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9 APRIL 2008
NO 1283
Moral judgment
If they are to be effective, programs for antisocial youth must have a moral component. The EQUIP program emphasizes the positive moral potential of antisocial adolescents. Almost all antisocial youth affirm the importance of moral values, such as keeping promises, telling the truth, helping others, saving a life, not stealing, and obeying the law (Gregg, Gibbs, & Basinger, 1994). When antisocial youth are faced with a choice of possible worlds, most of them say they would prefer a world that is nonviolent and caring. They are also likely to suggest responsible decisions with regard to many hypothetical social problem situations (Gibbs, Potter, & Goldstein, 1995). Believing in antisocial youths' positive moral potential means respecting them and holding them accountable as persons who are capable of thinking and acting responsibly and of helping others to do the same.
EQUIP also emphasizes the limitations of antisocial youth, limitations that make it hard for them to live up to their positive moral potential for helping one another and themselves. For example, we know that when it comes to why moral values such as honesty and valuing property are important, a distressingly high percentage of antisocial youths give reasons that are developmentally "delayed" or immature (e.g., Gregg, et al., 1994). Unless these limitations are remedied, the prospect of these youths' helping one another effectively is not good.
In this article, we introduce the cognitive-developmental theory of sociomoral development and delay, briefly review sociomoral-cognitive programs that have attempted to remediate this delay, and outline the EQUIP program's procedure for remediating this typical limitation of antisocial youths.
Sociomoral development and delay
According to the cognitive-development theory of Piaget and Kohlberg,
youth in the course of interacting with others naturally, but not
inevitably, develop more mature or profound moral judgment. Hence, in
sociomoral development, this theory emphasizes the development of more
mature moral cognition through experiences of taking the perspective of
others (Gibbs, 2003). Thinking or cognition in this theory refers to
basic patterns or "structures" of mature or immature thought (in the
present case, moral judgment). Whether a youth's moral judgment is
mature or immature is important, especially because "as you think, so
you act." "Delay" in thought and behavior is a twofold problem:
antisocial youth show both prolonged immaturity in the stage of moral
judgment and persistent, pronounced egocentric bias. Both of these
aspects of delay are remediated in the moral developmental teaching
component of EQUIP.
JOHN C. GIBBS
Gibbs, John C. (2003). Equipping youth with mature moral judgment. Reclaiming Children and Youth, 12, 3. P. 148.
REFERENCES
Gibbs, J. C. (2003). Moral development and reality: Beyond the theories of Kohlberg and Hoffman. Thousand Oaks, CA. Sage Publications.
Gibbs, J. C., Potter, G. B., & Goldstein, A. P. (1995). The EQUIP Program: Teaching youth to think and act responsibly through a peer-helping approach. Champaign, IL. Research Press.
Gregg, V. R., Gibbs, J. C., & Basinger, K. S. (1994). Patterns of
developmental delay in moral judgment by male and female delinquents.
Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 40, pp. 538-553.
