An Investigation of the Sanctions operative in moral actions and attitudes in adolescents with special reference to the interaction of religious factors

Abstract

This study examines some social morality issues among adolescents in the North East of England. These moral situations are posed in the form of questionnaire in Kohlburg's moral dilemma forms where possible; responses are open ended in some cases and rank order or single responses in other cases. The tests were administered to 180 adolescents, in schools and church groups in the area by, teachers and student teachers. The secondary variables of sex, age and social class were obtained for each respondent. The principal variables were religious denomination, church attendance, religious social group and type of religious education in school. Analysis of the results obtained consisted of the type of sanctions operating in the differing moral situation tests. These tended to be confined to the prudential, authoritarian, ego ideal and reciprocal areas. However, guilt in various forms was obvious, particularly in the stealing situations and these were categorised on the basis of a scale of guilt dimensions as used by Kohlburg. The primary and principal variables were compared by a process of cross tabulation, using Chi Squared and Kendall's Tau, with the sanctions operating in the differing moral situations. Developmental factors supporting Piaget and Bull’s work were operative throughout in the type of sanctions used. However, there was some difference according to the social setting of the test, whether in school, at home or 'out in society’. The overriding null hypothesis was that there was no/ relationship between the religious factors and the type of sanction operating. It could cautiously be said that this null hypothesis was not proven with these results. Although the numbers were small, there was some relationship shown between the religious groups and the moral sanctions operative, particularly with the religious social group, which could point to further study.