Moral judgment and antisocial behavior in early adolescence

This project was designed to assess the relationship of moral judgment to a naturalistic measure of antisocial behavior—delinquent and predelinquent behavior. As a prelude, observations were made which confirmed that delinquents not only have low scores on the Kohlberg Moral Judgment Interview, but also that Rest's Defining Issues Test distinguishes incarcerated delinquent from nondelinquent groups. In the present study, each of a group of boys with disruptive and antisocial behavior was matched with a counterpart on 14 variables so designed as to minimize the effect of factors other than the stage of development of moral judgment in members of the two groups on the outcome of the testing procedures. When the impact of these extraneous factors was so minimized, results of Rest's Defining Issues Test revealed significant differences between the groups, while Kohlberg's interview did not. Clinical implications of this project are discussed.