Religious Moral Education: The Role of Moral Foundations in Jewish High Schools Presented to the S. Daniel Abraham Honors Program in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Completion of the Program
Stern College for Women Yeshiva University May 11th, 2014
Daniella Shaindi Lejtman Mentor: Professor Aharon Hersh Fried, Psychology
Table of Contents: 1.
Morality a. The Cognitive-Developmental Approach b. The Values Clarification Approach c. The Social-Intuitionist Approach
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Moral Education a. The Role of Moral Education b. Religious Moral Education c. Jewish Moral Education Today
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Current Study a. Methods and Procedures b. Results c. Discussion
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Appendix a. Measures b. Tables
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Abstract The development of different moral systems is a widely discussed topic. Traditionally, psychologists have viewed the development of morality through the lens of cognition and reasoning (e.g. Piaget (1965), Kohlberg (1969), Gilligan (1982)). Others (e.g. Values Clarification Theory) propose that moral values are developed through the integration of rational thought and social context. An innovative approach to morality, the socialintuitionist model, has been suggested by Dr. Jonathan Haidt (2001) and has become the stimulus for the Moral Foundations Theory (Haidt & Joseph, 2006). The Moral Foundations Theory puts forth that morality is inherently intuitive and contains at least five core foundations: Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, In-group Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, and Purity/Degradation. This empirical study attempted to determine if religious moral educators in Jewish high schools had any effect on their students’ composition of moral foundations. Additionally, the study attempted to determine if the specific moral foundations would be determined by the self-identified religious stances of the participants. Results showed that the only significant interaction between student cohorts and teacher cohorts was the decline in score of the moral foundation Purity/Degradation from 9th grade to 12th grade, relative to the faculty score. These results imply that religious moral education may play a role in decreasing students’ proclivity towards the moral foundation Purity/Degradation. Results also showed that religious level was significantly associated with the moral foundations of Care/Harm, Authority/Subversion, and Purity/Degradation. Post hoc test results revealed that self-identified more religious participants scored significantly higher in these three foundations. These results imply that religion is crucial in defining the arrangement of a person’s specific moral foundations. 3
Religious Moral Education: The Role of Moral Foundations in Jewish High Schools Morality Morality and the development of different moral systems have long fascinated philosophers and psychologists. The oldest records of human writing include diverse codes of moral behavior, texts which articulate moral transgressions, their punishments, and analyses of the nature of good societies and peoples (Haidt, 2008). Turiel (1983) defines morality as “prescriptive judgments of justice, rights, and welfare pertaining to how people ought to relate to each other” (p. 3). Although the specific definition is not accepted by all, most scholars agree that morality plays an important role in individual and societal endeavors. Comprised of both the personal ability to confront issues in a proper way and a code that entails behavior in accordance with collective norms, morality is a matter of concern for psychologists and educators (Chazan, 1985). The very fact that morality affects both choices and actions taken by individuals and societies necessitates a thorough study of its nature. Thus, current approaches to morality will be explored in this paper. The Cognitive-Developmental Approach Over the past fifty years, Piaget (1965) Kohlberg (1969) and Gilligan (1982) initiated and shaped the field of cognitive moral psychology (Frimer & Walker, 2008). Investigating the thought processes of children, Piaget (1965) attempted to understand how children regard rules, whether they can distinguish between intentional and unintentional actions, and what their ideas were about justice vis-à-vis punishment. After much research, he postulated that younger children think in a way characterized by “moral realism” or “heteronomous morality”, basing their moral judgments on their deference to authoritative individuals. Simultaneously, as children develop cognitively, their moral judgment matures; they begin to 4
recognize that morality is not only a matter of obedience to authority figures, but also consists of a set of mutually agreed upon values (Elias, 1989). Overall, Piaget (1965) believed that a child’s cognitive development either facilitates or restricts his ability to comprehend the morality of the actor, the behavior, and the outcome. However, he also asserted that the child learns about morality, what is “good” and what is “bad”, from outside society which has imposed a set of values upon the child. Kohlberg (1969) extended Piaget’s cognitive approach to morality, also viewing morality as something that is dependent on an individual’s reasoning. Classifying the reasoning behind the responses of different aged children who were posed with a moral dilemma, Kohlberg derived six stages of moral thought that characterized moral judgment. Like other stage theorists, Kohlberg’s stages inherently contains five assumptions: (1) a person cannot be in more than one stage at a time (2) a person progresses to the subsequent stage, never jumping (3) every stage is more intricate than the previous one, so if a person is at a higher stage, he or she understands the thought processes of the lower stages (4) the stages are universal (5) the stages are reflective of the forms of moral judgment, not of its content. As Elias (1989) notes, Kohlberg agreed with Piaget about the fact that “moral learning takes place through the interaction of individuals with their environment”, while still being “active in their own learning processes” (p. 80). Generally speaking, a stage theorist like Piaget, Kohlberg’s six stages viewed morality as a system learned from both outside and inside, and based on cognition and reason. Gilligan (1982), a student of Kohlberg, diverged from his view of moral development, claiming that he emphasized the male view of moral thinking, neglecting other facets of moral thinking that may characterize the female approach. Kohlberg had
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emphasized the qualities of justice and fairness, to the exclusion of other qualities, such as the more female traits of caring and concern. Kohlberg did eventually accede to her thinking, expanding his system to include her qualities (Reichman, 2010), but the more important concept for this paper is that morality for Kohlberg and Gilligan remained in the realm of cognition alone. The Values Clarification Approach A different, but still prevalent approach towards moral development and judgment is known as the Values Clarification (VC) approach. It is interesting to note that VC does not have one theoretical spokesman, nor did it begin with one unified theory. VC is a method that utilizes different educational tools (books, films, worksheets etc.) to facilitate students’ discovery of their own personal values and students’ learning how to use that awareness to understand how those values affect decision making. As Chazan (1985, p. 45) succinctly notes, VC is “an evolving compendium of assumptions about educational values”. The VC approach proposes both an individual and social origin of moral values. On the one hand, it maintains that morality is the expression of individual values, while it simultaneously posits that decision-making about values is influenced by group norms. Attending a variety of courses and workshops, the VC approach professes that a person can become more proficient at evaluating his or her moral values, and thus become a more moral person. The VC philosophy does not explicitly state whether or not the student’s reasoning is the fundamental root leading to the student’s belief in certain moral values, but overall, the VC approach does attempt to integrate rational thought and social context into its methodology of acquiring and developing different moral values.
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The Social-Intuitionist Approach One of the more modern and innovative approaches to moral development and judgment is that of Professor Jonathan Haidt of the University of Virginia. Haidt (2001) labels his approach “the social-intuitionist” approach, and postulates that moral judgments are not based on cognition or rational thought, but rather arise from a person’s intuition. Subsequent to a person’s moral intuition, Haidt argues, he or she will engage in some thought processes, due to the social pressures to authenticate the original moral intuition. In essence, a person’s intuition lays the groundwork for his moral judgments and his early environment can influence intuitions. Cognitive processes, according to the social-intuitionist model, are almost always post facto. Thus, the social-intuitionist theory is ideologically different than the aforementioned moral reasoning approaches to moral judgment, such as Kohlberg’s theory or the VC approach. Early research done by Haidt substantiated this conjecture. Haidt, Koller, and Dias (1993) presented American and Brazilian participants with scenarios that were disgusting or disrespectful, but harmless. For example, subjects were told that a woman was looking for a rag to clean her toilet, so she found her country’s flag, ripped it up into pieces and used it. Another scenario presented was a family eating the meat of their pet dog that was killed in an accident. All of the scenarios were carefully constructed to ascertain that no person was directly harmed. Despite this fact, nearly all of the subjects said that something about the scenario was morally objectionable and wrong. Replying to the researchers’ question of why it is wrong, many participants struggled to find words. They ended up justifying their responses by saying statements like “Because it's wrong to eat your dog” or “It’s just wrong to have intercourse with a chicken and then cook it”. The study showed that moral reasoning
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has a key intuitive component, as almost no rational reasons were given by the participants as to why they deemed the actions presented to be morally wrong. Another key study conducted by Haidt and Hersch (2001) substantiated the hypothesis that most moral judgments of situations are arrived at intuitively. In this study, participants were asked to determine if a situation concerning sexual issues (e.g. incest, unusual forms of masturbation) was morally acceptable. Most participants could not justify why they responded that certain acts were morally objectionable and were generally dumbfounded by their inability to find a rational justification. This study, and others like it, corroborated with Haidt’s hypothesis that intuitive responses play a key role in moral judgments and that reasoning or rationalizations are created post facto by the societal demand for a rational answer. To help explain the origin of these moral intuitions, Haidt postulates that early experiences play a vital role. As an example, a child may pick up a rotten apple, begin to take a bite, but quickly be chided by an adult that he should throw the apple into the garbage immediately, as it is “rotten”. The next time the child picks up an apple and sees that it is rotten, he might be physically repulsed by it, as he associates “rotten” with bad and garbage. If the child hears someone say that another person is “rotten”, he most probably will feel repulsed by the person, as he connects “rotten” apple to “rotten” person. This repulsion occurred because the child transferred the idea of “rotten” from the original object, the apple, to another object or another concept, such as a person, a behavior, or a trait (Fried, 2014). In a sense, being “pure” and avoiding “rotten” or “disgusting” things becomes something innate; this something innate is what Haidt will label a “moral foundation”.
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The fact that the child feels repulsed by the “rotten person” fits well with the somatic marker hypothesis, proposed by Damasio (1994), which states that worldly experiences create associations, or somatic markers, between a stimuli and a physiological affective state that was caused by the stimuli. When faced by a different decision with similar stimuli, these somatic markers will activate a physical sensation as a response, unconsciously effecting the decision making process. The word “rotten” becomes embedded within the psyche of the child; this new somatic marker of emotional repulsion most probably affects the child’s decision about the goodness of the “rotten” person (Fried, 2014). The somatic marker hypothesis explains how these early childhood experiences can endure for such a long time, becoming a driving force behind a person’s intuitions throughout adulthood. Something so deeply embedded into the psyche of a person, as are the somatic markers, is not easily erased. A caveat to this statement is the understanding that any moral intuition or foundation with which a child has no experience becomes lost to his “moral sense”. For example, if the child never learned to associate “rotten” with yucky and bad, his sense of being morally disgusted when someone mentions that a person was “rotten” or that a behavior is “rotten” is greatly diminished. Through early life experiences, children inculcate these pieces of cultural knowledge, which encompass emotional, cognitive, and sensory knowledge. Haidt, however, maintains that moral intuitions do not solely come from these early experiences. He asserts that moral intuitions can also be shaped by “peer socialization” (Haidt, 2001, p. 826). In a model that emphasizes the social aspect of human life, the socialintuitionist model acknowledges that children in late childhood and early young adulthood are most influenced by peers (Harris, 1995) with regards to cultural socialization, and by extension, moral socialization. Analogous to the development of language, where children of
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immigrants generally imitate the accent of their friends and not of their parents, Haidt maintains that moral intuitions are also altered by peer socialization. However, Haidt qualifies this by stating that the sensitive period for peer socialization occurs between the ages of 9 and 15, as evidenced by numerous studies concerning immigrant children and teenagers and the time period for their cultural adjustment (e.g. Minoura, 1992). Haidt (2001) extrapolates from these studies that the critical period for peer socialization to instill its composition of moral foundations which form the basis for moral intuitions is also around the age of late childhood and early adolescence. Building upon this theory, Haidt asks the question of why it is that moral intuitions exist universally and are so easily learned, by people from all different cultures. He conjectures that humans are born with an innate need for a moral system. Human beings, he states, have an inherent “readiness” to cultivate guiding values that guide and regulate behaviors. Just as infants seek out language by which to communicate with the people around them, so too, humans look for guidelines to monitor their behaviors. This accounts for Haidt’s (2001) explanation of morality “[a]s better described as emergent than as [a] learned” trait (p. 826). Nevertheless, the multiplicity of moral guidelines and values that people from different cultures have is astonishing. If, as Haidt proposes, the need for a moral system is innate, why do so many people have different ideas about what is moral and what is not? An analogy to language answers this question as well. Infants are born with the innate capacity to develop language and differentiate between hundreds of sounds or phonemes. There exist many possible sounds, but it would be impossible for one language to include all of the different ones. Each language contains certain phonemes and children who speak that language pick up on those specific sounds. However, because children are constantly
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exposed to only the specific phonemes used in their personal environment and are not exposed to other sounds, they gradually lose the ability to pronounce other sounds (Werker & Tees, 1984). So too, posits Haidt, there are different foundations or moral categories. Just like language, the moral intuitions of a child are shaped by the culture’s specific emphases. Moreover, similar to language, a culture cannot encompass all possible moral intuitions, as people would be intensely conflicted when making decisions, possibly leading to paralysis of the mind. Therefore, cultures tend to emphasize specific subsets of human moral foundations, which leads to “selective loss of intuition”, similar to the process of selectively losing the understanding of different phonemes during language development (Haidt, 2001, p. 827). This explains why different people have different ideas of what is moral and what is not; it depends on the emphases of the specific culture and environment in which they grew up. Just as there is a sensitive period for the development of language (Johnson & Newport, 1989), Haidt proposes that there is a sensitive period for the selective loss of moral intuitions and by extension, the formation of person’s specific grouping of moral intuitions, as influenced by his environment. The prefrontal cortex, an area in the brain most generally associated with moral judgments and moral behaviors (Damasio et. al, 1990), chiefly develops in later childhood and young adulthood. Thus, Haidt maintains that the sharpening of these moral intuitions or moral foundations by cultures’ specific emphases takes place during the formative years of childhood and wanes in adolescence. The Moral Foundations Haidt’s research observed that, just as there are a set number of phonemes worldwide, from which languages choose which sounds will be contained within that specific language, so too there exist apparent similarities between moral foundations among people across
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diverse cultures. Haidt does not believe that Kohlberg’s (1969) moral foundations of justice and fairness and Gilligan’s (1982) moral foundations of care and concern encompass all possible moral foundations that are found in every culture worldwide, to varying degrees. He therefore identifies five specific moral foundations that he maintains thoroughly explains the source of all people’s moral intuitions (Haidt, 2001). These five main foundations are: Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, In-group Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, and Sanctity/Degradation (Haidt & Joseph, 2006). Every culture or ideology has some combination of the above five moral foundations, so labeled because they are not complete moralities, but rather constrain the types of moralities that can be assembled, like the foundation of a building (Haidt & Joseph, 2006). Different cultures, ideologies, and beliefs combine these innate moral foundations to create their own unique morality system; however, the foundations themselves are all innate and the same across different cultures (Graham, Haidt, Koleva, Motyl, Iyera, Wojcik, & Ditto, 2013). As stated, this is similar to language, where there are a certain amount of basic sounds available, and each culture uses different sounds to construct its own language (Haidt, 2001). In short, Haidt and Joseph (2006) explain the five foundations as follows. The first foundation, Care/Harm, is the foundation that gives humans the ability to feel or dislike the painful experiences of others. The second foundation, Fairness/Cheating, underlies the human tendency to have relationships. Because of this, the original triggers for this foundation involved acts of cooperation or cheating by one’s partner, while today it also includes interactions with inanimate objects. This foundation is the core behind values such as equality, proportionality, and justice. The third foundation is Loyalty/Betrayal, relating back to human history of belonging to various tribes, and currently motivating ideas of
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patriotism and martyrdom for a group. The fourth foundation, Authority/Subversion, was shaped, according to Haidt, because human history has had hierarchical social roles since time immemorial. The concepts of leadership and respect for tradition emerged from here. The final foundation, Purity/Degradation, although not to be confused with religious notions, underlies the psychology behind the fact that the humans feel disgust or contamination, specifically when the body is desecrated by immoral activities. As elucidated by Haidt and Joseph (2006), these five foundations lie beneath all morality systems, spanning cultures and traversing religions and ideologies. This theory is now called the “Moral Foundations Theory.” The Role of Religion The role of religion vis-à-vis the Moral Foundations Theory is a fascinating one. When focusing on the social aspect of the social-intuitionist model, Graham and Haidt (2010) note that religions create moral communities, where rituals, creeds, and other features of religious practice are merely means to bind people into one “moral community” (p. 140). Specifically, they argue, the group-focused foundations of Loyalty/Betrayal and Authority/Subversion, as well as Purity/Degradation are the “binding” foundations of a religion, as they are utilized extensively by religious adherents (Graham, Haidt, & RimmKaufman, 2008, p.1). In essence, Graham and Haidt (2010) point out that morality plays a major role in religion, as religion affects how and which moral foundations are valued. Additionally, although not aware of the social-intuitionist model, Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe (1977) comments on the intuitiveness of religion and asserts that there is an instinctual human need, not unlike the instinct to hunger for food, to be religious and relate to God. Just as Haidt (2001) writes that the human need for a moral system is innate, Wolbe
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asserts that there is an intuitive human need to connect with God. In this way, it is possible to conjecture that the two innate needs are connected and even possibly two sides of the same coin (i.e. merely two ways of stating the same idea). In a word, one of the core ideas behind the Moral Foundations Theory, moral intuitions, is similar, if not identical to an idea very much valued by Jewish theologians. Thus, Graham and Haidt (2010) assert that the social aspect of the social-intuitionist model is inexorably related to religion and Wolbe (1977) maintains that the intuition aspect of the social-intuitionist model is tied to religion. One important question still remains: Can religious educators, capitalizing on the intuitiveness of religion, employ the social aspect of the theory and transmit the chosen moral foundations of their religion to their students? Moral Education The general role of education or educators in transmitting morality has been much debated over the past century. Chazan (1985) quotes some who maintain that schools cannot teach morals, due to its numerous domains, and therefore, can only teach subjects that consist of objective and provable knowledge. Others equate moral education with “indoctrination,” viewing it as a tool that states yield in order to manipulate youth into believing its own values (p. 93). This, it is argued, crushes the individual within each child, and does not allow the non-rational side of the child to be fully developed. On the other hand, many others, prominent sociologists, psychologists and educators, do advocate moral education. Emile Durkheim, known as the father of modern moral education, posits that moral education is not only possible, but indeed ideal, and that the teacher is the center of moral education (Chazan, 1985). Durkheim argues that learning is the process by which students are socialized to be moral in social contexts and teachers utilize
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authority in order to perpetrate this moral socialization of students. Teachers, thus, are both the transmitters of the values of society, while simultaneously helping students reflect upon society’s values. Kohlberg is also a major advocate for moral education, but views the role of the teacher very differently than Durkheim. The teacher is the moral facilitator, the guide for the cognitive-developmental moral growth of the student. By being a representative of someone who is already in the advanced stages of Kohlberg’s model, the teacher is thereby helping the student advance in his or her levels of cognition and judgment. The VC approach also views the teacher as a facilitator and as someone who is neutral with regards to his or her values; the goal of the teacher, much like a therapist, is to foster within the student the skill to draw upon his or her personal abilities and values (Chazan, 1985). John Dewey, an American philosopher, argues for the importance of moral education, as he saw it as a dimension of a person no different than the biological, intellectual and social (Elias, 1989). Prominent philosophers Martin Buber and John Wilson, both advocate moral education, as do psychologists Freud, Erikson, Bandura, and Maslow (aside from Durkheim, Kohlberg, and the VC theorists mentioned above) in various writings, notwithstanding their dissimilar approaches to the topic (Elias, 1989). Taken as a whole, despite the contentions against moral education, philosophers and psychologists do affirm that moral education has a purpose and place in society and in the lives of individuals. The Role of Moral Education Graham, Haidt, and Rimm-Kaufman (2008) address the subject of moral education, explaining that it is one of the processes whereby certain intuitions are endorsed and promoted, and others are not enriched at all. Perhaps it can be extrapolated from previous research (Haidt, 2001) that moral education is meant to be a means of facilitating custom
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complexes, where the classroom becomes a place that children also experience practices that have certain values associated with them. Graham et al. (in press) explains further that experience revises nature’s “first draft”; the fact that moral foundations are innate does not make them “un-malleable”, but rather just means that they are “organized in advance of experience” (p. 8). In the same vein, Haidt (2014) notes that it is possible to keep all of the same “moral taste buds”, but construct a different morality upon them. As an example, his research has found that when people start a business or become parents, they tend to become more concerned about the “Authority/Subversion” foundation, as they see a greater need for authority and accountability. Haidt (2014) maintains that it takes about a decade for a transformation like this to occur.1 The fact that classrooms can be seen as a place that allows for custom complexes to be formed, coupled with the fact that experience can revise nature’s “first draft” of the moral foundations arrangement within a person points to the idea that the social-intuitionist model of morality can work in partnership with the role of general moral education. Unlike other theories, however, in the moral foundations theory the teacher is not the guide for the cognitive growth of the student nor is the teacher the neutral facilitator through which the student learns how to draw upon his or her personal set of moral values. In the social-intuitionist model, the teacher, along with the student’s peers and general classroom environment that the teacher has set up, facilitates the formation of certain custom complexes, represents the culture by attenuating specific subsets of morality that are not to be emphasized (facilitating “selective loss of intuition”) and emphasizes the specific subsets of morality that the culture does emphasize. In a word, if the social-intuitionist model is extended, the teacher seems to play a pivotal role in the development of students’ 1
It is not coincidental that K-12, a span of 13 years, is a little more than a decade.
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arrangement of the five moral foundations. If so, the question arises: what does the socialintuitionist model consider about the specific role of religious moral education? Religious Moral Education In the world of educators and psychologists at large, religious moral education has been a discussion since the early days of Judaism and Christianity. The Old and New Testament are replete with passages about moral education, specifically in terms of the family. In Deuteronomy 6:6-7, the Bible writes, “And these words, which I command you this day, shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk on your way.” A father and mother are responsible, according to both Judaism and Christianity, to teach their children the highest morals; the child is likewise commanded to listen, as it says in Proverbs 1:8 “Hear, my son, the instruction of your father, and do not forsake the teaching of your mother.” Utilizing a variety of different methods, such as the study of sacred texts, examples of moral forefathers, foremothers and prophets, and obedience to authority figures that are models of morality, both Judaism and Christianity attempt to inculcate within their constituents a very particular form of moral religious education. Throughout the Middle Ages, moral education was generally in the hands of parents and priests; during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, the same general pattern of religious moral education was found among Jews and Christians (Elias, 1989). With the advent of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, however, public schools became more popular. Because it was contended that moral education was key in preserving democratic societies, and that the affection of the family could no longer successfully convey the harsh demands of social morality, official public moral education was born (Elias, 1989).
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Because of severe discipline problems found within the school system, combined with the fact that schools began to secularize in the early twentieth century, religious moral education’s primary advocates began to posit that the secularization of schools was the major cause for the rise in discipline problems. Without a basic respect for God, religious moral educators’ alleged, moral education could not possibly exist, due to the fact that morality and religion are interchangeable, as they contended that morality is merely bowing to God’s will (Elias, 1989). Although many saw the fact that the Supreme Court outlawed teaching religion in public schools as a suppression of moral education, others argued that morality and religion are independent of one another, and thus could still be taught (Hamm, 1979). Religious moral education advocates vehemently disagreed, and the debate is still ongoing. The shift from the family being the center of religious moral education to school being the focal point is not only noted with regards to general religious moral education, but is also noted specifically with regards to Jewish religious moral education. In Transmission and Transformation: A Jewish Perspective on Moral Education, Carol Ingall notes that “[w]hereas in the past… moral values [were in the hands] of the family and the community, today’s schools are supposed to create those values” (Ingall, 1999, p. 5). In an era where moral education is primarily found in schools, Jewish schools, as opposed to families, are increasingly seen as the means to shaping the daily routines and moral behaviors of students. Surprisingly, few Jewish philosophers discuss the possible effects of this growing dichotomization, but the social-intuitionist model seems to mitigate the dichotomization by pointing to an erroneous assumption: the shaping of moral values can only occur through frontal teaching. As implied above, the social-intuitionist model sees the role of a teacher as one who represents the culture and emphasizes specific subsets of moral values, while
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simultaneously facilitating the occurrence of experiences which are intertwined with moral values and beliefs. The family can equally assume any of the above tasks, namely, being the source for emphasizing a specific array of the five moral foundations and being the place where children participate in activities that form associations with specific moral values (i.e. engage in custom complexes). The social-intuitionist model might modify the initial question, attempting to elucidate how religious moral education is executed in schools may be different than how religious moral education is carried out at home. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, a prominent Jewish thinker, does not directly address this question, but he does discuss Jewish moral education in general. He espouses that the two fundamental bases for Jewish moral education are (1) the study of Jewish texts, which hold the keys to Jewish ideas of morality, as well as (2) the teacher acting as a model for students (Elias, 1989). Some may contend that this does not fit well with the socialintuitionist model of morality, as learning texts is not necessarily a moral foundation, and the teacher’s task is not to be a “model” for students with regards to moral values. Moreover, this postulation of religious moral education seems to be solely cerebral, leaving no room for intuitive, core moral values. However, this argument can be refuted in two ways. Firstly, with regards to Hirsch’s first idea, it can be contended that learning is a sixth possible moral foundation, a moral value in its own right (Brooks, 2013). Although not generally a Western moral value, Brooks (2013) notes that Eastern cultures very much view learning not as a means of acquiring knowledge but rather as a tool to cultivate specific moral virtues within oneself. In the West, he maintains that learning is seen as a way to introduce the skillset of questioning authority, critical inquiry, and sharing ideas” while in the East, the process of learning is in and of itself
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crucial in order to become a wise person, both intellectually and morally. Thus, the study of Jewish texts can actually be seen as part of the development of the moral foundations of a person. Secondly, it can also be argued that the study of Jewish texts over time can become a “custom complex” (Haidt, 2001), as it is a practice that is intertwined with the specific arrangement of the five foundations of morality that Judaism promotes. This is supplemented by the classroom environment that the teachers and peers create, which is a backdrop extremely suitable for engendering custom complexes. In addition, although the social-intuitionist model cannot condone the teacher as the primary person who sets the example of how the specific moral factors should be ordered, according to Judaism, the teacher can be perceived by the students as an embodiment of the Jewish culture, emphasizing certain subsets of human morality (thus contributing to the selective loss of intuitions). Overall, although at first glance the Hirschian ideas of Jewish moral education seem to be more cognitively based and directly contradicting the social-intuitionist theory, the Hirschian ideology can be seen as not identical, but complementary to the socialintuitionist model of moral development. Jewish Moral Education Today The core ideology of Jewish religious moral education notwithstanding, it is welldocumented that Jewish schools today are increasingly being relied upon to transmit Jewish moral values and are simultaneously, increasingly struggling with this mandate (see Ingall, 1999). This is particularly important to note, as Jewish morality is “practical”; the goal of Jewish moral education is to inform decision-making, daily routines, behaviors, and actions (Elias, 1989). Fried (2008) maintains that the “rather sad disconnect between learning Torah
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and living Torah...exists in our communities” (p. 11). In a word, the struggle for Jewish schools to morally educate their students has been anecdotally observed, but there remains a dearth of empirical data concerning the subject. Is it possible that it is solely the teachers who are to blame? What types of “first draft” innate moral values do Jewish students come to school with (Graham et al., in press)? What types of experiences do Jewish parents expect the school to create for their children to engage in and develop from? Essentially, the questions that Jewish moral education are currently struggling with are what role does religion play in morality, can religious moral educators transmit Jewish moral values effectively, and if so, how? The Current Study The present study attempted to fill this gap in the literature. Studying high school students, the research endeavored to determine the role of religion and religious moral educators with regards to high school students’ moral values. High school is a time when students clarify their moral values, and when experiences that can potentially become “complex customs” occur. Therefore, the study explored whether or not high school in general, and the moral values of religious moral educators in specific, had any correlation with high school students’ moral values. Since it is almost impossible to determine what a person’s moral values are, the researchers resorted to trying to find out how similar students’ moral foundations were as compared to those of their teachers. Although the research would have been more thorough if it could have been carried out longitudinally, due to time constraints, the study analyzed the moral foundations of two cohorts of high school students, 9th graders and 12th graders and of faculty members. The different cohorts functioned as prototypes of students entering and exiting high school,
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presumably influenced by the same religious moral educators. Notwithstanding the fact that this is a presumption (namely that the two cohorts experienced the same teachings from the same religious educators), the study attempted to respond to this by additionally assessing the moral foundations of only the religious educators that both cohorts had in common (e.g. teachers who had only taught 9th grade for one year were excluded from the study). The study’s aim was to observe whether or not there were significant differences between the two cohorts, and if the religious educators’ moral foundations were significantly similar to the specific moral foundations of their students. The gap in the literature with regards to Jewish moral education is extremely wide, and it may have been more exhaustive if a wider range of schools were researched. However, considering the logistics of the research (e.g. the need for a research assistant to be present, the limited time allotment for the research) combined with the financial constraints of the research, only two Northeastern high schools were studied. Within the range of Jewish sects, the two high schools were self-proclaimed “Modern Orthodox” schools. This was partially because Modern Orthodox schools tend to be most open to working with researchers and partially due to the fact that the researchers actually wanted to study the Modern Orthodox high school system. It was the researchers’ impression that the self-proclaimed religious identity of students in Modern Orthodox schools generally typifies a range of religious identities and that the teachers’ religious self-identification might likewise be more varied. The subject population of the student cohorts was solely females, as the researchers wanted to investigate the specific effects of moral educators in single-sex female high schools. The cohort of teachers, on the other hand, included both male and female teachers. The researchers felt that because of the inherent differences in the education of men and
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women within the Jewish high school education system, a separate study would be necessary for studying co-educational schools or studying both single-sex male and female schools. Due to limited time and financial restraints, these potential studies that would have helped fill the gap in the literature were deemed beyond the scope of the researchers and thus, the research study only explored the Jewish religious moral education in single-sex female high schools. This study had two distinct hypotheses. Firstly, the researchers hypothesized that the 12th grade cohort’s moral foundations would correlate with the faculty’s moral foundations, whereas the 9th grade students’ moral foundations would not correlate as significantly with the faculty’s moral foundations. Secondly, the study hypothesized that the salience of specific moral foundations for a specific person would be determined by the person’s selfidentified religious stance. Method Participants High school freshmen, seniors, and faculty members were recruited from two Modern Orthodox high schools located in the Northeast region, Yeshiva University High School for Girls (YUHSG) and Bruriah High School for Girls (BHS). Altogether, 212 people participated in this study: 16 teachers, 104 freshmen and 92 seniors. The breakdown of freshmen, seniors, and teachers from each of the two high schools was approximately equal. All of the student participants were Jewish and female, while the faculty members recruited were both female and male. All of the participants were able to read English.
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Measures There were two measures administered to all of the participants. The first measure that each participant filled out was the 32-item “Moral Foundations Questionnaire” (MFQ), which was developed and revamped by Graham, Nosek, Haidt, Iyer, Koleva, and Ditto (2011). The MFQ was designed as a method of understanding to what extent participants consider the five moral foundations as factors when reaching conclusions about whether something is morally right or wrong. At the beginning of the questionnaire, it is written: “When you decide whether something is right or wrong, to what extent are the following considerations important?” Within the MFQ, there are six statements which relate directly to each of the five moral foundations, yielding 30 regular questions. There are additionally two “catch” questions to figure out if participants are paying attention to the questionnaire; results of the participants who scored negatively were dropped. The MFQ is self-scored; at the end of the questionnaire, there is a table which assists the participant in figuring out, on a scale of 0-30, how much emphasis he or she places on a specific moral foundation. The validity of the measure was ascertained by Graham et. al (2013) and Dr. Haidt granted permission to use questionnaire. The second measure was called the “Religious Self-Identification Form”. On this measure, all of the participants self-rated their level of religious observance (they specified their personal religious self-identification). There were 10 possible boxes that could be checked off on this measure: 1- Not religious, 2-Traditional, 3-Reform, 4-Conservative, 5Left-Wing Modern Orthodox, 6-Modern Orthodox, 7-Right-Wing Modern Orthodox, 8Yeshivish, 9-Chassidic, and 10-Other. Because the researchers wished to avoid the issue of how to validly and reliably measure Jewish religious observance, they adopted the approach 24
of a study conducted by Haidt and Graham (2007) where subjects self-rated their particular political orientation, and had participants self-rate their religious observance. Procedures Before assessing the 9th graders’ moral foundations, the researchers sent an envelope to each 9th grader’s parent(s)/legal guardian(s) with a letter explaining how the study will be carried out, along with a consent form; this was in accordance with the instructions of the Yeshiva University Institutional Review Board, as 13 and 14-year-olds are considered minors by law. The other students and teachers received consent forms on the day of the study. Parent(s)/legal guardian(s) who wished to have their daughter participate in the study sent the consent form, signed, to the school. The other participants chose on the day of the study whether or not they wanted to participate in the study, by either signing the consent form or refusing to sign it. Before the study began, the participants were brought into a room, under the guidance of one researcher and at least one other faculty member of the school. Except for the 12th graders in BHS, all of the other cohorts (i.e. 9th graders in YUHSG, 9th graders in BHS etc.) were assessed all together. The subjects were informed in advance that the forms and questionnaires were to be completed by paper-and-pencil, so each participant brought his or her own writing utensil. First, the subjects were given a quick introduction to the study and exactly what it would entail. Then, the participants completed the MFQ by paper-and-pencil, as the researcher explained each section and answered individual questions simultaneously. Next, the subjects filled out the short survey about their specific religious self-identification. Last, the researcher debriefed the participants about the meaning behind their specific MFQ scores. With the four student cohorts, the debriefing generally was accompanied by much 25
reassurance that no specific score or demarcation was considered “higher” or “better” than another, but rather that the questionnaire was meant to help the participant become more aware of the specific moral foundations upon which he or she relies when making moral decisions. At the conclusion of the study, the questionnaires and forms were collected from the participants. The study took on average between 15 and 20 minutes. Data Analysis After collecting all of the data from both participating schools, the information was entered into SPSS, a software package generally used in the social sciences for statistical analysis. The data was evaluated utilizing SPSS. Descriptive statistics were calculated and ANOVA tests were performed to see if there were any significant interactions between the means of the different cohorts, the means of each self-identified religious level, and the individual moral foundations. Post hoc tests (LSD) were run when there was a possibility of specific differences in the weighting of different moral foundations for different groups. For the study, an alpha level of .05 was considered significant. In total, 4 participants did not identify themselves religiously, 1 participant identified as Not Religious, 2 participants identified as Traditional, 0 participants identified as Reform, 1 participant identified as Conservative, 3 participants identified as Left-Wing Modern Orthodox, 124 participants identified as Modern Orthodox, 57 participants identified as Right-Wing Modern Orthodox, 8 participants identified as Yeshivish, 1 participant identified as Chassidic, and 11 participants identified as Other.
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Results The means and standard deviations for the moral foundations of each religious group are found in Table 1. Table 1 Mean and Standard Deviation Scores for Moral Foundations of Religious Groups Religious Group
Moral Foundation Harm/Care
Not Identified
M= 20.50 SD= 5.32
Fairness/ Cheating M= 22.25 SD= 1.71
Not religious
M= 24.00
M= 27.00
M= 12.00
M= 8.00
M=22.00
Traditional
M= 16.50 SD= .71
M= 21.00 SD= 1.41
M= 13.50 SD= 10.61
M= 12.00 SD= 7.07
M= 15.00 SD= 2.83
Conservative
M= 13.00
M= 20.00
M= 19.00
M= 16.00
M=19.00
Left Wing Modern Orthodox
M= 18.67 SD= 6.66
M= 20.33 SD= 3.22
M= 16.33 SD= 8.02
M= 16.00 SD= 4.36
M= 17.67 SD= 5.51
Modern Orthodox
M= 20.98 SD= 3.63
M= 20.39 SD= 3.71
M= 16.96 SD= 3.46
M= 19.30 SD= 3.57
M= 20.19 SD= 4.42
Right Wing Modern Orthodox
M= 21.78 SD= 3.50
M= 20.21 SD= 3.59
M= 17.75 SD= 4.44
M= 21.21 SD= .3.82
M= 22.00 SD= 5.10
M=20.50 SD= 4.60 M= 24.00
M= 18.88 SD= 4.67 M= 25.00
M= 16.63 SD= 6.00 M= 18.00
M= 21.50 SD= 3.74 M= 23.00
M=23.38 SD=3.70 M=22.00
M=20.91 SD= 3.48
M= 21.00 SD= 3.87
M= 18.05 SD= 6.29
M= 17.45 SD= 7.12
M=19.68 SD=5.22
Yeshivish Chassidic Other
In-Group/ Loyalty M= 17.75 SD=1.89
Authority/ Subversion M= 19.25 SD= 2.99
Purity/ Degradation M= 20.75 SD= 3.86
The means and standard deviations for the moral foundations of each cohort, the 104 9th graders, 92 12th graders and 16 faculty members, are found in Table 2. 27
Table 2 Mean and Standard Deviation Scores for Moral Foundations of Cohorts Moral Foundation Cohort Harm/Care 9th grade
M= 21.09 SD= 3.65
Fairness/ Cheating M= 20.68 SD= 3.65
In-Group/ Loyalty M= 17.17 SD=4.17
Authority/ Purity/ Subversion Degradation M= 19.96 M= 21.51 SD= 3.85 SD= 4.03
12th grade
M= 20.84 SD= 3.74
M= 20.10 SD= 3.72
M= 17.08 SD= 3.95
M= 19.46 SD= 4.24
M= 19.70 SD= 5.11
Faculty
M= 22.38 SD= 4.10
M= 20.38 SD= 3.70
M= 17.81 SD= 4.85
M= 19.16 SD= 4.96
M= 21.25 SD= 5.31
The means and standard deviations for the moral foundations of the cohorts within each school are found in Table 3 in the Appendix and the means and standard deviations for the moral foundations of all 212 participants are found in Table 4 in the Appendix. ANOVA test results demonstrated that significant interactions were found between the three cohorts and the foundation of Purity/Degradation. No significant interactions were found for the foundations of In-group/Loyalty, Authority/Subversion, Harm/Care and Fairness/Cheating. Splitting the data between the two different schools, while retaining the three distinct cohorts, ANOVA test results found significant interactions in both the Authority/Subversion foundation and the Purity/Degradation foundation for Bruriah High School but not for Yeshiva University High School for Girls. No significant interactions were found for the foundations of In-group/Loyalty, Harm/Care, and Fairness/Cheating in each of the schools. ANOVA test results also found a significant interaction for the Harm/Care foundation between religious groups. The other four foundations had no significant interactions between religious groups. However, a one-way between subjects
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ANOVA for the dominant religious groups, Left-Wing Modern Orthodox, Modern Orthodox, and Right-Wing Modern Orthodox, resulted in significant differences for the moral foundations of both Authority/Subversion and Purity/Degradation. Results of a one-way between subjects ANOVA for the moral foundation of Purity/Degradation were significant, F (2, 209) = 3.898, p= .022. A Least Significant Difference (LSD) post hoc test for Purity/Degradation yielded significant differences between the 9th grade cohort and the 12th grade cohort, p = 007. The mean difference between the 9th grade cohort and the 12th grade cohort was 1.819, indicating that the 9th graders scored higher; this result was inconsistent with our hypothesis. When the data was split between the two schools, results of a one-way between subjects ANOVA for the moral foundations of Authority/Subversion and Purity/Degradation were significant, F (5, 206) = 2.418, p = .037 and F (5, 206) = 3.995, p = .002 respectively. When a LSD post hoc test was run for Authority/Subversion, no significant differences were seen, but when a LSD post hoc test was run for Purity/Degradation, significant differences were seen between 9th graders and 12th graders at Yeshiva University High School for Girls, p =.003. The mean difference between the 9th grade cohort and the 12th grade cohort was 2.708, indicating that the 9th graders scored higher; this result was inconsistent with our hypothesis. Interesting to note, although not significant overall, in the foundation of Harm/Care, there was a significant difference between the Bruriah High School 9th graders and the faculty and the 12th graders and the faculty, p = .027 and p = .037 respectively. The mean difference between the 9th grade cohort and the faculty was -3.370 and the mean difference
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between the 12th grade cohort and the faculty was -3.153, indicating that the faculty scored higher than both the 9th and 12th grade cohorts. This neither buttressed nor negated the hypotheses. When the data was split between three different religious groups, ((a) Traditional, Reform, and Conservative (b) Left-Wing Modern Orthodox, Modern Orthodox, and RightWing Modern Orthodox and (c) Yeshivish and Chassidic), results of a one-way between groups ANOVA were significant for the Harm/care foundation, F(2, 193) = 3.761, p = .025. When a LSD post hoc test was run, there was a significant difference between groups (a) and (b) and groups (a) and (c), with respect to Harm/care, p= .007 and p= .024, respectively. The mean difference between groups (a) and (b) was -5.556 and between groups (a) and (c) was 5.857, indicating that groups (b) and (c) scored significantly higher than group (a). Additionally, although the interaction was not significant in the original ANOVA, the Authority/Subversion score was significantly different for groups (a) and (c), p =.048 and the Purity/Degradation score was significantly different for the same groups, p = .028. The mean difference between groups (a) and (c) with regards to Authority/Subversion and Purity/Degradation was -5.000 and -6.889, respectively. This indicates that those in group (c) scored significantly higher on the above moral foundations than those in group (a). Lastly, results of a one-way between subjects ANOVA for the dominant religious groups, Left-Wing Modern Orthodox, Modern Orthodox, and Right-Wing Modern Orthodox, resulted in significant differences for the moral foundations of both Authority/Subversion and Purity/Degradation, F(2, 181) = 7.010, p = .001 and F(2, 181) = 3.617, p= .029, respectively. A LSD post hoc test for Authority/Subversion showed a significant difference
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between Left-Wing Modern Orthodox and Right-Wing Modern Orthodox, p = .017 and a significant difference between Modern Orthodox and Right-Wing Modern Orthodox, p = .001. The mean difference between Left-Wing Modern Orthodox and Right-Wing Modern Orthodox was -5.211 indicating that the Right-Wing Modern Orthodox scored higher; this result was consistent with our hypothesis. The mean difference between Modern Orthodox and Right-Wing Modern Orthodox was -1.908 indicating that the Right-Wing Modern Orthodox scored higher; this result was also consistent with our hypothesis. Results of a LSD post hoc test for the moral foundation of Purity/Degradation found a significant difference between Left-Wing Modern Orthodox and Right-Wing Modern Orthodox, p = .016. The mean difference between Left-Wing Modern Orthodox and RightWing Modern Orthodox was -1.815 indicating that the Right-Wing Modern Orthodox scored higher; this result was also consistent with our hypothesis. Discussion The study’s main goals were to determine: (1) whether or not the 12th grade cohort’s moral foundations would correlate with the faculty’s moral foundations more significantly than the 9th grade students’ moral foundations correlation with the faculty’s moral foundations and (2) whether or not the salience of specific moral foundations would be determined by the self-identified religious stances of the participants. The data analysis did not support the first hypothesis, as the ANOVA test results demonstrated that the only significant interactions were found between the 9th graders and the 12th graders and faculty, where the 9th graders scored more similarly to the faculty than did the 12th graders, with regards to the moral foundation of Purity/Degradation. Splitting the 31
data between the two different schools, while retaining the three distinct cohorts, ANOVA test results found significant interactions in both the Authority/Subversion foundation and the Purity/Degradation foundations. However, post hoc tests (LSD) indicated that in the school with the significant differences, Yeshiva University High School for Girls, the 9th graders again scored higher in Purity/Degradation and Authority/Subversion than the 12th graders, vis-à-vis the faculty, again inconsistent with the hypothesis. The researchers conjectured that a possible reason for this occurrence, namely that the 9th graders’ score for the moral foundation of Purity/Degradation was closer to the teachers than was the 12th graders’ scores, may be that as students progress through high school, they become more critical, or possibly more cynical, of the moral foundations that they sense in their teachers. In this case, it may specifically be the moral foundation of Purity/Degradation, which is considered by Graham, Haidt, & Rimm-Kaufman (2008) as an integral foundation to religious groups. To test the second hypothesis, the researchers wanted to understand the differences between different religious groups. The 10 religious groups were subdivided and split into three distinct categories: (a) Traditional, Reform, and Conservative (b) Left-Wing Modern Orthodox, Modern Orthodox, and Right-Wing Modern Orthodox and (c) Yeshivish and Chassidic. These groups were chosen on the basis that within the Jewish community, there exist self-chosen groupings of Jews with which adherents self-identify. Each group values and teaches Jewish thought to varying degrees; moreover, each group regards Jewish law with different amounts of strictness. Each group differs in religious style, as each assigns a relative value to external appearances and the degree of insularity from the general population. Thus, the groups were categorized as such and the “Non-Religious” and “Other” 32
groups were eliminated from the analyses. The statistical analyses found a noteworthy interaction for the Harm/Care foundation between religious groups: groups (b) and (c) scored significantly higher than group (a). This was fascinating to note, as it supported other theorists who maintain that religious groups tend to be more in tune with harm/care duties (e.g. Zook, Goshen, Koshmider, Kauffmann & Zehr, 1982), but Graham, Haidt, & Rimm-Kaufman (2008) did not single out Harm/Care as one of the three traits on which they proposed more religious people would score higher. More relevant to the subject population that the researchers wanted to test, an interesting interaction was observed with regards to religious groupings, when the one-way between subjects ANOVA was done for the dominant religious groups, Left-Wing Modern Orthodox, Modern Orthodox, and Right-Wing Modern Orthodox. In this case, the differences were significant for the moral foundations of both Authority/Subversion and Purity/Degradation, exactly two out of the three moral foundations that Graham, Haidt, & Rimm-Kaufman (2008) had defined as “binding” foundations, utilized extensively by religions. The post hoc test (LSD) revealed that the Right-Wing Modern Orthodox groups scored significantly higher than the Left-Wing Modern Orthodox and the Modern Orthodox with regards to Authority/Subversion and the Right-Wing Modern Orthodox scored higher than the Left Wing Modern Orthodox with regards to Purity/Degradation. These results were consistent with the second hypothesis, namely that the more religiously a person selfidentifies, the greater the score will be in these two moral foundations. This finding supports previous research (e.g. Graham and Haidt, 2010; Reichman, 2010) which found that a person’s declared level of religious observance reflects the
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composition of his or her moral foundations, specifically with regards to the binding moral foundations of Authority/Subversion and Purity/Degradation. Religion has many purposes, but this study’s findings support the theory that there is an additional purpose to religion: the creation of a moral community. The significant differences noted above demonstrate empirically that religious people do emphasize these two moral foundations. This study focused solely on Judaism, and as such, is not generalizable to other religious groupings. However, future studies should include other religious populations in order to have empirical evidence to confirm Graham and Haidt’s (2010) assumptions about religious groups. Concerning the lack of empirical evidence for the first hypothesis, it is possible that the students’ moral foundations do not necessarily get closer to faculty’s moral foundations with the experience of moral education and the general schooling process, but rather that either the intuitive moral foundations that the student comes into school with become more deeply ingrained and intensify as the years progress or the students become more skeptical about their teachers’ moral foundations as the years progress. Either of these two explanations may explain why there were no significant differences in the positive direction between the 9th grade cohort and the 12th grade cohort. Another possible explanation is simply that the two cohorts were different, which was one of the study’s major limitations: due to financial and time constraints, it could not be done longitudinally. Perhaps different results may have emerged had the study been done over a period of 10 years (beginning in childhood, progressing into young adolescence, and climaxing in young adulthood) or even over a period of 4 years (throughout high school). This is definitely something that future studies may find worthwhile investigating. The study had several other limitations, both in design and statistically. Firstly, the 34
researchers had each participant self-rate his or her own religious level, as a way of avoiding measuring religious belief. Two important points are to be noted about this self-rating. Any conclusions drawn must differentiate between people who perceive themselves associated with a specific religious group as opposed to people who are actually at the religious level of the group. Moreover, the ability for 14-year-olds and 18-year olds to accurately assess where they stand in a religious sense is not necessarily realistically cogent. A second limitation was that fact that although a range of faculty members were assessed, the differentiation between Jewish educator and Jewish moral educator was never made; whether or not all educators are inherently moral educators is something that future studies may also attempt to investigate. Included in the limitations involving the faculty, the sample size of the faculty members (N = 16), as compared to the sample size of the students (N = 196), should be noted, especially as the statistical analyses were computed based on the given sample sizes. A third limitation that this study encountered was sample size disparities between religious groups. Out of the 212 participants, 184 categorized themselves as Left-Wing, Right-Wing or Modern Orthodox; the researchers viewed this as simply representative of the demographics that exist at the two high schools were participants were recruited. However, the fact that tests showed interactions between other religious groups, with a small sample, and the aforementioned three groups, being the majority of the sample, should be taken into account. When attempting to generalize the results found between religious groups, a final limitation in design, was that, aside from faculty, the study’s participants were all high-
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school aged females. This was due to the original hypothesis, coupled with practical considerations, specifically limited time and financial resources of the researcher. However, in order to further generalize the results found between religious groups, future studies should include both genders, a variety of age groups, and a range of people with diverse religious levels, so that the results can be more generalizable to the broader population.
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Reichman, B. (2010). Religiosity’s role in the salience of specific Moral Foundations: An empirical study at Stern College for Women (Honors Thesis). Yeshiva University, New York, NY. Shweder, R. A., Much, N. C., Mahapatra, M., & Park, L. (1997). The "big three" of morality (autonomy, community, and divinity), and the "big three" explanations, of suffering. In A. Brandt & P. Rozin (Eds.), Morality and Health (pp. 119-169). New York: Routledge. Turiel, E. (1983). The development of social knowledge: Morality and convention. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. Werker, J. & Tees, R. (1984). Cross-language speech perception: Evidence for perceptual reorganization during the first year of life. Infant Behavior and Development, 7, 4963. Whiting, J., & Child, I. (1953). Child training and personality. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Wolbe, Shlomo. (1977). On frumkeit. Alei Shur, 2, pp. 152-155. Zook, A., Goshen, C., Koshmider, J., Kauffmann, D., & Zehr, T. (1982). Religion, altruism, and kinship: A study of sociobiological theory. Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 1, 23-31.
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Appendix Moral Foundations Questionnaire ID # ____________ Part 1. When you decide whether something is right or wrong, to what extent are the following considerations relevant to your thinking? Please rate each statement using this scale: [0] = not at all relevant (This consideration has nothing to do with my judgments of right and wrong) [1] = not very relevant [2] = slightly relevant [3] = somewhat relevant [4] = very relevant [5] = extremely relevant (This is one of the most important factors when I judge right and wrong) ______1. Whether or not someone suffered emotionally ______2. Whether or not some people were treated differently than others ______3. Whether or not someone’s action showed love for his or her country ______4. Whether or not someone showed a lack of respect for authority ______5. Whether or not someone violated standards of purity and decency ______6. Whether or not someone was good at math ______7. Whether or not someone cared for someone weak or vulnerable ______8. Whether or not someone acted unfairly ______9. Whether or not someone did something to betray his or her group ______10. Whether or not someone conformed to the traditions of society ______11. Whether or not someone did something disgusting ______12. Whether or not someone was cruel ______13. Whether or not someone was denied his or her rights ______14. Whether or not someone showed a lack of loyalty ______15. Whether or not an action caused chaos or disorder ______16. Whether or not someone acted in a way that God would approve of Part 2. Please read the following sentences and indicate your agreement or disagreement: [0] [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Strongly Moderately Slightly Slightly Moderately Strongly disagree disagree disagree agree agree agree ______17. Compassion for those who are suffering is the most crucial virtue. ______18. When the government makes laws, the number one principle should be ensuring that everyone is treated fairly. ______19. I am proud of my country’s history. 41
______20. Respect for authority is something all children need to learn. ______21. People should not do things that are disgusting, even if no one is harmed. ______22. It is better to do good than to do bad. ______23. One of the worst things a person could do is hurt a defenseless animal. ______24. Justice is the most important requirement for a society. ______25. People should be loyal to their family members, even when they have done something wrong. ______26. Men and women each have different roles to play in society. ______27. I would call some acts wrong on the grounds that they are unnatural. ______28. It can never be right to kill a human being. ______29. I think it’s morally wrong that rich children inherit a lot of money while poor children inherit nothing. ______30. It is more important to be a team player than to express oneself. ______31. If I were a soldier and disagreed with my commanding officer’s orders, I would obey anyway because that is my duty. ______32. Chastity is an important and valuable virtue.
To score the MFQ yourself, you can copy your answers into the grid below. Then add up the 6 numbers in each of the five columns and write each total in the box at the bottom of the column. The box then shows your score on each of 5 psychological “foundations” of morality. Scores run from 0-30 for each foundation. (Questions 6 and 22 are just used to catch people who are not paying attention. They don't count toward your scores).
8
9
10
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12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
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Fairness / Reciprocit y
In-group/ Loyalty
42
Authority / Respect
nse
7
spo
5
#
4
Re
nse
3
Harm / Care
ur Yo
spo
Re
#
nse
2
ion est Qu
ur Yo
spo
Re
#
nse
ion est Qu
ur Yo
spo
Re
#
nse
ion est Qu
ur Yo
spo
Re
#
#
nse
ion est Qu
ur Yo
spo
Re
ion est Qu
ur Yo
ion est Qu
1
6
22
Purity / Sanctity
Religious Moral Education: The Role of Moral Foundations in Jewish High Schools ID # ____________ Check off the box that best answers how you identify yourself religiously: □ Not religious □ Traditional □ Reform □ Conservative □ Left-wing Modern Orthodox □ Modern Orthodox □ Right-wing Modern Orthodox □ Yeshivish □ Chassidic □ Other: ___________________________
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Table 3 Mean and Standard Deviation Scores for Moral Foundations of Cohorts Within Each School Moral Foundation Cohort Harm/Care YUHSG 9th grade (N= 60)
M= 21.33 SD= 3.42
Fairness/ Cheating M=20.86 SD=3.63
YUHSG 12th grade (N= 45)
M= 20.69 SD= 4.13
M=20.24 SD=4.14
M=16.56 SD=4.26
M=19.00 SD=4.11
M=18.47 SD=5.27
YUHSG Faculty (N= 9)
M= 21.00 SD= 3.64
M=20.22 SD=4.27
M=17.56 SD=6.44
M=17.22 SD=5.76
M=19.11 SD=5.49
BHS 9th grade (N=44)
M=20.77 SD= 3.96
M=20.43 SD=3.71
M=17.23 SD=4.83
M=21.01 SD=4.10
M=21.98 SD=4.41
BHS 12 grade (N=47)
M= 20.99 SD =3.36
M= 19.97 SD=3.32
M=17.57 SD=3.61
M=10.89 SD=4.35
M=20.87 SD=4.72
BHS Faculty (N=7)
M= 21.08 SD=4.22
M=20.57 SD=1.78
M= 18.14 SD=1.77
M=21.64 SD=2.10
M=24.00 SD=3.83
th
In-Group/ Loyalty M= 17.13 SD=3.66
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Authority/ Purity/ Subversion Degradation M=19.19 M=21.18 SD=3.49 SD=3.72
Table 4 Mean and Standard Deviation Scores for Moral Foundations of All Participants, N = 212 Moral Foundation Harm/Care
Fairness/ Cheating
In-Group/ Loyalty
Authority/ Purity/ Subversion Degradation
M= 21.08 SD= 3.72
M= 20.41 SD= 3.68
M= 17.18 SD= 4.11
M= 19.68 SD= 4.10
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M= 20.71 SD= 4.69