This qualitative study was aimed at developing an understanding of how persons involved in the investigation or deliberation of child abuse and neglect cases think and feel about the process of weighing evidence and drawing conclusions from it. Twenty investigators, supervisors, and administrators employed by the Child Protective Services agency in Texas were asked to describe cases they had investigated or reviewed that had been particularly difficult because of conflicting or ambiguous evidence. They were also asked opinion questions about the agency's actuarial risk assessment instrument and the concept of preponderance of evidence. Finally, participants were asked to respond to two short case vignettes describing allegations of sexual abuse. Constant comparative and narrative analysis of interview data revealed that the process of case deliberation in CPS makes use of both intuitive and analytic decision-making styles, and there is a general movement from intuition to analysis as a case ascends the decision-making hierarchy. This movement entails a shift from narrative forms of thought and an outcome-oriented ethic to analytic forms of thought and a rule-based ethic. Though intuitive decision making is at least partly guided from personal experience and personal values, and does produce error because of that, it is nonetheless a form of rationality as capable of being guided by scrupulousness and fidelity to truth as analysis is. The personal value and outcome-oriented ethic that intuition brings to the decision making process not only cannot be eliminated, it is necessary to the program's achievement of its mission. It is recommended that the training of new investigators should, first, acknowledge the large role that intuitive thinking plays in CPS decision making and, second, develop ways to help decision makers discipline intuition, in the words of one participant, and to create conditions that foster its optimal functioning.

This study examined if social distance, i.e. in- vs. out-group membership, had an effect on moral judgments of acts vs. omissions. 164 participants judged the morality of acts vs. omissions of lethal harm, that affected an in- vs. out-group member of the participant, in order to save five other people. The results showed that acts of lethal, but utilitarian, harm were judged more immoral than omissions of equivalent harm. It was also shown that if the victim was an in- group member of the participant the behavior was judged more immoral than if the victim was an out-group member of the participant. However, the acts and omissions of harm were not judged differently when the victim was an in.- vs. out-group member of the participant, indicating that this kind of social distance might not influence the moral judgment of acts and omissions.

In A Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume argues that moral judgments are the product of sentiment. The mechanism of sympathy allows individuals to enter into a common point of view in order to produce judgments that are truly moral, and not merely self-interested. Hume argues that the common point of view is the standard that moral judgments are subjected to. I argue that the common point of view is an inadequate standard for distinguishing between proper and improper moral judgments. The common point of view is inadequate because it is subjective and unreflective. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith offers an account of moral judgment that has an adequate standard for distinguishing between proper and improper moral judgments. Smith avoids the problems with Hume’s account due to his distinction between partial and impartial spectators and the role that self-command plays in his theory of moral judgment.

Controversy regarding moral development research has given rise to a proliferation of theories competing for acceptance. For all these researchers, the work of Lawrence Kohlberg is the pivot point for comparisons, contrasts, and discussions. Still, no theories to date adequately describe and document a theoretically complete conception of moral judgment and behavior. The contention in this thesis is that Kohlberg's moral development theory should remain the base-camp for further exploration but concepts from the past as well as new components from other fields should be added to construct a better model of human moral thinking and behaving. This thesis formulates a comprehensive and more adequate moral development theory which fits existing data. Pertinent aspects of past and present moral theories are summarized. Theories are evaluated in light of knowledge gained from past thinkers and recent research. Inadequacies are discussed. New pieces from psychological personality theories are presented to replace the normally accepted concept of a unitary ego theory. A more realistic model of growth as a spiral development process is presented. This spiral model allows features of the invariant stage sequence and step-wise hierarchial development process, critical to Piaget's cognitive development theory and to Kohlberg's justice-oriented moral development theory, to exist while couched in a broader growth process that encompasses the pertinent additional features of other researchers' works. The newly constructed theory is presented. Documented case materials and portions of counseling sessions are used to show some adequacy-of-fit of aspects of this theory. / Graduation date: 1992

The aim of this study was to develop a leadership measure using situational judgment test (SJT) methodology and to evaluate both construct and criterion-related validity of the developed SJT with respect to a well established measure of leadership, the Leadership Opinion Questionnaire (LOQ). In this study, it was hypothesized that task-oriented leadership-based SJT (SJT-T) is positively related to the supervisors&rsquo / and subordinates&rsquo / ratings of task-oriented leadership as assessed by the LOQ and relationship-oriented SJT (SJT-L) would be positively related to the supervisors&rsquo / and subordinates&rsquo / ratings of the relationship-oriented leadership as assessed by the LOQ. The data were collected from supervisors (N = 87) and their subordinates (N = 160) in a government organization in Ankara. The results indicated that the expected division of SJT-T and SJT-R was not possible. Therefore, rather than developing two SJTs measuring task- and relationship-oriented leadership, a decision was made to develop a general SJT-L measuring context-specific leadership and the hypotheses were tested on an exploratory basis without making a distinction between SJT-T and SJT-R. It was found that the relationship between the SJT-L and supervisors&rsquo / self ratings for task-oriented LOQ was significant but in the unexpected direction. However, the relationship between the SJT-L and subordinates&rsquo / ratings for their supervisors&rsquo / relationship-oriented leadership, using the LOQ, was positive and significant. Lastly, SJT-L was found to be a significant and unique predictor of subordinates&rsquo / ratings of leadership performance. Limitations of the study are acknowledged and results are discussed along with some suggestions for future research.

In this paper, I will try to answer the question how the aesthetic idea in Kant’s aesthetic theory accounts for the universal validity of the subjective judgment of taste, and what the nature of the aesthetic idea is that makes such account possible. This claim about universal validity of the subjective judgment of taste in Kant’s philosophy is regarded to be problematic because of the seeming contradiction between the subjectivity of a judgment and its universality. What can solve this contradiction, from my point of view, is the role of the aesthetic idea that it plays in the judgment of taste and the subjective principle that puts cognitive powers of mind in a harmonious free relationship. The main feature that makes the aesthetic idea the source of the universal validity is its universal communicability expressed in the universally pleasurable feeling of the judgment of taste.

This dissertation examines how differences between the strategic-systems audit approach and the traditional, transaction-based audit approach affect the content and complexity of client business knowledge in long-term memory, how these mental representations develop with experience, and how the representations affect risk assessment. Knowledge of the client?s business is essential to conducting an effective and efficient audit, but researchers have devoted little attention to how this knowledge is represented in memory and what effect it has on audit judgment. Moreover, proponents of the strategic-systems approach argue that this approach leads to the formation of a more-complex client business model and results in better audit judgments than the transaction-based approach. The study?s results contradict these claims, with the strategic-systems auditors having less-complex models than their TBA counterparts. Also, no experience-related differences were found in the client models, and risk assessments were only weakly affected by content and complexity differences between client models. After a variety of supplemental analyses, it was concluded that there is no evidence from this dissertation to suggest that the SSA methodology does not result in an auditor possessing an enhanced knowledge of the client?s business compared to that possessed by an auditor employing a traditional audit approach.

Sentimentalism as an ethical view makes a particular claim about moral judgment: to judge that something is right/wrong is to have a sentiment/emotion of approbation/disapprobation, or some kind of positive/negative feeling, toward that thing. However, several sentimentalists have argued that moral judgments involve not only having a specific kind of feelings or emotional responses, but judging that one would be <em>justified</em> in having that feeling or emotional response. In the literature, some authors have taken up the former position because the empirical data on moral judgment seems to suggest that justification is not a necessary prerequisite for making a moral judgment. Even if this is true, however, I argue that justifying moral judgments is still an important philosophic endeavour, and that developing an empirically constrained account of how a person might go about justifying his feelings/emotional responses as reasons for rendering (normative) moral judgments by using a coherentist method of justification is both plausible and desirable.

The purpose of this study is to determine how nonroutine acts performed by iii trained emergency workers developed into routine emergency acts and skills. I will be specifically looking for concepts that are common throughout the different types of emergency workers that will be interviewed. The data is gathered from focus groups that were recruited from classes on campus. In particular the results depict some very common techniques used in training that allowed the workers to feel confident about their role in emergencies. These tended to include repetition of "classroom training, "but more importantly from the viewpoint of the workers, repetition of simulated emergencies. The development of autonomy in decision making was an important facet for workers whose work "territory" was varied; however, autonomy was rarely stressed for those in relatively constant surroundings such as pools. Several commonalities were found throughout each field. These included interruptions, self-efficacy, the use of judgment and tacit knowledge. Many of the participants also expressed the same sentiment towards their feelings of the training and its efficiency. Some research will also show attempts to change policy and training within emergency workers in order to improve job performance and enhance the safety of the public as well. I will include a small statistical appendix that looks at the satisfaction level of evacuees who fled to Houston, Texas when Hurricane Katrina hit. Five specific factors were examined and regressed to determine satisfaction levels. Only two factors showed any type of significance. As the discussion will indicate, certain previous factors, before the hurricane hit, are believed to be the cause of these particular results.

ABSTRACT Trigged with the democratic movements, Taiwan¡¦s society had evolved in the past 15 years that citizen had more opportunities to participate in public policy decisions. As different objects, values and ideologies existing between stakeholders, conflict of the cognitive nature besides interests (i.e. difference in goals) becomes popular in many local development issues. How to analyze and aid such decision-makings then becomes an important public affairs management topic of study. The study uses the cable car issue in Kaohsiung as the task and local stakeholders like citizens, government officers, councils and environment protect group are interviewed and surveyed using the Social Judgment Theory (SJT) as the guiding methodology. Social judgment theory mainly plumbs the issue of ¡§understanding¡¨ which generated from the discrepancy between decision maker¡¦s subjective cognition and objective environment, and the issue of ¡§conflict¡¨ which resulted from the discrepancy of every decision maker¡¦s subjective cognition, as well as seeks for what causes the cognitive conflict in public policy decisions and explores the method to reduce the cognitive conflict. To survey the conflicts¡¦ degree in every decision maker and provide suggestions to government for consultation to draw up relative policies while facing similar controversial issue is what the study for. Key words¡Gcognitive conflict, public policy disputes, social judgment theory¡]SJT¡^