Judgment within the game: The effect of the "other" on the moral decision-making process.
Item
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Title
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Judgment within the game: The effect of the "other" on the moral decision-making process.
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Identifier
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AAI9224816
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identifier
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9224816
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Creator
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Glassman, Michael.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Dalton Miller-Jones
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Date
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1992
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Developmental | Psychology, Social
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Abstract
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This study attempts to combine the particularistic view of moral judgments with the more universal view of some type of ontological development of morality as a human process. Moral decision making is seen here as a co-determined phenomenon. That is that ecological circumstances combine with ontologically developed perspective taking abilities in a dialectical fashion to form particular justice systems for individuals in specific situations. This dissertation attempts to place this idea within the moral literature and research field. This is accompanied by a study that attempts to explore two important aspects of this idea. First, that while the perspective taking ability of individuals remains constant, their particular justice systems change according to the ecological circumstances of a particular problem. And second, that the ecological circumstances of individuals has some affect on the type of decisions they make in different moral situations. Adolescents from three different settings (an inner-city youth center, an urban foster home, and a suburban private school) were presented with three ecologically distinct moral dilemmas (i.e., personal, community, and society). The participants were asked to choose a course of action in response to each of the dilemmas and justify it. The justifications were analyzed in terms of ontological level of response and ecological level of response. The first analysis suggests that while perspective taking ability remained relatively constant for the three populations, the ecological level on which these individuals developed their justification was dependent on the specific circumstances of the dilemma with which they were confronted. This is supported by both quantitative results and a qualitative review of the actual transcripts. The second analysis suggests that the ecological setting also has an affect on the type of justification the participants used in responding to the dilemma. This second analysis is supplemented by an interpretive inquiry of the ecological settings that attempts to explore the reasons behind these differences.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
