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Naturalistic Conceptions of Morality: A Question‐Answering Approach
Author(s) -
Quinn Robin A.,
Houts Arthur C.,
Graesser Arthur C.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
journal of personality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.082
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1467-6494
pISSN - 0022-3506
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6494.1994.tb00293.x
Subject(s) - morality , psychology , epistemology , moral development , naturalism , cognition , social psychology , variety (cybernetics) , social cognitive theory of morality , philosophy of science , computer science , artificial intelligence , philosophy , neuroscience
Psychological research on morality has been based on researchers' definitions of morality or on philosophical theories. The present study examined naturally occurring conceptions of morality by using a knowledge‐structure methodology borrowed from cognitive psychology. Subjects generated statements in response to a question designed to expose generic knowledge about their concept of morality. Answer frequency and conceptual clustering results suggested that a variety of diverse concepts undergirded subjects' moral thinking and revealed a person‐based rather than a philosophy‐based pattern for commonly held conceptions of morality. A three‐dimensional scaling solution of the responses suggested that conceptions of morality were characterized by individual‐social, general‐specific, and absolute‐relative distinctions. These findings raise questions about assumptions underlying previous theories of morality. Moreover, the present methodology offers a basis for developing a more representative account of moral thought that depends less on the beliefs of researchers.