Autonomous Versus Heteronomous Moral Judgment Types

Abstract

Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development differentiates moral types from moral stages; moral types are designated as Type A, heteronomous, and Type B, autonomous. This is a report of a six-year longitudinal cross-cultural study of moral types. The sample included kibbuz-educated Israeli adolescents, equally divided between kibbutz-born and city-born youth. Results indicated that when subjects changed from one type of reasoning to another, 83% of the changes were to Type B reasoning. The shift to Type B reasoning was positively associated with moral stage development; there were no significant differences in moral type between kibbutz-born and city-born or between males and females. Results further indicated that Israeli adolescents were more likely to exhibit Type B reasoning than similarly aged subjects from the United States, Turkey, Taiwan, or the Bahamas. The possibility of cultural bias is also discussed.