THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CHARACTER TYPE AND COGNITIVE-MORAL DEVELOPMENT

• Main Author: Hasler, Joseph Francis, 1958-
• Language: en_US
• Published: The University of Arizona. 1987
• Subjects: Personality.; Moral development.
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10150/276496

This study investigated the relationship between the character typology proposed by C. G. Jung, and the stages of cognitive-moral development described by Lawrence Kohlberg. It was hypothesized that certain character types, particularly those preferring introversion and intuition, would display the higher levels of moral development. A total of 120 male and female introductory psychology students at the University of Arizona were administered the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to assess character type, the Sociomoral Reflection Objective Measure (SROM) to identify stage of moral development, and the Shipley-Hartford Institute of Living Scale as a brief estimate of IQ. The only significant differences in moral development as a function of character type were between the judging and perceiving types, with perceiving types displaying the higher mean SROM score (p .02). This finding suggests that open-mindedness is more conducive to moral development than the tendency to jump to immediate conclusions.