Do not place someone at a stage from one conversation or one moment

Before you judge where a colleague, partner or child sits in a stage model, collect more than one sample and keep what you observed separate from the label you are tempted to attach.

なぜ効果があるのか

In the Moral Judgment Interview (MJI), a conversation about three moral dilemmas, Bataglia, Morais and Lepre (2010) describe the predominant stage as proposed from the answers to the follow-up questions after the dilemmas. Loevinger (1979) judged the test unsuitable for individual diagnosis without other data. The distance between one observation and a stage label is where a model that is reasonable for research can turn into a way of sorting people. Several observations, kept apart from the label, keep the claim no wider than the evidence.

やり方

1. Write down exactly what you saw or heard, in a sentence, without a stage word in it.
2. List one or two other occasions that bear on the same question, and note whether they agree.
3. Ask what else could explain the moment: a bad day, an unfamiliar question, a constraint you did not know about.
4. Write the label you were tempted to use, and decide whether the observations support it or only support a narrower claim about that moment.

エビデンス

Bataglia, Morais and Lepre (2010), in a full-text review of the Moral Judgment Interview and related instruments, describe the predominant stage as proposed from analysis of the answers to follow-up questions after the three dilemmas of the interview. Loevinger (1979) concluded the test is not adequate for individual diagnosis unsupported by other data. The practice applies that logic to everyday judgments and has not been tested. (mechanistic)

Bataglia et al. describe the Moral Judgment Interview as a semi-structured interview, and its evaluation as quite complex. A conversation or a single incident does not reproduce that process. Nothing here says who is at which stage.

出典

• Bataglia, P. U. R., Morais, A. de, & Lepre, R. M. (2010). A teoria de Kohlberg sobre o desenvolvimento do raciocínio moral e os instrumentos de avaliação de juízo e competência moral em uso no Brasil. Estudos de Psicologia, 15(1), 25–32.
• Loevinger, J. (1979). Construct Validity of the Sentence Completion Test of Ego Development. Applied Psychological Measurement, 3(3), 281–311.

よくある間違い

Deciding from one heated meeting that someone reasons at a lower stage, and then reading every later action through that label. One moment can be a bad day, a poor question or a real limit, and the label hides which.