INTENTIONALITY AND FIELD DEPENDENCE IN CHILDREN'S MORAL JUDGMENTS

S ummary . According to Piaget, the child fully grasps the concept of intention somewhere between the stages of moral realism and moral autonomy. In learning to use intentions to make moral judgments he must be able to identify them as the crucial elements in the situation. Field dependence was related to moral judgmental ability in children between the ages of 6.10 and 8.2 years. Moral judgment stories and the Embedded Figures Test were used to identify the intermediate stages of production and mediational deficiency, in which the child has the concept of intention but fails to use it consistently. Production deficiency may be due, primarily, to an inability to select the appropriate cues in competition with more salient ones.