Moral Judgment Developmental Differences Between Gifted Youth and College Students

Abstract

In order to better understand contributing factors of moral judgment development, gifted youth and college students were compared. Moral judgment development, ACT scores, attributional complexity, and descriptors of personality were assessed among 140 college students and 97 gifted youth. Important distinctions favoring the gifted sample were seen among aspects of all considered variables. Stepwise hierarchical regression models noted that there was variability in how these variables accounted for the moral judgment developmental variance of each group. Discussed are explanations for the differences seen in the gifted sample relative to the college sample. Efforts to understand populations prone to early advancement, such as the gifted, are recommended in the hopes of transferring gained knowledge to other populations.