Read a gender gap against the schooling and jobs of the people measured
When a study reports that men or women score higher on a developmental measure, check whether education and occupation explain the gap before you conclude anything about sex.
Why it works
Walker (1984), in a critical review of sex differences in moral reasoning, found only a few inconsistent sex differences in childhood and adolescence. He reports that studies suggesting men show higher moral development in adulthood confound sex with differences in education and occupation (mix the two together, so their separate effects cannot be read off), and that a meta-analysis (a statistical pooling of many studies) supported the conclusion that the overall pattern is one of nonsignificant sex differences. Where schooling and work are confounded with sex, a gap between groups cannot be read as a sex difference until those factors are held fixed.
How to do it
- Find out whether the study reports the education and occupation of the people compared.
- If it does, check whether the gap shrinks or disappears when those are taken into account.
- If it does not report them, write the comparison as unexplained, rather than as a finding about sex.
- Ask what else differs between the groups: income, time, responsibility, access to training.
Evidence
Walker (1984) reports that some adult studies found men more morally developed than women, but that in those studies sex differences were confounded with differences in education and occupation, and that a meta-analysis found nonsignificant overall sex differences in moral reasoning. The study concerns the comparison groups, not the reading practice; the practice applies that confound to a reader’s own reading of comparisons and has not been tested. (mechanistic)
Walker’s review covers the literature to 1984. It does not settle whether a gap remains in adult samples that match on schooling, and the practice asks for that control without claiming it always removes a gap.
Sources
Common mistake
Treating a gap between groups as a gap in moral development when the groups differ in schooling, income or work. The measure may be picking up differences in opportunity.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for The Critiques of Adult Development Stage Theories, Fairly Stated
- Close the reading and come back to the room
Put the stage reading down, feel your feet and breath, and let the shame loosen before you decide anything about where you stand.
- Reach a person if the shame is more than a reading can carry
If the shame about where you stand starts to feel like not wanting to be here, reach a trusted person and a clinician now.
- Check who validated a stage model before you repeat its claims
When a stage model is described as scientifically proven, find out who ran the validation, whether the report is public, and whether anyone outside its developers has checked it.
- Prefer a scored assessment to reading yourself into a stage
Do not pick the stage description that sounds most like you; if you want a level, use a scored instrument, and treat your own sense of your stage as a guess to test.
- 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.
- Check whether the people in a stage study resemble the people you are describing
Before you apply a stage description to people in another culture, class or community, find out who the original samples were and what they had in common.
- Ask whether a moral scoring scheme counts care and emotion as reasons
When a framework ranks how mature a person’s moral reasons are, check whether reasons grounded in relationships, feeling and loyalty were scored at all.
- Hold a critique next to the support the reviewers still found
When you read a critique of a stage theory, also write down what the reviewers concluded the evidence still supports, and keep both halves of the verdict in view.
- Check whether a stage claim’s evidence came from children or from adults
Before you apply a stage claim to adult life, find out how old the people were in the studies that produced it, and whether those studies tested adults at all.
Related concepts
- Terri O’Fallon’s STAGES Model, Made Practical
Twelve stages built from three repeating questions, and how to work with the one you are in
- Ego Development Theory: What It Is and How It Is Measured
The frame you make meaning through, how researchers measure it, and how to work with it without ranking anyone
- Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development, Made Practical
Six stages of moral reasoning, how they are scored, and how to work with the reasons you give
- Carol Gilligan’s Ethics of Care, Explained
Two ways of reasoning about moral problems, what the research shows, and how to use both lenses
- The Construct-Aware and Unitive Stages of Adult Development
Seeing the self and its stories as constructions — what it looks like, how rare it is, and what it does not promise
- The Model of Hierarchical Complexity, Explained
How tasks are ranked by coordination, what the 14 orders are, and how to use the idea on a hard problem
- Torbert’s Seven Action Logics of Leadership
Seven ways leaders make sense of pressure, how common each is, and how to work with your own
- Kegan’s Subject-Object Theory, Made Practical
Moving from being run by your assumptions to being able to examine them
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