The question of morality related to adolescents now seems to be a thorny issue which gets into those in authority in South Africa. So far, nobody denies that the moral fibre in live of people is deteriorating at all age levels. The adolescents are probably most vulnerable. Various research projects, obviously have been conducted in relation to morality, however, serious problems are still experienced with regard to the perception of morality by adolescents. Consequently, the aim of this research is to explore and describe how adolescents perceive morality, and to draw guidelines which will be used by educators to assist adolescents in their moral development. This research can therefore contribute in helping the adolescents acquire the knowledge of factors that affect their perception of morality. This will help them not to be a menace to society. An explorative, descriptive, contextual and qualitative design was followed to conduct this research. A purposive sample was used and the young people had to satisfy specific criteria pertaining to being adolescents. Focus group interviews were conducted. Adolescents between fourteen and eighteen years of age participated. After the interviews had been recorded on audiotape and were transcribed, Tech’s method of data analysis was followed to analyze the data and ensure that trustworthiness is maintained. The results brought the following themes to light: • Expression of adolescents’ perception of morality • Morality versus immorality • Crime • Parents identified as neglecting and abusive • Adolescents expressed concern that their parents’ perception of certain aspects of life is not acceptable. It is evident that the conduct of adolescents is determined their perceptions of morality. As a result it is hoped that if due acknowledgement is made that educators and parents need to give proper guidance to adolescents about moral principles, harmonious interaction will prevail in both the home and the school. / Prof. C.P.H Myburgh

D.Phil. / The spate of large-scale financial misconduct across the globe, sparked interest, and concern regarding moral conduct in organisations. The impact of the immoral actions proved to be devastating for many companies, especially for the financial sector. These entities spend a lot of time and effort managing threats from external sources, such as clients and terrorist. Less focus is placed in reducing fraud from within. Conforming to the regulations however, increases strain on companies to comply with the guidelines. This compliance consumes a lot of an organisation’s resources such as time and money. Little focus, if any is placed on the psychological component of governance, namely, the moral intelligence of employees and on understanding the human contribution to corporate governance and immoral actions. Human Resource practitioners are not doing enough to understand this dynamic, specifically the role of moral intelligence, underlined by the moral decision-making process. From a theoretical point of view, the study was aimed at understanding the moral domain from a more integrated, broad-based approach, including the moral dynamic as a form of intelligence. From a practical point of view, the need for more reliable and scientific information on moral conduct served as driver for the study. This investigation included the examination of the construct moral intelligence as part of the multiple intelligence theory, understanding the moral decision-making process as part of moral intelligence, identifying an underlying set of universal moral principles as foundation for moral decision-making in business, and analyzing patterns of covariability between moral reasoning and moral competence as part of the decision-making process. The study was conducted in a large South African financial institution with a sample size of 466. The Moral Judgment Test was preferred as measure for moral reasoning and moral competence, while the EQ Map and Psychomatrix Spirituality Inventory (PSI) measured emotional and spiritual intelligence respectively. Results revealed support for Kohlberg’s stages of moral development. There was evidence that the use of post-conventional stages of moral reasoning increased moral competence, which is the consistency between reasoning and action. There was further statistical support for differences in moral reasoning and moral competence when compared with selected demographical variables. The various statistical operations provided information for the calculation of risk-ratios, aimed at identifying individuals prone to immoral action. This data is useful when selecting and promoting individuals in the bank. As a result of the qualitative information and quantitative data, an amalgamation of the various approaches produced an integrated model on moral intelligence. It is envisaged that this will contribute to understanding true moral intelligence as a broad approach. Various theoretical and practical conclusions are reached, and recommendations and limitations are discussed.

The overall goal of this study was to develop a comprehensive model of moral development to explicate the complexities of everyday morality. Based on a holistic and complementary perspective, the model relates the constructs of “worldview” and “self-view” to represent the influence of cultural individualism-collectivism and personality on moral development. It posits that worldview shapes self-view and moral inclusiveness [what is included in one’s moral consideration (Carter, 1980)] and then worldview, self-view, and moral inclusiveness jointly influence moral orientation (the main hypothesis). Interacting with situational factors, moral orientation would further influence moral judgment and behavior, thus connecting habitual morality with reflective morality. The specific objectives were: (a) to examine the relational structures among worldview, self-view, moral inclusiveness, and moral orientation; and (b) to construct a moral orientation index that measures various moral orientations, including egocentric, family, care, norm, justice, biocentric, and religious orientations, reflecting the corresponding worldviews, self-views, and levels of moral inclusiveness. Moral inclusiveness was operationalized as relationship closeness to different social groups at expanding levels of moral inclusiveness: (1) self only, (2) family, (3) peers, (4) society, (5) humanity, (6) nature, and (7) God. Survey data were gathered from 640 Grades 8-12 students and 472 adults. Structural equation models (SEM) were developed using the student data while making some comparative references to the adult data. Results of SEMs generally supported the main hypothesis. For example, individuals scoring higher on vertical individualism, social Darwinism, and independent self scored higher on egocentric orientation; individuals scoring higher on vertical collectivism and closeness to family scored higher on family orientation; and individuals scoring higher on horizontal collectivism and interdependent self scored higher on care orientation, at Levels 1, 2, and 3 respectively. Individuals scoring higher on collectivism, horizontal worldview, and moral self scored higher on justice orientation, but individuals scoring higher on closeness to nation scored lower on justice orientation at Level 5. The primacy of worldview, particularly collectivism, over self-view and moral inclusiveness in moral orientation development has implications for education. Exploring the roots of habitual morality, this study advances theory by integrating different schools of moral psychology with cultural psychology. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

South Africa currently has one of the highest levels of crime in the world. The high prevalence of violence in South African culture has led to the increased exposure to violence of individuals of all ages. The South African Police Service annual report for 2008/2009 reported 48 732 crimes ranging from murder, attempted murder to sexual offences and common assault against children under the age of 18 years. In addition, young people between the ages from 12 to 22 are generally victimized at twice the adult rate and even higher for violent crimes. It is the belief of various theorists that exposure to violence can alter one’s cognitive, affective, and behavioral processes- the three core components that are essential to moral development. The role that exposure to violence has on the development of aggressive behavior has been thoroughly researched; however the implications that this exposure has on the moral development of adolescents remains vague. This study explored and described the relationship between exposure to violence and moral development amongst adolescent learners. A quantitative exploratory descriptive research design was employed and the participants were selected by means of non-probability, convenience sampling. The sample consisted of 53 participants at a coeducational high school in the Nelson Mandela Metropole. The demographic data of the participants was gathered through the administration of a biographical questionnaire. The participants’ exposure to violence was explored by using the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire- South African Adaptation (HTQ-SAA), while their moral development was assessed by means of the Moral Judgment Test (MJT). The data was analysed using descriptive statistics and both the Pearson’s correlation coefficient and Chi square test was computed to draw inferences regarding the relationship between exposure to violence and moral development. The results of the study revealed that all of the participants were exposed to violence directly or indirectly on one or more occasion; however the frequency with which the participants were exposed to violence was lower than expected. The results of the MJT further indicated very low to low moral judgement competence scores for the majority of the sample. No significant correlation or association was found between the two constructs.

Utilizing Lawrence Kohlberg's cognitive moral development theory as the guiding theory, the research undertaken sought to explore the moral decision-making process of emergency planners in the state of Florida. To assess the quantitative measurement for moral judgment, the research applied and used the Defining Issues Test (DIT) developed by James Rest (1979). The research examined the relationship between education, gender, age, and ethics training against the moral maturity of Florida emergency planners. With ethical maturity level as the dependent variable, analysis showed a significant difference between males and females, where females had higher postconventional scores than males regardless of educational levels. Also interesting was that postconventional scores for males rose as educational levels rose. However, there was no significant difference revealed between postconventional scores when age and ethics training were the independent variables. The results of this research may have significant implications for organizations before, during, and after a disaster. While empirical research has shown that higher education is positively associated with higher levels of cognitive moral development, the research has shown that it may only apply to males.

The primary purpose of this research was to review the relationship between moral cognizance, as defined by the Defining Issues Test, and the compensation plan of a healthcare executive when factors such as licensure, career stage, gender, age, and ethics training were present. The study was conducted on 142 healthcare executives from both a publically traded for-profit hospital corporation and a multi-physician private practice. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) tests were utilized to test the hypotheses of these moderating variables. The outcome of this study indicates that there is no difference in the relationship of moral cognizance and compensation plan of a healthcare executive when the factors of license, career stage, gender, age, or ethics training are involved. However, the analyses did find some interesting interactions of statistical significance between moral cognizance, as determined by P-score, and the individual factors of license and gender when compensation was not included. While the results of the study were inconclusive, the study extends Kohlberg's research on cognitive moral development using Rest's Defining Issues Test to healthcare executives. It also contributes to the existing body of literature by introducing the variable of compensation plan to the moral cognizance equation. Future research in the healthcare field in relation to moral cognizance and financial performance will become a necessity as the focus on healthcare as a business continues to grow and society insists the highest values from its providers.

Several significant breaches of ethics in the past few years have created renewed interest in the study of moral judgment. The examples used in this study include sub-prime lending, the Madoff investment scandal, and the torture of suspects in U.S. custody. The Cognitive Moral Development (CMD) theory was developed by Lawrence Kohlberg in 1969. Effectively, Kohlberg determined there were clearly defined stages of moral development in children--how they develop a sense of right, wrong, and justice. He expanded his research to adults and determined that human beings progressed through each of the six stages without skipping a stage and without reverting to a previous stage. James Rest later developed a survey instrument, the Defining Issues Test (DIT), designed to assess the stages of development, or moral maturity, of an individual without the lengthy interview process employed by Kohlberg in his research. Over 1,000 studies have since used the DIT. The DIT will be used in combination with a demographic survey to test the variables of educational level, age, gender, and ethical training against moral maturity. Research has provided mixed results for these variables when applied to the public sector. This study will compare the moral maturity of elected officials with that of appointed city managers who serve at the will of these elected officials. This paper will provide a discussion of the ethical concerns facing elected officials and appointed city managers as well as the potential hazards to good decision-making presented by differences in moral maturity, if they exist. The relationship of moral maturity and the other variables will also be discussed. Recommendations for public administrators and future research will be presented.

Introdução: As comunidades quilombolas passaram a ter alguma visibilidade a partir da Constituição Federal brasileira de 1988. Objetivo: avaliar o desenvolvimento psicológico – moral e a coerção em duas comunidades quilombolas do município de Viamão/RS, relacionando a vulnerabilidade a estes conceitos. Método: Foram estudadas 62 pessoas pertencentes a duas comunidades quilombolas do município de Viamão/RS-Brasil. Todos os participantes eram maiores de 18 anos. Foram utilizados instrumentos validados para avaliar o desenvolvimento psicológico-moral e a expressão de coerção. Da mesma forma, foram realizadas observações de campo, com abordagem qualitativa, que permitiram descrever melhor as condições de pertencimento e vulnerabilidade destas comunidades. Resultados: Todos os participantes tinham capacidade para tomada de decisão no seu melhor interesse. Da mesma forma, a expressão de coerção foi baixa, atingindo um dos menores valores obtidos até a presente data em estudos semelhantes. A escolaridade destas comunidades foi precária. As noções de pertencimento e vulnerabilidade estavam presentes nos relatos que foram coletados. Conclusão: Por meio destas análises obtivemos um quadro de referência que permite diferenciar autonomia e autodeterminação, pertencimento e vulnerabilidade. / Introduction: The Quilombola communities startet to have some visibility since the Brazilian Federal Constitution of 1988. Objective: To evaluate the psychological and moral development and coercion in two rural communities in Viamão / RS relating vulnerability to these concepts. Methods: We studied 62 persons belonging to two Quilombola communities in the municipality of Viamão / Rio Grande do Sul – Brazil. All participants were over 18 years old. Two validated instruments were used to assess the moral and psychological development and the expression of coercion. Similarly, field observations were carried out with a qualitative approach, which allowed better describe the conditions of belonging and vulnerability of these communities. Results: All participants had the capacity to make decisions in their best interest. Likewise, the expression of coercion was low, reaching one of the lowest values obtained to date in similar studies. The schooling of these communities was precarious. The notions of belonging and vulnerability were present in the reports that were collected. Conclusion: Through these analyzes we obtained a framework reference that allows to differentiate autonomy and self-determination, belonging and vulnerability.

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