Moral Development & Reality

John C. Gibbs, Ph.D. (Harvard University, 1972) is Professor of Developmental Psychology at The Ohio State University. His work on moral judgment assessment and on interventions with antisocial youth has not only seen widespread use in the United States and Great Britain but has also been translated and adapted for use in Germany, Italy, Taiwan, The Netherlands, and other countries. Dr. Gibbs and coauthors’ EQUIP intervention program won the 1998 Reclaiming Children and Youth Spotlight on Excellence Award. He has served as a member of the Ohio Governor’s Council on Juvenile Justice, as well as the Social Cognitive Training Study Group of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Division of Violence Prevention). He also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Near-Death Studies. Some of his other books are Moral Maturity: Measuring the Development of Sociomoral Reflection (with coauthors Karen Basinger and Dick Fuller) and The EQUIP Program: Teaching Youth to Think and Act Responsibly through a Peer-Helping Approach (with coauthors Granville Bud Potter and Arnold Goldstein). In addition to his books, Dr. Gibbs has published (alone or with coauthors) more than 70 book chapters and articles pertaining to the topics involved in Moral Development and Reality.

1. Introduction                                         


Social Perspective Taking, Reversability, and Morality        

The Right and the Good: The Moral Domain    


Introducing Chapters 2 Through  9       


2. “The Right” and Moral Development: Fundamental Themes of Kohlberg’s Cognitive-Developmental Approach    


Early Childhood Superficiality  


Beyond Early Childhood Superficiality  


Stages of Moral Judgment    


Summarizing Comment


3. Kohlberg’s Theory: A Critique and New View 


Background     


Adult Moral Development in Kohlberg’s Theory          


A Critique and New View       


Conclusion      


4. “The Good” and Moral Development: Hoffman’s Theory                            


The Empathic Predisposition    


Empathy and Prosocial Behavior: Cognitive Complications and Empathy’s Limitations 
Empathy, Its Cognitive Regulation, and Affective Primacy         


The Empathic Predisposition, Socialization, and Moral Internalization    


Conclusion and Critique           


5. Moral Development, Moral Self-Relevance, and Prosocial Behavior                            


Prosocial Behavior: A Rescue  


Individual Differences in Prosocial Behavior      


Conclusion: Two Spurious “Moral Exemplars” 


6. Understanding Antisocial Behavior     


Limitations of Antisocial Youths           


A Case Study  


7. Treating Antisocial Behavior               


The Mutual Help Approach     


Remedying the Limitations:  The Cognitive Behavioral Approach           


Evaluation of the EQUIP Program        


Perspective Taking for Severe Offenders          


8. Beyond the Theories: A Deeper Reality?   


Two Case Studies       


A Deeper Reality?       


Moral Insight, Inspiration, and Transformation  


Conclusion      


9. Conclusion                                             


The Issue of Moral Motivation 


Moral Perception and Reality   




References 


Appendix    


Author Index    


Subject Index