A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (Clinical Psychology) in the Department of Psychology University of Zululand, 2007. / Moral maturity is understood as the progressive development of more morally adequate forms of moral judgment. Thus one would expect higher levels of moral reasoning from the highly educated. In this study, this assumption is proved to the contrary. When moral judgments of undergraduates and post graduate students of the University of Zululand were compared in relation to their socio-political beliefs, results proved that education does not play a significant role when it comes to such issues. The level of education did not correlate with all political beliefs as one would expect. The results of this study showed that a relatively high level of moral reasoning is related to more progressive political ideas, not to a high level of education. Theories of moral reasoning and those in contrary have supported research findings.

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.