Moral Judgment, Sex, and Level of Temptation as Determinants of Resistance to Temptation

Abstract

Level of moral development was studied in relation to resistance to temptation on two performance tasks where various incentive instructions were employed. The subjects were boys and girls in Grades 2 and 3, classified by Medinnus's (1957) scale as either in the moral realism or mutual cooperation stage. As predicted, subjects in the moral realism stage transgressed more frequently than did those in the more mature stage, and there was significantly greater cheating under the high-temptation condition in comparison to the appropriate control group. Contrary to expectations, there was no significant sex effect. The findings were interpreted as support for Piaget's concept of moral development.