Moral Judgments by Normal and Conduct-Disordered Preadolescent and Adolescent Boys

Fifth-grade (n = 24) and eighth-grade (n = 24) boys gave moral judgments of stories featuring good intentions but bad outcomes for another person. For half the stories, the outcomes were foreseeable or not foreseeable. For the other half, the act was committed with or without extenuating circumstances. Half the subjects were chosen for frequent recorded aggression in school (acting-out) and half were not (normals). The normal boys more than the acting-out boys differentiated between foreseeable and nonforeseeable stories, and also between those with and those without extenuating circumstances. The eighth-grade acting-out boys were more lenient than the fifth-grade boys on all four kinds of stories, but the older normal boys were harsher than the younger boys on the foreseeable (but not the nonforeseeable) stories, and more lenient than the younger boys when extenuating circumstances were present (but not when they were absent). The findings are discussed in terms of the relationship between moral thought and action.