Systematic variability in the quality of moral action, as defined in two formulations

Whether the often-reported, low level correlations among moral scores for different situations are due to systematic variations in both contexts and persons' functioning was investigated within two moral systems: Kohlberg's (1981) and an interactional formulation (Haan, 1978). The sample was 119 university students, members of 15 naturally existing friendship groups. First they were individually interviewed; then, as friendship groups, they took part in five sessions of about 3 hr each; 10 groups played moral games, whereas 5 groups discussed hypothetical dilemmas. The students were reinterviewed individually, soon after the five sessions, and again 3-4 months later. Thus eight moral scores were secured for each moral system. Measures of characteristic ego functioning and friends' sociometric evaluations were obtained before the sessions along with situationally evoked ego functioning and the groups' functioning during the sessions. Inconsistent moral performance occurred according to both systems, but variations could be attributed to systematic situational effects of contextual stress, contents of dilemmas, and operational style of friendship groups, and to individual differences in the students' characteristic and situationally evoked ways of resolving conflict. Differences between the two systems in the effects of ego strategies were most striking.