The Developoment of Conscience: A Comparison of American Children of Different Mental and Socioeconomic Levels

This is the first of four reports on an investigation of moral judgment and conscience development, and subcultural differences due to religion, socioeconomic class, and mental level. The writer agrees with Piaget (Io) that the cognitive ability to distinguish between right and wrong is one of the ingredients in conscience development, and she was interested in investigating at what age different groups of American children learn to distinguish between intention and result of an action. Another closely related question arose from Piaget's belief, which the author questioned, that the child cannot attain morality until he becomes independent of adults and achieves peer reciprocity. The subcultural comparisons were made by studying boys and girls of two intelligence levels in upper middle class and working class attending public' and parochial schools. The parochial schools were Jewish and Catholic (2). After having interviewed a number of children, the author formulated the hypotheses that, in answer to questions concerning intention versus result: (a) academically gifted children might respond with earlier maturity than children of average intelligence and (b) upper middle-class children might respond with earlier maturity than children of working-class parents; but that, in answer to questions regarding independence from adult versus peer reciprocity, (a) gifted children might be less mature than children of average intelligence and (b) upper middle-class children might be less mature than working-class children. A further hypothesis was that there would be individual and subcultural differences in the age of mature response, depending upon the area of conscience development under investigation and specific aspects of that area.