Abstract

Rationale. Prior research into the constructs of moral reasoning and human values or terminal ) had produced significant, but inconsistent, results. The present study grew from the notion that these apparent relationships were in fact spurious, a function of demographic influences. The rationale behind this investigation was that the two constructs actually represent two separate component processes involved in the production of moral behavior--a position consistent with the four component theory of moral behavior proposed by James Rest in 1995. It was hypothesized that across several demographically defined subgroups, from a sample of 66 undergraduate university students, no consistent patterns of relationship would exist between the two constructs, for the total sample no relationship between the two constructs would emerge, and the findings of this study would be inconsistent with the findings of earlier studies. ;Purpose. The twofold purpose of this study was to determine for the total sample the relationship of scores on James Rest's Defining Issues Test to the expressed relative levels of importance of value statements contained in the Rokeach Value Survey and ascertain for various demographically defined subgroups whether the patterns of relationships between the DIT scores and the rankings of the RVS value statements were comparable to those of the total sample. ;Conclusions. In the total sample, the level of moral reasoning as measured by the DIT exhibited virtually no relationship to the degree of importance assigned to individual RVS terminal or instrumental value statements. Across the 16 demographically defined subgroups, little, if any, relationship was evident between the level of moral reasoning for an individual and the degree of importance he or she attributed to terminal or instrumental value statements. The overall pattern of findings yielded support for the hypotheses, including the proposed lack of congruence with findings reported by other investigators