Altruistic moral judgment among older adults.
This study investigated altruistic moral judgment among the elderly, and examined its relationships to demographic and personality variables, self-reported helping, and subjective social integration (the perception that one is integrated into one's social milieu). The moral judgment interview included three stories, each of which contained a moral dilemma. Participants solved each dilemma and gave reasons for their solutions. The moral dilemmas and scoring system emphasized the positive, prosocial aspects of morality, rather than a prohibition-oriented approach. The categories used most often were, in descending order of frequency 1) pragmatic needs-of-others oriented reasons, 2) empathy-based reasons, 3) reasons based on internalized and/or abstract moral principles, and 4) hedonistic reasons. Of the higher levels of moral judgment, only reasoning based on abstract internalized principles had significant positive relationships with self-reported helping, the personality correlates of helping, and with subjective social integration into one's social milieu.
Midlarsky
E
E
Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027-6696, USA.
Kahana
E
E
Corley
R
R
Nemeroff
R
R
Schonbar
R A
RA
D000368:Aged / Q000523:psychology*; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000533:Altruism; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D009014:Morals; D010551:Personality; D011340:Problem Solving; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012650:Self Disclosure; D012917:Social Adjustment; D014481:United States