in pupil dilation, is similar when they themselves help a person and when they see
that person being helped by a third party (and sympathetic arousal in both cases is different from that when the person is
not being helped at all). These results demonstrate that the intrinsic motivation for young children’s helping behavior does
not require that they perform the behavior themselves and thus “get credit” for it, but rather requires only that the other
person be helped. Thus, from an early age, humans seem to have genuine concern for the welfare of others." (abstract) See also Hamlin er al 2007.

"In a first German pilot study within the frame of a diploma thesis with two study groups (N=80 each) the values of highly gifted teenagers were compared to those of normal teenagers with the Value Scale of Klages & Hermann and the questionnaire ?Religiosität, Sozialisation und Werte bei Jugendlichen und Jungen Erwachsenen? (Kerner, Wegel, Stroezel, 2004). The MJT (Moral Judgment Test, Lind, 2002)* measured moral competence. Results: The values differed notably between the two groups, whereas moral judgment competency did not differentiate the groups. Striking results such as mobbing and a bias towards subtle violence among the higly gifted show the urgent need for educational interventions and special education on values in schools, but should also bring forward the research in this neglected area in the studies of highly gifted." (Abstract by the author. Source: http://psydok.sulb.uni-saarland.de/volltexte/2009/2364/) [* now called Moral Competence Test]

Review (GL): The author administered the MCT in some, not all, sub-samples after the intelligence test (DFT-20-R). This may have biased the MCT scores because taking the IQ directly before the MCT might influence the C-score. IQ-Tests force the participant to anticipate the expectations of an authority (teacher, test-constuctor, etc.). This mind-set is at odds with the autonomous mind-set required for getting high scores with the MCT. One "highly gifted" group was tested through mail, whereas another "highly gifted" group and the "normal" group were tested in classroom. this may have caused different mind-sets and different attrition rates in these groups and biased the findings even more. Furthermore, the assessment was not anonymous in all groups, at least not in one of the highly gifted groups.

These doubts about the validity of the study are supported by C-scores that are reported (pp. 60-61): The average C-score (N = 155) of total sample is merely C = 15,4 (p. 60). This is an extremely low score, more characteristic of feeble-minded students than of normal and highly gifted students. The problems are similar in all three sub-groups which have been studied:
Normally gifted secondary school students (N = 79): C = 15,7
Highly gifted secondary schools students (N = 9) in normal school: C = 6,9
Highly gifted secondary school students (N = 76): C = 15,0

These doubts are also supported by the findings regarding the preferences of the six types of moral orientation) also indicate serious errors. The scores should show a linear preference hierarchy from type 1 to 6. Unfortunately, the validity of the scores was not checked in this study at all. It seems that the author has made mistakes when calculating the scores. The placement of the MCT after the IQ-Test may also have contributed to this invalidity. The errors seem to serious that the findings regarding the MCT scores should not be interpreted.

Other findings (self-report data) seem not to be affected by this problem. The study found that students in schools for the highly gifted seem to behave more anti-socially than students in normal secondary schools. There were more consumers of hashish or ecstacy in the highly gifted group (16 %) than in the normally gifted group (8%). There were also more students who reported some or much mobbing in the highly gifted group (29 %) than in the normally gifted group (17,4 %) (p. 79). Of the highly gifted students more reported that they acted violently (16%) than is found in normal students (8,4 %) attending upper secondary school (Gymnasium) (p. 80). Students in the schools for the highly gifted report more than twice as much referrals to psycho-therapists (34,2 %) than students in normal schools (13,6%). The parents of highly gifted students rate their children's moral behavior much lower than parents of normally gifted students (p. 82). These findings contradict the positive picture painted in the public by many politicians about special education for highly gifted children. GL

"However, one should note that there are cognitive aspects to all of Rest's
components, and Kohlberg's idea of a stage as a structured whole or a world
view cuts across Rest's componential model. ..." (p. 53)

Ishida,
Chiharu (2006). How do scores of DIT and MJT* differ? A critical assessment of the use
of alternative moral development scales in studies of business ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 67, 1, 63 - 74. ... more (restricted access)[* now called Moral Competence Test]

Ishida's main conclusion: There is "a clear distinction between the DIT and the MCT." (p. 63). "The key finding is found in the subjects who scored lowest in the MCT scale, but the highest in the DIT scale. This is particularly surprising because both scales are desigend to measure the degree of moral development" (p. 71). Comment: This is less surprising if one acknowledges the fact that both tests are based on totally different theories and that they do NOT measure the same but something quite different. While the DIT measures the preference for principled moral reasoning, the MCT measures moral competence, i.e., the ability to rate arguments in regard to their moral quality rather than in regard to their opinion-agreement and the like. See also: Lind (2008). Study: N = 134 undergraduate students in a marketing course of an American university. The average C-score of these students was extremely low (C = 17,95). In contrast to the DIT, the MCT correlates negatively with ethical absolutismus, which is defined as the absolute validity of ethical principles without exception, and positively with exceptionalism. The absolute effect size is: aES = -12,0, which isvery high and might even be higher if the C-score would be higher and its distribution in the sample broader.

.

This finding supports my multi-deontological point of view. According to his view, most, if not all, ethical principles must allow for exceptions because most situations require us to apply more than one moral principle. As Kohlberg (1958) wrote: "Thus the choice is difficult in the sense ... of doing justice to all the values which the self believes are true and
important." (p. 128). If we would not allow for exceptions, such dilemma-situations would be unsolvable. Mono-deontological ethics (like Kant's and Rest's position) cannot deal with contradicting moral principles and dilemmas because they imply an absolutist position. Exceptions, however, must not be made at random but must be justified by other ethical principles. Thus multi-deontological theory is clearly different from crude situationism. (GL)

Comment: Though the author gives mostly correct quotes and descriptions of the MCT, some are inaccurate. Most importantly, the MCT is not based on Kohlberg's stage theory of moral development (like the DIT) but has been constructed on my Dual-Aspect-Theory of moral behavior and development (see Lind, 2010). The C in C-score does not stand for consistency but for competence. The authors does not mention that the MCT, confronts the participant with a moral task, namely to rate counter-arguments. The MCT is not based on Kohlberg's scheme of six stages. The arguments in the MCT represent only the moral orientations which characterize these stages. It is not possible to get stage scores with the MCT. Rest never studied the correlations between the MCT and the DIT, but has created a pseudo-C-index for the DIT and correlated it with the P-index of the DIT. Since the DIT does not contain a moral task and thus is not a competence test, this C-index is meaningless. (GL)

"Man is an animal that, so long as he lives amongst others of his species, stands in need of a master. For he inevitably abuses his freedom in regard to his equals; and, although as a reasonable creature, he wishes for a law that may set bounds to the liberty of all, yet do his self-interested animal propensities seduce him into making an exception in his own favor whensoever he dares. He requires a master therefore to curb his will, and to compel him into submission to a universal will which may secure the possibility of universal freedom. Now where is he to find his master? Of necessity amongst the human species. But, as a human being, this master will also be an animal that requires a master. Lodged in one or many, it is impossible that the supreme and irresponsible power can be certainly prevented from abusing its authority." (Kant 1824, Idea of a universal history on a cosmopolitical plan, p. 388, London Magazin)

„Handle nur nach derjenigen Maxime, durch die du zugleich wollen kannst, dass sie ein allgemeines Gesetz werde.“
"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law."

„Handle so, daß du die Menschheit sowohl in deiner Person als in der
Person eines jeden anderen jederzeit zugleich als Zweck, niemals bloß als
Mittel brauchst."
"Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end."

First sentence: "Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good, without qualification, except a good will. Intelligence, wit, judgement, and the other talents of the mind, however they may be named, or courage, resolution, perseverance, as qualities of temperament, are undoubtedly good and desirable in many respects; but these gifts of nature may also become extremely bad and mischievous if the will which is to make use of them, and which, therefore, constitutes what is called character, is not good." (quoted from Project Gutenberg; http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/ikfpm10.txt; 21 Feb. 2009).

"Wo ich empfinde, das bin ich. Ich bin also ebenso unmittelbar in der
Fingespritze wie in dem Kopfe. ... " (p. 41)
"... Meine Seele ist ganz im ganzen Körper und ganz in jedem seiner Teile." (p. 42)
Rough translation: "Were
I feel, that I am. This means, I am just as well in my finger-tips as in my head..." (p. 41). "... my soul is fully in my whole body and fully in each of its parts." (p. 42)
Kant argues here against theories which consider mind and body, cognition and affect as separate entities, like Descartes did. Modern neurological findings reported, e.g., by Damasio (Descartes' Error) fully support Kant's theory. Damasio even uses a similar phrase without, however, citing Kant: "We think with the tips of our fingers, and feel with the top of our cortex." (quote from memory). I have advanced this theory as Dual-Aspect Theory of behavior. (GL)

In the study by Kietzig (2014) six religious groups with different levels of religious activities and attachment have been studied. When ordered accodingly, their members show a) an monotonously increasing average level of self-ascribed religiosity, and b) a decreasing level of moral competence. (Source: Kietzig 2014, p. 128, graph 28). The linear correlation (r = 0.68) is very high, corresponding to a very high absolute effect size (aES = 63,9 C-points). Note that C-scores below 10 mean that these participants have virtually no moral competence, that is, no ability to solve conflicts on the basis of shared moral principles through thinking and discussion, rather than through violence, deceit and power. (GL)

Moral competence was measured with the MCT at the beginning of the first semester. "Zwischennote" (equivalent to average grade at BA level) was assessed two years later. The best grade is "1,0". The data are taken from the German FORM panel study by Peisert, Bargel et al (for a description, see Lind, 2002).

Kim, Soyoung (2006). A comparative study on measurement instruments for moral judgment:
selecting an appropriate instrument Paper presented at the meeting of the AERA, San Francisco, April 10,
2006.

Summary: In a direct comparison between the DIT's P-score and the MCT's C-score, the latter showed to be more sensitive to the effects of an educational intervention than the former (12,9 versus 9,0 points gain); see mail exchange.

"The result of the pilot study (Kim & Baylor, 2005) indicated that the MCT was more sensitive to instructional interventions for both semiotic text and group discussion in a similar context of this study than other motral judgment instruments. Furthermore, the coding scheme was also systematic and comprehensive in the contect of the pilot studies, so that the outcome score was stable within individuals and groups." (p. 71) "The religious influence on the participants' moral reasoning was apparent in this study. ... However, the religious influence on morality and moral judgment waa sometwhat controversial in this study and needs further literature review before incorporating it into future study. Some participants tended to consider religious values as part of their semiosis to enrich their [moral] reasoning, whereas other participants had relaitively fixed moral shema that fit into any situation so that their semiosis was more simplified." (p. 154)"As the results of this study suggest, the influence of social interaction on moral judgment should be considered as an important factor in moral education research." (p. 155)

Comment: The special value of this study lies in the theoretical part. Using Vygotsky's approach and semiotics to re-interprete moral development theory stimulates new ways of thinking on this. Unfortunately, the empirical part is less convincing. As measurement, this interventional study did not use the validated standard version of the MCT but only one dilemma in the pretest, posttest and follow-up and every time a different dilemma (workers, doctor, judge steinberg), so we cannot know whether the change of the C-sore is due to the intervention or the dilemma type. The findings chapter concerns mostly technical aspects of fitting complex statistical models to the data but say hardly anything about the author's hypotheses regarding the effects of the interventions on moral competence. Rarely any mean scores and correlations are reported. Only the mean C-score of the third measurement is given. The only graphical presentation of the main findings (figure 11, p. 105) is a pain for the reader. When trying to understand the various "levels", the figure caption is of little help. The overall finding (see quote above, p. 155) is not too suprising after 40 years of intervention studies which demonstrate strong effects of dilemma discussion on the development of moral competence. GL

Abstract: "This paper presents evidence that "social capital" matters for measurable economic performance, using indicators of trust and civic norms from the World Values Surveys for a sample of 29 market economies. Memberships in formal groups-Putnam's measure of social capital-is not associated with trust or with improved economic performance. We find trust and civic norms are stronger in nations with higher and more equal incomes, with institutions that restrain predatory actions of chief executives, and with better-educated and ethnically homogeneous populations." (p. 1251)

Kodwani, D. & Schillinger, M. (2009). Ethics to accountants:
Challenges of a global
qualification. Presentation at the international conference "Can morality be taught?", University of Konstanz, Germany, July 27 - 31, 2009. ...more

Study of 320 accountant students of The Association of Chartered Certified
Accountants (ACCA), Glasgow, using the MCT .. more (user = lind-kurs, password = kohlberg). See also the study by Pircher Verdorfer & Weber (2016).

Kohlberg, L. (1958). The development of modes of moral thinking and choice in the years 10
to 16.
University of Chicago. Unpublished doctoral dissertation.

This article contains the famous definition which was the starting ground for constructing the Moral Judgment Test. Kohlberg defines here moral competence as „the capacity to make decisions and judgments which are moral (i.e., based on internal principles) and to act in accordance with such judgments" (p. 425)

"Abstract: The Natural Law perspective holds that there are universal principles of justice
acknowledged everywhere. Justice is a continuing preoccupation of the child.
The development of the notion of justice in children has been found to follow
six stages, the order of which is constant across different societies. The different
stages have been found to be associated with different kinds of behaviour in
moral situations. Moral education must be based upon an understanding of
this development. There is evidence that the development of religious faith
follows a parallel sequence of stages and it is important to understand the
relationship between the two." (p. 5)

Kohlberg's methodological writings has had a strong impact on my own thinking and, eventually, on the construction of the Moral Judgment Test, though ironically my test is quite different from Kohlberg's own instrument, the Moral Judgment Interview. Here is a collection of my favorite quotes:

"What we conceptualize as moral reasoning is a cognitive competence, necessary
but not sufficient for given kinds of motivation and conduct." (p. 400).

"In studying moral behavior we are concerned with studying action in which the
subject gives up someting or takes risks where not doing so would appear to be
to his or her immediate advantage. ... Thus, it is the overcoming of these
situational pressures on either a verbal or a physical level that constitutes
the test of moral behavior." (p. 522)

"Proponents of behavioristic conceptions of moral conduct typically define
conduct as moral if it conforms to a socially or culturally accepted norm. All
of us recognize this as intuitively incorrect, since moral exemplars like
Socrates, Ghandi, and Martin Luther King consistently acted in opposition to,
and in order to change, social norms -- in terms of the moral principles of
Stage 5 or 6." (p. 392).

The test constructor must postulate structure from the start, as opposed to
inductively finding structure in content after the test is made. [...] If a
test is to yield stage structure, a concept of that structure must be built
into the initial act of observation, test construction, and scoring; it will
not emerge through pure factor-analytic responses classified by content." (pp. 401-402)

"The structures we seek to tap in test construction and arrive at in test
scoring are abstractable from responses as their form or quality." (p. 402)

"The responses of subjects to the dilemmas and their subsequent responses to
clinical probing are taken to reflect, exhibit, or manifest the structure. ...
There can be no error in the sense of a mistake in inferring from a judgment
to some state of affairs concurrent with, predent to, or subsequent to the
[scorer's] judgment." (p. 407)

"[Structure] is a construct rather than an inference, and is warranted only on
the grounds of 'intelligible' ordering of the manifest items. One might say
that the hypothetical structure is the principle of organization of the
responses. To treat is on the same level as the responses would be, in Ryle's
sense, to commit a category mistake." (p. 408)

"From the point of view of stage theories like Piaget's or mine, test reliability and test construct validity are one and the same thing." (p. 424)

"Rest's conception of construct validity, however, is the notion of moderate-to-high correlations with other tests or variables expected to be associated with the test or variable in question. ... We believe Rest's method is useful for exploratory examination of the correlates of moral maturity, but not for testing theoretical propositions derived from the cognitive-developmental theory." (p. 195)

Krebs and his colleagues were among the first to discover situational factors influencing moral judgment behavior. However, I believe they mix up behavior with competence and thus are wrongly postulating a situational dependency of moral competence. People, we found, differ a lot in regard to there consistency and differentation of judgment behavior, which we now take as a sign of differing moral competence (see, e.g., Lind, 2002). GL

"Social work students show medium levels of
moral reasoning (medium C-index scores).
Therefore, adequate methods should be sought
for to develop moral reasoning in social work
courses. Based on the results, interventions for
the development of ethical argumentation will
be incorporated in the educational plan for
social work students." (p. 55) ... more

The author explains this difference between the moral competence of students in human studies and in technical studies as a consequence of their special learning experiences: "The students with humane study
orientation are confronted with various moral-based conflicts and a wide pallet
of moral issues during the study within selected courses." (p. 45) ... more

An alternative explanation, which is also compatible with these data, is that both groups of students select the field of career which fits best their moral competence. Working with people usually requires a high level of moral competence. See Bühn (1996) (GL)

LaLlave, J. (2006). Moral judgment competence and attitude as moderators of decisions concerning war through preferences of frames and arguments on the Iraq war. Dissertation, Unviersity of Konstanz ... more

Juan LaLlave uses the basic ideas of our method of experimental questionnaires, on which the MCT is based, for his study of arguments pro and con the Iraq war. His study shows the fruitfulness of this method. Yet his measurement instrument is a new development and is not just another version of the MCT. Therefore, the author's claim that he is also "using the theoretical validity [...] of the moral judgment test (MJT) Lind (1985)" * (p. iii), is unwarranted. The theoretical validity of his test still needs to be established. GL [* now called Moral Competence Test]

At 12:40 28.04.2008, Juan responded:
Hi Georg,
Yes, I do agree that the wording was not sufficiently clear, as my aim was to express to the reader that the dual aspect theory as the basis for the Experimental Questionnaire Methodology as exemplified by the MJT demonstrated not simply reliability, but also validity. That is what I meant by the term theoretical validity. If the reader were to interpret that the theoretical validity of my instrument had been established, then certainly this is an error and it was not my intent.
I think we are in agreement that one study can neither establish nor validity nor reliability. However the basic design as exemplified by the
MJT has been extensively tested and the structure of a vignette followed by arguments in favor and against the vignette are a valid method for
discussions based on your dual aspect theory.
My new experimental questionnaire helped to further demonstrate the validity of your dual aspect theory confirming a
logical correspondence with the structure of you MJT.
Best regards, Juan.

Lee, Chi-Ming (2001). My very first impression of the annual conference of the Association for Moral Education 27th annual conference in Vancouver, 2001.... more

"The first activity I attended was the workshop given by Dr. Georg Lind in Harbour Centre on Wednesday morning. The topic was 'Moral Judgment Test.' Around twenty people joined the session; the passionate discussion and warm atmosphere gradually thawed me out of the cool confinement of being uncomfortable and cheered rookies like me with a big welcome...." (unpublished report, GL)

Lee, Chi-Ming (2005). Teachers' moral development and their perceptions of school
environment: Pre-service and in-service teachers in Taiwan. Paper to be presented in the 31 th Annual Conference of Association
for Moral Education, Cambridge, MA, Nov. 2 - 5, 2005. ... more.

"The author used MCT, which was March 21,2004 Chinese translation version,
precisely fulfilled the criteria of cross-cultural validity. Consistency
reliability alphas were .736 for pre-service teachers, and .708 for in-service
teachers. Re-test reliability alphas were .619 for pre-service teachers, and
.619 for in-service teachers as well in this study." (p. 9)

Lee, Won Dong (2010). An empirical research on the moral judgment competence of Korean young students: focused on comparing P-index of KDIT and C-index of MJT.* Doctoral dissertation, Department of Ethics Education, Teachers College,
Gyeongsang National University, Sourth Korea.[* now called Moral Competence Test]

Some findings of this study:*

Level of Education:

Mean C-scores of different education groups (p. 94)

Elemetary school students

20.0

(Middele school) students

14.2

(High school) students

17.6

University students

13.6

Preference hierarchy:
Mean acceptance (-4 to +4) of moral orientations
by university students (values are probably transformed to extend from 1 to 9) (p. 93)

Stage 1

5.2

Stage 2

6.4

Stage 3

4.3

Stage 4

4.3

Stage 5

5.2

Stage 6

6.8

Affective-cognitive parallelism:
Correlation between C-score and the six moral orientations (p. 128)

Stage 1

.26

Stage 2

.36

Stage 3

.12

Stage 4

.27

Stage 5

.30

Stage 6

.24

* Comment: The MCT-data of this study are not valid. The Korean MCT is not yet validated and certified as cross-culturally equivalent.The data from this study indicate that this version is not valid: Neither the validity criterion of preference hierarchy from "stage1" to "stage 6" is supported by the data, nor the criterion of affective-cognitive parallelism. It is also very unlikely that elementary students have higher C-scores than university students. My recommendation: Refrain from publishing studies with this version of the MCT until it is fully valid and certified. GL

Revisiting the Korean version of the MCT: In meanwhile
Prof. Gyun Yeol Park
revised this version and has successfully submitted it to a new validation study. The Korean version of the MCT is now certified as valid (2012). ... more

Fig. 7 in: Lenz (2006, p. 35). The moral competence ("C-Wert") of 9th graders (N = 72) who report to have already been binge-drinking (black columns) and who have not (grey columns) grouped by those who reported only few personal problems (left side) and those who reported many (right side) (the combined effect of many problems and low C-score was r = 0,40; p< 0.05). This findings suggests that binge-drinking is most prevalent in those students who have experienced many personal problems and, at the same time, do not have a sufficiently high moral competence to cope with these problems. (GL)

Fig. 9, Lenz (2006, p. 42). The moral competence of three groups of 9th graders (N = 73): who have never used cannabis, tried it only, and consumed it regularly (from left to right). An absolute difference between C-scores larger than 5 can be considered psychologically significant. (GL)

Correlation between moral competence (C-score, MCT) and grades in German and Mathematics (Graphical display by GL.)

"The [MCT] was translated from English into Thai and validated in
247 students in grade nine, grade twelve, and first and second year pharmacy students.
Overall, the scale satisfies four validity criteria: preference hierarchy, quasi-simplex
structure of stage preference, affective-cognitive parallelism, and positive correlation
between education and moral competence score (C-index). Test-retest reliability with one month
interval was 0.90."

Levy-Suhl was one of the leading representatives of the moral psychology which florished at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centrury in Europe. In this early interview study with juvenile delinquents he found out that delinquency could hardly be accounted for by a lack of moral principles. He speculated that rather some developmental factor must account for this. GL

"The present study aimed to investigate the effect of dogmatic religiosity and educational environment -with more or less role-taking and guided reflection opportunities- on the moral competence of university, college and madrassah students. Data (N = 403) of students studying in bachelor and higher classes were collected from eight different institutes of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtoonkha, and Islamabad regions. Three instruments, ORIGIN/u questionnaire, Dogmatic and Personal Religiosity Scale (DPR-scale) and Moral Judgment Test-Urdu (MJT-Urdu)* were used for the purpose of data collection. The important findings included: (i) the educational environment was found to have insignificant but small negative effect on moral competence while it had been found to reduce moral segmentation, (ii) In university students with advantaged educational environment slight increase in moral competence was observed but college students showed no such pattern, (iii) religiously more dogmatic students showed insignificant but relatively lower moral competence in comparison to less dogmatic students. (iv) less dogmatic students also showed lower moral segmentation than more dogmatic students, (v) almost all groups showed more preference for postconventional moral arguments and less preference for conventional and preconventional moral arguments, (vi) madarris showed very low moral competence in comparison to colleges and universities, (vii) role of universities have been found to be positive in stabilizing moral competence and reducing moral segmentation comparative to colleges that showed slight moral regression and increase in segmentation, (viii) no gender differences in moral competence were observed though females showed more moral segmentation, (ix) overall very high dogmatic religiosity was observed in the whole sample while comparing to many international studies very low moral competence was seen in the Pakistani sample (Mean = 11.7)." (Abstract) [* now called Moral Competence Test]

The study was done in Pakistan. The results show how low moral competence is in present day Pakistan. Even university students get rather low C-scores. These results show also the Madaaris (quran schools, religous seminars) allow hardly any development of moral competence (my interpretation; GL) (p. 97 & 104).

Religious dogmatism is related to high "moral segmentation", that is, people do not use their thinking capacity if an issue is at stake which his or her religious community has dogmatized. (p. 80).

Lind, G. (1996). Testing moral judgment competence.
A critical review of the attempt by Rest, Thoma and
Edwards to calculate a C-Score from the DIT. Konstanz, manuscript.... more

For Rest, Thoma and Edwards, the MCT misses the benchmarks they had developed in order to show the validity of the DIT.
However, as this paper shows, their evaluation is inadequate: Their analysis
misses most of the distinct features of the MCT. Moreover, their "C index" is based
on an attitude test [the DIT] rather than on a competence test and thus has a completely
different meaning than our C score.

Lind, G. (1996). A Re-analysis of the DIT-Faking-study by Barnett, Evens
and Rest (1995). Konstanz, manuscript. ... more

Barnett et al. (1995) argue that their study shows no increase of P-score of those subjects who were instructed
to simulate their scores upward (by responding like liberals or left wingers). However, our re-analysis of their findings shows that, after a necessary adjustments of their findings, the experimental instruction indeed has led to an increase of the P-score. This supports the interpretation by Emler et al. (1983) that the DIT score can be faked upward.

Lind, G. (2006). Moral cognition or affect or both? Test and educational implications of Piaget's parallelism theory. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in San Francisco, April 7 - 11, 2006. ... more

This article summarizes the findings on the validity of the Moral Competence Test (formerly called 'Moral Jugment Test'). It discusses the four criteria of theoretical validity of tests of moral competence: (1) the competence score (C-score) is not upward-facable (Emler et al. 1983); (2) the ratings of the six type of moral orientation (folling Kohlberg) form a hierarchical order: low-type-arguments (1, 2...) are strong rejected, and high-type-arguments are strongly accepted (6, 5...) and ranked in the order predicted by Lawrence Kohlberg (1958; 1984) and James Rest (1969); (3) the ratings of the moral orientations contained in the arguments correlate with each other in the way Kohlberg (1958) had predicted: neighboring types correlate highest whereas the correlation diminises the father the types are away on the scale (the correlations form a simplex-structure); (4) the moral competence of people correlates with the preferences for the six moral orientations as predicted by Jean Piaget (1976) in a certain pattern: they correlate highly negatively with the preference for arguments expressing low-type moral reasoning, and highly positive with the preference for arguments expressing high-type moral reasoning, and these correlations are linearly ordered.

"In short, is is difficult to discover any circumstances under which the
classical concept of validity is a suitable basis for test construction." (p.
640)

"To what extent does the proposed test measure a trait that 'really' exists?" (p. 643)

"The surest beacon for psychometric theory is the real involvement in the
solution of psychological problems." (p. 693)

"The requirement of objectivity imposes on us a behavioristic attitude towards
the psychological meaning of test responses...
The task of psychometrics is to isolate, to identify and, so far as possible,
to measure separately the important components of variance." (p. 649)

Comment: This quote has often been mis-read as meaning components of variance of the responses in a sample of people. Such a sample variance is psychologically meaningless. However, when read as the variance of responses within each person, Loevinger anticipated the aim of our Moral Competence Test. Loevinger's paper had much influenced my conception of psychological measurement. I endorse her view that test construction and theory development in psychology must go hand in hand, because otherwise both cannot be improved. Loevinger (1954) was also one of the first to discover that so-called test-reliability, as defined in 'classical' test-theory, is not a precondition of test-validity but may in many case impede it. It should be noted that 'modern' test-theories (e.g., Rasch scaling) does not solve Loevinger's problem because, like classical test theory, they do not explicate their implicite psychological assumptions and thus cannot be falsified through data. They rather immunize themselves against falsification by selecting items which fit their theory rather than examining their theoretical validity. GL

(Graph taken from Lupu & Lind, 2009) The graph shows that only students who enjoy at considerable opportunities for responsibility-taking (red line), make progress regarding their moral competence. See also Schillinger (2006).

(Graph taken from Lupu & Lind, 2009.) The graph shows that opportunities for responsibility-taking promote the development of moral competence (left side), but that students with dogmatic religiosity do not profit from such a favorable learning environement.

Abstract: Religiosity is not the only ideological system that can influence the cognitive
and moral development, and religion, through its nature (relation to a higher, almighty power or deity) and functions (giving life a meaning, coping with the
unknown and suffering), has a special significance. Given the fact that educational
processes and dogmatic religiosity are two factors with opposite effects on the
development of moral competence. we try to find out how they interact in the
development of moral competence." (p. 379)

Lupu, I. & Lind, G. (2009). How do education processes and religiosity interact in the development of moral judgment competence? Poster presented at the conference of the Association for Moral Education in Utrecht, July 2009.Poster

"The substantive aspect [of validity] refers to theoretical rationales for
the observed consistencies in test responses, including process models of task performance (Embretson, 1983), along with empirical evidence that the
theoretical processes are actually engaged by respondents in the assessment
tasks;...

The structural aspect appraises the fidelity of the scoring structure to
the structure of the construct domain at issues (Loevinger, 1957; Messick,
1989b); [...] Scoring models should be rationally consistent with what is
known about the structural relations inherent in behavioral manifestations of
the construct in question (Loevinger, 1957; Peak, 1953). ... Ideally, the
manner in which behavioral instances are combined to produce a score should
rest on knowledge of how the processes underlying those behaviors combine
dynamically to produce effects. Thus, the internal structure of the assessment
(...) should be consistent with what is known about the internal structure of
the construct domain. This property ... is called structural fidelity." (p.
745)

Allegedly, this study disproves the causal relationship between moral competence and behavior found by Krebs and Rosenwald (1977). "Completely contrary to the classical findings by Krebs and Rosenwalt (1977), the variable moral competence [as measured with Lind's MCT; GL] correlated positive with the length of return time. The higher their moral competence the later did they send back their questionnaires" (p. 143).

However, the author's data contradict his own assertion. The actual correlation between the C-index of moral competence and the return-time of the questionnaires is reported to be r = 0.19 (p. 140). Hence, Mieg's study is another support of Kohlberg's theory that moral competence is a better predictor of behavior than moral attitudes or beliefs.

Although the two disciplines were for centuries one science, ethics and psychology became alienated from each other in the past hundred years. Nowak’s book may turn the tides again toward a new integration which will do good for both sides. Most philosophers, except maybe logicians, develop their theory with referring to human and behavior, that is, actually referring to assumptions about human nature. Those assumption serve as departing point for their reflections, or as criterion for the validity of their theories, or both.
But one often wonders whether these assumptions would survive experimental testing. In her remarkable book Experimental Ethics Dr. Ewa Nowak, professor of ethics at the University of Poznan, takes a provocative look at this question. Her central question is: why do people find it so difficult to live according to their own moral values, and why do her fellow-philosophers pay so little attention to this question but rather continue to worry about a lack of moral values. By doing so she does not only open new ways for fruitful cooperation between philosophical ethics and experimental psychology but brings to surface largely forgotten philosophical reflections on this topic by eminent scholars like Socrates, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Wittgenstein, Piaget, Radbruch, Vygotsky, Habermas, Kohlberg, Nussbaum, Honneth, Damasio, Greene, Craig, and many others. For experimental psychologists like me, reading this ‘hidden’ (or unnoticed) side of philosophy is very rewarding. GL

"While democratic ideals are cherished by many worldwide, practice and competence
in democratic procedures and behaviors are fading. Educating for democracy
involves teaching skills that contribute to the democratic ideals, such
as fairness, due process, and respect for the dignity, rights, and autonomy
of others. In this volume, researchers from throughout the world draw from
the Dual-Aspect Theory, the Konstanz Method of Dilemma Discussion, and
the Moral Judgment Test, developed by German psychologist Georg Lind to
advance democratic competencies. Grounded in Lawrence Kohlberg's theory
of moral judgment, contributors report research at various levels of social engagement,
such as schools, workplaces, governments, prisons, and communities,
to describe how people can, and do, develop democratic competencies
that hold promise for creating interactions and institutions that are just and
fair." (back cover)

"Based on these findings, we suggest that dilemma discussion training at an early school age could help children to understand and verbally and rationally “construct” (Lind 2010) their affects at a conscious level and, finally, to train their moral competence. Furthermore, a moral and democratic education would facilitate the achievement of these goals if teachers were encouraged to apply the highly efficient didactic principles of the Konstanz Method of Dilemma Discussion in other school subjects. Guided dilemmatic reflection, cooperative reasoning with peers personifying very different views, dealing with opposite views in peaceful, verbal and non-verbal communication, and experiencing how conflicts can be resolved by a rational and dialogical inquiry instead of physical violence, insult, bullying, discrimination, etc. could serve to strengthen all kinds of socio-moral competences and to minimize the risk of aggression in societies."

"... the expert rating, which link given responses to the different stages of moral orientations, is prinicpally based on the same [. . .] hermeneutic process as the coding of spontaneous responses of interviewees to open interview. In both cases the response is analyzed in regard to the structure of the argument it contains, and tested to which Stage of moral orientation it belongs in structural terms." (my translation, GL)

Comment: This meta-analysis is based on Steven McNeel's data. Clearly, colleges fosters the preference of principled moral reasoning (as measured with Rest's DIT, P-score). Liberal arts colleges do so the most, bible colleges do so the least. The latter have almost no impact on this moral orientation. "This is just the opposite of what one would expect." (Pascarella, p. 51). However, this research is limited as no data are reported as to impact of colleges on the moral competence of the students. (GL)

Democratically organized firms provide a stimulating learning environment for moral competence, traditioonal firms an inhibiting environment (see also Kodwani & Schillinger 2009). This hyptheses is well confirmed by this study: While at the beginning of their tenure, employees in conventional firms have the same level of moral competence as the employees of democrartically organized firms (which means that their is no selection effect), their moral competence is much lower after ten years of tenures, and the democratic competence of employees in democratic firms is up. The difference of C-scores (ca. 10 points) is quite high.

"Cognitive structures are not the conscious content of thinking, but impose
one form of thinking rather than another. ... The subject is only conscious of
their results. ... He has no access to the internal mechanism that direct his
thinking." (p. 64)

"Affective and cognitive mechanisms are inseparable, although distinct: the
former depend on energy, and the latter depend on structure." (p. 71)

"The term, affectivity includes feelings, properly so-called, as well as the
various drives or tendencies (tendences) including 'higher tendencies' such
als emotions or feelings and conative factors such as drives or will. We shall
not do so, however, because the difference between the affective and the
conative appears to be only a matter of degree. This may be illustrated by
considering Pierre Janet's definition of feelings. He based his definition on
the economy of behavior and defined feelings as regulations of the force an
individual has at his disposal. From the same point of view, the will would
only be a regulation of the elementary regulations constituted by feelings."
(p. 2)

"The affective aspect of assimilation is interest, defined by Dewey as
assimilation to the self; the cognitive aspect is understanding. Accomodation
in its affective aspect is interest in the object in as much as it is new. In
its cognitve aspect, accomodation is the adjustment of schemes of thought to
phenomena."

"Moral feelings have to do with what is necessary and not just what is
desirable or preferable to do" (p. 55)

"(...) we shall be able to put intellectual structures and the levels of
affective development in parallel, stage by stage." (p. 12)

"This distinction of structure and energetics demonstrates clearly that even
though intelligence and affectivity are not separable in concrete conduct,
they are different in nature."

"In our view, it is dangerous to start off by dissociating behavior into two
aspects, affective and cognitive, and then to make one the cause of the other.
Understanding is no more the cause of affectivity than affectivity is the
cause of understanding. Energetics cannot generate structures nor structures
create energy."

"Regarding the assertion that there is no cognitive mechanism without
affective elements, it is obvious that affective factors are involved even in
the most abstract form of intelligence. For a student to solve an algebra
problem or a mathematician to discover a theorem, there must be intrinsic
interest, extrinsic interest, or a need at the beginning. While working,
states of pleasure, disappointment, eagerness, as well as feelings of fatigue,
effort, boredeom etc, come into play. At the end of the work, feelings of
success or failure may occur; and finally, the student may experience
aesthetic feelings stemming from the coherence of his solution."

In this early survey of research literatur, the authors found hardly an measurement approach which would satisfy even the most basic requirements of sound moral psychological. Especially, they criticized that most approaches judge individuals' moral behavior and values from an externalistic point of view, disregarding what the individuals believe or what guides their behavior.

A colleague alerted me about this dissertation, which contains at its beginning the following (mis-)quote:

"Summing up the state of the art Lind (1995/2004) asserts that there still exists a gap between the understanding of maintenance and measurement of moral competence till now and the results achieved by means of existing methods do not allow confidently confirming a fact of presence of certain moral competence but also do not deny this fact." (Podolskiy 2007, p. 4)

This is a misquote. It is the opposite of what I wrote. I wrote that the MCT, which we have developed, closes this gap. This is so clearly stated that it cannot be misunderstood.

With this misquote Mr. Podolskiy tries to make me the top witness against my own test. Such behavior certainly does not agree with the ethical standards of scientific research. GL

Definition of "ethical competence": "Ethical competence is here defined as (1) conscious decisions and actions within a given (2) responsibility situation. It implies (3) to feel obliged to one’s own moral principles and (4) to act responsibly taking into account legal standards as well as economical, ecological, and social consequences. Ethical competence (5) requires normative knowledge and (6) the willingness to defend derived behavioral options against occurring resistance." ... "The terms ‘ethical’ and 'moral’ will be used interchangeable in
the present article as is common in the ethical decision-making
literature..."

Comment: This study suffers from hyper-complexity, conceptual confusion, and distortions of findings. Both the definition of 'ethical competence' and the interchangeable us of 'ethical' and 'moral' is not state of the art and makes research in this area more difficult that is necessary. The definition are overloaded with concepts and conditions, which cannot be included in a workable measurement and do not need to be included. Moreover, these concepts themselves would need definition and clarification: What is a 'responsibility situation'? How can one feel obliged to one's own moral principles and still take into account all these standards and consequences? How can one incorporate such a mix of conflict-arousing cognitions in one term ('ethical competence') and how can one measure this? How is 'normative knowledge' defined and assessed? What kind of 'resistance' is meant? The authors' confinement to 'conscious decisions' clearly indicates that they mean 'ethical' and not 'moral' competence, as Lind (2016) defines it. The more they surprise the reader when using Lind's Moral Competence Test (MCT) for measuring 'ethical competence.' Using different words (moral judgment, moral cognition) for the same thing (moral competence), and using the same word (ethical competence) for a different thing (moral competence), is confusing and lowers the value of this study.

The study reports C-scores without telling the reader that they are transformed to fit a normal distribution. The mean C-score is not 4,9 but 28,1 (Pohling, 17.12.18, personal communication). Unfortunately such transformations are common though they make any comparison of C-scores between different studies impossible.

"Abstract: Lind' s Dual Aspect Theory of Morality suggests that moral decision-making does not rely only on the internalized understanding of social norms that are represented as virtuous moral orientations, but also on the ability to apply them in a consistent and differentiated manner in varying social situations. In the following, I will first give a brief overview of current psychological models on morality. Second. I will introduce the neuroscientific approach to the study of morality, and, finally, I will present my own work comprising of a neuroimaging study on moral judgment using Georg Lind's concept of moral competence." (p. 9).

"Conclusion. In this article, I took a look at current psychological models on moral judgment from a neuroscientific point of view, specifically introducing neuroimaging as a powerful tool to investigate the underlying decision making processes in the human brain . My primary concern, however, was to show how the use of existing theoretical models can fruit fully enrich cognitive neuroscience and to advocate well-informed neuroscientific research working in line with current psychological methods and ideas. This approach offers benefits for both areas of research. In particular, the data presented strongly supports Lind' s Dual Aspect Theory, suggesting that morality should indeed be considered both as a capacity and in terms of individual differences. Notably, the right DLPFC seems to play a key role in linking moral orientations to everyday decision making and behavior. Thus, the question is not only which processes are involved in moral judgment, but also how competently a decision maker can integrate emotional responses with rational reasoning processes sensitive to the context of the particular social situation he or she faces (cf., Talmi & Frith, 2007)." (p. 19)

"Although there was no correlation
between C-scores and response times during either task, changes in brain activity in right
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex DLPFC, BA 45/46) during normative as compared to
grammatical judgments covaried with C-scores. A region of interest analysis showed that Cscores
correlated negatively with blood oxygen level-dependent responses in right DLPFC
during normative (rNORM = -0.47, p<0.05) but not during grammatical judgments (rGRAM =
-0.05, p = 0.41)."

"Abstract
Recent neuroimaging studies identified a network of brain regions contributing to moral
cognition. To investigate how individual differences in moral competence are
reflected in the human brain, we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI) while twenty-three participants made either socio-normative or grammatical
judgments and correlated fMRI responses with individual scores in moral judgment
competence assessed using the Moral Judgment Test. We replicated previous findings on a
cerebral network involved in moral cognition and provide the first evidence that activity in
this network is modulated by individual differences in moral competence.
Participants with lower moral competence recruited the left ventromedial prefrontal
cortex (VMPFC, BA 10/11) and the left posterior superior temporal sulcus (PSTS, BA 39)
more than participants with greater competence in this domain when identifying social norm
violations, indicating the role of social-cognitive and emotional processes involved in moral
judgment. Moreover, we found that moral competence score was inversely
correlated with activity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC, BA 45/46) during
socio-normative relative to grammatical judgments. Greater activity in right DLPFC in
participants with lower moral competence indicates increased recruitment of rulebased
knowledge and its controlled application during socio-normative judgments. Thus,
individual differences in moral competence are reflected in two brain regions
commonly associated with moral cognition (VMPFC, PSTS) as well as in the right DLPFC.
These data support current models of the neurocognition of morality according to which both
emotional and cognitive components play an important role." | html

(My transl.:) "A few years ago [the Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam] caused some stir-up with his book 'Bowling alone'; his theses was that ever more Americans play bowling alione by themselves and not in a club, because the modern American hardly talks anymore with other Americans, the least with those who have another opinion -- a country becomes lonesome." (p. 75)

"Subjects: Sixty-two auditors who work for non-Big Five CPA firms completed the
experiment. The three participating firms are well-established firms with practices that
include large clients with complex accounting issues. Participants included 11 partners
with a mean of 26.35 years of experience, 20 managers with 9.2 mean years of
experience, 22 seniors with 5.4 mean years of experience, six staff accountants with 2.35
mean years of experience, and 3 individuals who did not indicate their rank with 13.4
years of experience." (p. 17 of ms)

Sample cleaning: "The MCT does not appear to be a valid
measure for auditors with either polar opinion about labor unions, thus they were
excluded from analysis where the C-index score is a variable. This reduced the sample
size about 40 percent, from 62 to 37 auditors. All analyses involving cognitive moral
ability are performed with the smaller sample size." (p. 20 of ms). Comment: This kind of sample cleaning biases the finding; it is not an admissible research practice. GL

Finding I: "Overall, the mean
C-index score was 24.26, a score in the medium category." (p. 20 of ms) Comment: This low moral competence of expert accountants working for big clients should be alarming. The score may even be lower if the analysis would not have been biased by the authors through ommitting participants with strong objection to the workers' bevavior. GL

Finding II: "More
students than auditors scored in the medium and high MCT categories, but there was no
significant relationship between C-index score and experience for auditors." (p. 27 of ms). Comment: The non-significance is not suprising because the sample was rather small (N = 37 or less). More significant is the negative correlation of moral competence with experience as auditors. This could indicate a negative selection process in this profession. GL

"Note: This paper won the third McLaughlin Prize for Research in Accounting Ethics in 2000. The prize carried with it a plaque and a cash award of $10,000." (Koeplin, CV; and personal communication).

"Abstract: People illness by the heat is an obligated discussion lately. The heat affects the cognitive activity of people and the women are especially affected by it. So, the cognitive reasoning of the Moral Judgment is influenced by this kind of weather, and indire ctly by the sex. To study the sex and heat incidence on Moral Judgment of university professors was the purpose of this research. The university professors are moral agents because they complement and supplant the family regulations and the educative precedent rules. The Moral Judgment of 212 superior education professor was registered by the Moral Judgment Test. 121 professors in a dry weather and 91 in a tropical were measured, 98 women and 114 men. The sex neither the heat explained the moral judgment level of professors. But this competence in the professors observed a low level. This suggests that actions to improve moral judgment must be made. So, the antecedents, the theory, and the findings are discussed in this article." ... more

Note: The test used has been renamed into Moral Competence Test (MCT). Moral competence is not the same as moral reasoning or moral judgment. See Lind 2016.

Comment: The professors "UP-CD" were from a private university in a dry climate, the professors "IT-CT" were from a public technological university. So not only the climate was different but also the type of university (private versus public). The difference is small (14,73 - 12,03 = 1,70 C-points = aES, absolute effect size). Since there are also other variables involved which have not been assessed, this finding should not be used for conclusions. Neither are the differences between the sexes worth mentioning. Aside from the finding that sex and heat do not seem to affect moral competence, these findings are alarming because of the very low moral competence score of these university professors. However, again, we should be cautious with conclusions unless these findings are replicated. We also do not know how the MCT was administerd. It is susceptibel to several errors, for example, for any kind of pressure during test administration. The author does not give information whether the MCT was given in a group, or individually, inperson or through mailing, and what instruction was given. Only if all checks of possible errors are negative, we may safely conclude that these university professors have a very low moral competence -- and urgently need training !

It would be interesting to have not only a replication study but also a study of other Mexican universities to see whether this is a general problem in Mexico.

"[...] As one would expect, dogmatic religiosity was very high among the Iranian students. Dogmatic religiosity does hamper the development of moral judgment and discourse competence and even causes regression. Individual as well as contextual dogmatic religiosity increases moral segmentation, that is, it does not affect the students moral competence in total but only their ability to solve moral problems for which a religious dogma exists. Dogmatic-religious people do not only agree with their religious community on the solution of issues of religious salience (e.g., mercy-killing), but also refrain from even thinking about those issues. College education by itself, that is, the pure length of study, does not seem to foster the development of moral and dis-course competence of the students. However, as this and many others studies have shown, moral regression and moral segmentation can be overcome, and moral competence be fostered, by providing students with opportunities of responsibility-taking and guided reflection, and even more effectively by special kinds of dilemma-discussions. As the Iranian students reported, such favorable learning opportunities were rather scarce in their university." (Summary)

Abstract: "This research examines the controversies and the intercultural validity of Lind's dual-aspect-theory. In particular, the following questions were raised: a) is morallearning through higher education at all possible?; b) is a consistent moraljudgment structure, as previously observed in other studies, also found in Latin America?; c) do cognitive and affective aspects ofmorality show different patterns ofdevelopment?; d) is regression in moral judgment competence possible? and e) are there gender differences in moral competence development?"

This graph from Schillinger (2006) supports the hypothesis that a favorable learning environment (opportunities for responsibility-taking and guided reflection) are a pre-condition for the development of moral competence in university students. This hold true for both groups of students involved in this study, Brazilian and German/Swiss.

Schillinger-Agati, Marcia & Lind, G. (2002). Learning Environment at the University Level: ORIGIN/u. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Moral Education in Chicago, Nov. 2002. ... more

Schillinger-Agati, Marcia & Lind, G. (2003). Moral Judgement Competence in Brazilian and German University Students. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association, Chicago, April 2003. ... more

"Abstract: This paper provides an overview of an extensive cross-cultural and cross-sectional study on moral development and the effect of one's learning environment among higher education students (Schillinger, 2006). The study was conducted during my time at the University of Konstanz in Germany as a member of Georg Lind 's research group. It was originally motivated by controversial findings from the Dual-Aspect Theory (Lind, 2008) in cognitive-affective research with the Moral Judgment Test. The aim of the investigation was to contribute to some still unsettled questions concerning the cultural (and empirical) validation of the Dual-Aspect Theory. The central question is whether, and in what way, moral competence development can be fostered by the learning environment of higher education." (p. 23)

Competence: "Theories of competence are every bit as essential for meaningful assessment
as they are for curriculum. Virtually none of the current assessments in wide
use are grounded in well-developed theories of competence. ... The kinds of theories of competence that have emerged in the past few decades
have a very different epistemological grounding than the kind of trait
psychology that gave rise to the current psychometric notions of 'reliability'
and 'validity'. Those concepts ... are of little or no use, and they need to
be re-thought." (p. 12)

Findings: No substantial increase of moral competence. This was one of the first intervention studies using the MCT and prelimnary versions of the Konstanz Method of Dilemma Discussion. Since then, effect sizes increases considerable as a result of several methodological improvements.

"In contrast
with the interview method, the MCT has these advantages:
- it is more economical,
- it is more objective,
- it is more transparent, which is of advantage for the critical examination
of its theoretical (content) validity and the differentiated analysis
of moral judgment behavior and its determinants,
- it allows us to assess moral competence independently of
the individual's ability of articulation and argumentation,
- it allows us to infer the intensity of the preference for a certain
moral orientation not - like in the Kohlberg Interview method -- from
the number of statements but directly from the responses." (p.
205; my translation, GL)

Seitz's (1991) ﻿study was conducted in 1990 in a small town in the south of
Germany with students of Gymnasium (college preparatory secondary school) in two groups: 8th - 10th grade, and 13th grade. The sample consisted of 52 immigrant children born in East Europ and Russian
having German ancestors ("Aussiedlerkinder"), who had a higher average age and more
academic mothers (40%) than the locals, and were mostly catholic (75%).The 119 local children had less academic mothers (9,3%), with about half catholics (39%) and half protestants (44,9%). The questionnaires were administered class-wise by the author. Instruments:
Moral Competence Test (MCT); Scale ‘Inlination for violence’ by Belson (1978);
Scale ‘Intolerance of ambiguity’ by S. Budner (1962); Scale ‘Democratic attitudes’ by Max Kaase (1968); Scale ‘Autoritarianism’ by Gerda Lederer (1983). GL

Seitz's study shows that moral competence (C-score, MCT) correlates positively with understanding of democratic institutions (r = .24), tolerance of ambiguity (r = .35), anti-authoritarianism (r = .33) and refusal of violence (r = .20). Altogether, level and quality of education accounted for considerably more of the variance in these variables than did the cultural background (locals versus immigrants) of the students (Seitz, 1990, p. 37).

Moral competence was strongly associated with level of schooling in both groups, in immigrants and more even in locals (see graph).The immigrants have got most of their schooling in the originating countries. Overall level of education accounted for 27,05 % of the variance in the C-score. GL

"Abstract. The author explores the morale of 310 Czech an 70 foreign students at the Medical Faculty of
Charles University in Hradec Králové. With the MJT methodology (Moral Judgement Test,
Georg Lind)*, she evaluates moral competence and moral attitudes depending on several
factors – age, school year, sex, nationality, religion and life satisfaction. The level of moral
judgement (moral attitude) is post-conventional during their entire studies (i.e. the 5th and 6th
stages according to Kohlberg). Moral competence in Czech students is significantly
decreasing as they grow older whereas in foreign students it is non- significantly increasing.
In Czech students, moral competence is significantly increasing when there is greater life
satisfaction. The influence of the other factors (sex, nationality and religion) on moral
competence has not been proven either in Czech or in foreign students."[* now called Moral Competence Test]

Betsy Speicher interviewed participants of Lawrence Kohlberg's original longitudinal sample in their adulthood and their children, also longitudinally. For measuring moral development, she used Kohlberg's Moral Judgment Interview.

"In both the present study and an intervention study cited in Sullivan, Beck,
Joy, and Pagliuso (1975), moral discussion during adolescence had a 'sleeper
effect'; greater participation in moral discussion in school and at home was
unrelated to moral reasoning during adolescence but did predict moral judgment
maturity several years later." (p. 126)

"The confluence of results strongly suggests the importance of family
relationships in the moral, social, and emotional development of adolescents."
(p. 137)

B. Speicher interviewed participants of Lawrence Kohlberg's original longitudinal sample in their adulthood and their children, also longitudinally. For measuring moral development, she used Kohlberg's Moral Judgment Interview.

"Education, not parent moral reasoning, limited the moral stage attained by
adult offsprings." (S. 624) "Among OGS [Oakland Growth Study] adult
offsprings, 30% exceeded their mothers' moral stage; 24% exceeded their
fathers' stage. . . In the Kohlberg sample, after age 22, 53% of the adult
children exceed the moral stage of both parents. Graduation from College,
however, was a critical factor in determining which subjects developed
postconventional (Stage 5) reasoning. ... All of the subjects who exceeded the
moral stage of both parents had graduated from college. Ninety percent of the
principled subjects who exceeded the moral stage of both parents had
conventional (Stage 3 and 4) parents, but all had graduated from college" (p.
629)

"Research results indicate that higher stage parents are significantly more
likely than lower state parents to report the use of cognitive methods of
moral transmission and democratic family decision making (Speicher-Dubin,
1982); to encourage their children's participation in moral discussion
(Holstein, 1969; Parikh, 1975); and to be supportive, sharing and challenging
in family discussions (Powers, 1982/1983)." (p. 625)

Speicher's (1994, p. 624) re-analysis of Kohlberg's longitudinal data shows a very clear correlation of moral development (Stage) with amount of education in each age-group:

"[16] We have thus demonstrated:
(1) that it is impossible to deprive men of the liberty of saying what they
think.
(2) that this liberty may be accorded to everyone without danger to the right
and authority of the sovereign powers, and each person may retain this liberty
without risk to their authority so long as no one arrogates to himself licence to
promulgate in the state any alteration of the law or act in any way contrary to the
existing laws.
(3) that each person may possess such liberty without danger to the
stability
of the state, and that it causes no disadvantages which cannot be easily
checked.
(4) that each person may possess this liberty without prejudice to piety.
(5) that 247 issuing decrees about doctrinal issues is completely useless.
(6) Finally, we have proven that not only may this liberty be granted
without risk to the peace of the republic and to piety as well as the authority
of the sovereign power, but also that to conserve all of this such freedom must
be granted. For when, contrary to this, e¡orts are made to strip men of this
liberty, and those with dissenting views are summoned to court (albeit not for their inner thoughts which alone could o¡end), then an example is made of
honest men which is viewed rather as martyrdom [than justi¢ed punishment].
This antagonizes rather than frightens people, and moves them to compassion,
or even incites them to take revenge. Finally, upright dealing and trust
are undermined, £atterers and traitors are encouraged, and the foes [of those with dissenting views] triumph, since their indignation has been surrendered
to: they have turned the sovereign powers into adherents of their dogmas of
which they are recognized as the interpreters. As a consequence, they dare
usurp the authority and right of the high o⁄cers of the state and are not
ashamed to boast that they have been directly appointed by God and that
their own decrees are divine whereas those of the sovereign authorities are
merely human ones and, accordingly, they then require that sovereigns should
defer to these divine that is to say to their own ^ decrees. No one can fail to
see that all this is utterly destructive of the common good of the republic." (p. 258)

Correlation study. Participants: 307 "residential Christian students" at Cedarvill University, 90% Caucasian, 168 females. Comparison of two groups: students listening (a) 60% or more secular (non-Christian) music and lyrics, (b) 50% or more non-Christian music and lyrics.

Results: Moral Competence Test's C-score (Table 1)

Christian Music

Secular Music

C = 54,6

C = 63,4

N = 104

N = 205

Large absolut effect size: 9,8 (difference)

Comment: The C-scores in this sample are unusually high. The scoring should be checked for technical correctness. Aside from the caveat, this result is surprising because I know of no theory which would predict it. The result is probably disappointing from the Christian university's point of view. Presumably thew authors hoped that the effect would be the opposite.

"The results showed that there was no difference in the moral reasoning index among students of different academic orientations. ... Findings of this study are consistent with the findings of some of the previous studies." (abstract)

Critique: The authors measured moral orientations, but they did not measure moral competence. Therefore, their comparision with MCT-studies is unwarranted. They used a newly developed instrument, the "Test of Moral Reaoning" by Prorokovic. They call it an "adaptation of the MJT" [which is now called MCT]. This is a false claim. In fact the test by Prorokovis exploid the MCT (and adds some new items) but certainly does not "adapt" it. Obviously the author did not understand the rationale behind the MCT, nor did he/she compute a score analoguously to the MCT's C-score.

By showing that to response scaling the same experimental principles can be applied also to stimulus scaling, Torgerson has taught me that there are better methods than classical and modern' test theory (see also the references by Travers, Loevinger, Cronbach & Meehl, and Kohlberg). GL

Like Loevinger (1957) and Cronbach & Meehl (1955), but in contrast with mainstream psychology, Travers strongly believes that the development of psychological tests must go hand in hand with psychological theorizing.

In this study the authors compared the moral competence of 285 employees of five democratic firms (collectively own and democratically managed) with five conventional firms. This study produced a very interesting finding which, however, the authors seem to have overlooked.

The authors summarize one of their main findings as follows: "Contrary to our expectations, the socio-moral climate with organizations failled to explain variance in moral development." (p. 59) However, this conclusion is based only on the (non-)correlation between the employees' perception of socio-moral climate and moral competence. This correlation is very ambiguous. We know that people with high moral competence see their environment more ciritically, that is, the "perception"-scores tend to correlate negatively with moral competence. Therefore, we should not misconceive subjective perceptions as a valid observation of socio-moral climate.

When we look at the direct impact of the socio-moral climate of firms, we can see a strong impact on employees' moral competence development. The graphical display of the findings (Figure 4, p. 67) shows: Although employees of democratic firms start at a similar level of moral competence, after ten years of tenure, their moral competence is 10 C-points higher (C = 22,5) than the moral competence of employees of conventional firms (C = 12,5; see figure below). Comparing average C-scores over the full range of development (as in Figure 2, p. 66) obscures this relationship.

The authors suggest to use "stage preference measures in future studies" (p. 70). The MCT(MJT) which they used produces such measures. They do not explain why they did not report them. GL

"Abstract. This article presents the findings of a study into the moral judgement of Dutch officers, officer-candidates and university students. The study was based on the Moral Judgement Test developed by Lind, which aims to analyze the moral skills of respondents in judging ethical dilemmas. In this quantitative study among military (wo)men, four dilemma's were used: two standard ethical dilemmas that were formulated by Lind, and two specific military dilemmas based on experiences from military practice, developed by the authors. All four dilemmas proved to be reliable in statistical terms. The results show that the military respondents in general produce high scores on the test, which indicates that their moral awareness is quite elaborated. The study also revealed a number of factors - e.g., gender, religion and previous experience with moral dilemmas - explaining differences in moral judgement between respondents. Although the results have shown to be unequivocal, some critical remarks can be made with regard to the test as such. Given the fact that the structure of the test leaves many moral considerations undisclosed, it is recommended to use the test in combination with a qualitative research methodology. This would shed more light on moral sensitivity, empathy and moral character in the face of pressure." ... more

Comment by the editor: Unfortunately, this article fails to analyze the main index of the MCT, the C-index. The C-index would have disclosed an important aspect of moral judgment behavior, namely moral competence, which cannot be assessed through "qualitative reserch methodology." Analyzing "reliability" of the MCT is inadequate because the MCT is based on the theory that "inconsistency" of the responses are not to be discarded as "error of measurement" but should be seen as a sign of (low) moral competence. (Lind, 2008).
Adding qualitative research methodology will not make up for the severe shortcomings of this study. A correct analysis of the MCT data would have. (GL)

There is a "secular skew within moral psychology and education with
[Kohlberg's] insistant claim that moral and religious domains were
independent." (p. 309) ..."complexity of relationship..." (p. 309)
The authors set up two empirical propositions:
"Proposition 1 is that transcendence acts to motivate and amplify moral
functioning. That is, transcendence imparts credence to moral thought and
motivates individuals to carry out their judgment. However, this motivating
influence occurs irrespective of how moral or immoral these judgment are in
actuality: thus, it could be expected that transcendence would be associated
with a considerable range of moral outcomes, both positve and negative. ...
Proposition 2 is that there are various groundings for mature moral
functioning, not only transcenden but also secular. Thus, we posit that,
although morality may lead some individuals to concerns about transcendence,
it will not do so for everyone."
Comment: Both propositions do not meet the criteria for good science, namely "falsifiability" (Karl Popper). Its predictions are lack specifity. Almost any outcome of an experiment can be said to support this theory. If transcendence (religiosity) motivates both good and bad behavior, moral an immoral acts, this concept does not help us at all to understand moal behavior and to foster it. Proposition 2 states that if people act morally good, we also cannot conclude from this that they are motivated by some transcendence. This is not because the relationship is "complex" but because we do not know anything about it. "Complexity2 lies in the eyes of the beholder. (GL)

In his experiment, Wasel assessed the moral competence (MCT) of N = 102 social workers who participated in a 2-week workshop seminar. Towards the end of this seminar, he gave them also a socio-metric task, asking them to say whom they liked most to colaborate with. In addition, Wasel asked his participants to fill out the MCT again, but this time they should simulated how their best-liked mate would fill it out.In agreement with the competence theory of moral judgment, the participants who had to put themselves into the shoes of someone with higher judgment (C-score) competence than their own, could not cope with this task. Only those participants whose target person had a lower competence than oneself, could simulate their (lower) competence (p. 42)..Wasel also found that the precision of simulation was the better the higher the participant's own moral competence was (r = 0.30 , p < 0.05; Wasel, p. 45).

Finally, Wasel found that the moral competence of the group members who were socio-metrically chosen was somewhat higher than the general moral jdugment competence of the group: an average C = 46,2 versus C = 40,9 (p. 45). The latter two findings were also predicted by Kohlberg's assumption that moral judgment has a strong competence aspect, and disproves the assumption by Emler et al. (1983) that moral judgment ist purely a matter of attitude and moral ideology.

"Abstract: This paper seeks to propose the thesis that some specific discourse ethical
notions permit a more holistic and integral interpretation and comprehension of the
results drawn by the MCT. With this cairn, we will present some results of an empirical
study carried out with student's of the National University of Rio Cuarto, Argentina.
Its original purpose was to understand the imaginations of female Political Science
students regarding their responsibilities in a democratic society." (p. 147)

"A theorist who takes the Principle of Universal Heteronomy seriously would
necessarily regard all moral commitments, including whatever commitments
underlie his or her own professional activities of teaching and publishing
about morality, as parts of a great social con game." (p. 30)

"Abstract. In this paper, we used the "Moral Judgment Test" (MJT)*, an instrument that was developed by German psychologist, Georg Lind in 1976, along with some additional items, administered after the standard MJT. The participants were 724 Chinese adolescents whose ages ranged from 14 to 27 years of age. The results show that there was considerable fluctuation between grades in C scores, without the regularity seen in prior studies conducted in Western cultural contexts, but with senior college students generally showing higher C scores than freshmen. No significant differences in C scores were found between male and female students, between students with various professions, between key schools and the regular schools and between the two-year and the four-year college students. The possible implications of these findings for Chinese moral education are also discussed. (Contains 2 figures and 6 tables.)" Full text: http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/EJ835202.pdf

Comment: In this sample, education seems to foster moral competence only during secondary school, but not during higher education. (All validity checks by the authors came out perfect.) GL

Correct: Profile of six types of moral orientations (Kohlberg), scale: -16 to +16. This is not quasi-simplex structure.

"Of special interest is the low correlation between moral judgment
competence and level of education. The schools of the province of the
participants do not seem to foster moral judgment competence" (p. 193)

Comment: The MCT is very sensitive to the context of testing. The oveall low C-score in this study (16,9) could be the result of too high perceived expectation by the participants. Tests may be seen by Chinese students in general as "achievement tests" in which they have to show that they can fullfill external expectation. This usually lowers the C-score. "It is too early to make a final judgment. More
carefully designed studies are needed," (p. 193) writes the author. I would agree. GL