Politicians' ethical competence is defined as the use of a cognitive ability, independent of particular political, ideological, or moral values. Accordingly, an assessment instrument-the Ethical Competence Questionnaire-Political (ECQ-P)-measuring ethical autonomy was constructed, based on Piaget's theory of moral development. The administration of ECQ-P to politicians with a high degree of political engagement, and on ordinary citizens and simple party members, demonstrated satisfying psychometric properties. The former group obtained a higher score on ECQ-P. A confirmatory factor analysis showed that the measurement model is compatible with the data. These findings indicate the adequacy of ECQ-P as an instrument measuring ethical competence.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Blasi, A. (1980). Bridging moral cognition and moral action: A critical review of the literature. Psychological Bulletin, 88, 145.
2.
Bollen, K. A. (1989). Structural equations with latent variables. New York: John Wiley.
3.
Candee, D. , & Kohlberg, L. (1987). Moral judgment and moral action: A reanalysis of Haan, Smith, and Block's (1968) free speech movement data. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 554-564.
4.
Cattell, R. B. , & Kline, P. (1977). The scientific analysis of personality and motivation. London: Academic Press.
5.
Emler, N. , & Hogan, R. (1991). Moral psychology and public policy. In W. Kurtines & J. L. Gewirtz (Eds.), Handbook of moral behavior and development (pp. 69-93). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
6.
Emler, N. , Renwick, S., & Malone, B. (1983). The relationship between moral reasoning and political orientation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 1073-1080.
7.
Enright, R. D. , Franklin, C. C., & Manheim, L. A. (1980). Children's distributive justice reasoning: A standardized and objective scale. Developmental Psychology, 16, 193-202.
8.
Etheredge, L. S. (1992). Wisdom and good judgment in politics. Political Psychology, 13, 497-516.
9.
Gielen, U. P. (1986). Moral reasoning in radical and non-radical German students. Behavior Science Research, 20, 71-109.
10.
Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
11.
Haan, N. , Smiith, B., & Block, J. (1968). Moral reasoning of young adults: Political-social behavior, family background, and personality correlates. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 10, 183-201.
12.
Haste, H. , & Tomey-Purta, J. (Eds.). (1992). The development of political understanding: A new perspective. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
13.
Haydon, G. (1995). Thick or thin? The cognitive content of moral education in a plural democracy. Journal of Moral Education, 24, 53-64.
14.
Helkama, K. , & Salminen, S. (1989). The Rokeach two-value model of political ideology in Finland. In J. P. Forgas & J. M. Innes (Eds.), Recent advances in social psychology: An international perspective (pp. 31-37). North Holland, The Netherlands: Elsevier Science.
15.
Higgins, A. (1995). Educating for justice and community: Lawrence Kohlberg's vision of moral education. In W. Kurtines & J. L. Gewirtz (Eds.), Moral development: An introduction (pp. 49-81). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
16.
Jöreskog, K. G. (1994). On the estimation of polychoric correlations and their asymptotic covariance matrix. Psychometrika, 59, 381-389.
17.
Jöreskog, K. G. , & Sorbom, D. (1993a). LISREL 8: Structural equation modelling with the SIMPLIS command language. Chicago: Scientific Software.
18.
Jöreskog, K. G. , & Sorbom, D. (1993b). New features in PRELIS2. Chicago: Scientific Software.
19.
Kavathatzopoulos, I. (1988). Instruction and the development of moral judgment. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.
20.
Kavathatzopoulos, I. (1991). Kohlberg and Piaget: Differences and similarities. Journal of Moral Education, 20, 47-54.
21.
Kavathatzopoulos, I. (1993). Development of a cognitive skill in solving business ethics problems: The effect of instruction. Journal of Business Ethics, 12, 379-386.
22.
Kavathatzopoulos, I. (1994a). Training professional managers in decision-making about real life business ethics problems: The acquisition of the autonomous problem-solving skill. Journal of Business Ethics, 13, 379-386.
23.
Kavathatzopoulos, I. (1994b). Politics and ethics: Training and assessment of decision-making and problem-solving competency (Uppsala Psychological Reports No. 436). Uppsala, Sweden: University of Uppsala, Department of Psychology.
24.
Kohlberg, L. (1981). Essays on moral development, Vol. I: The philosophy of moral development. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
25.
Kohlberg, L. (1984). Essays on moral development, Vol. H: The psychology of moral development. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
26.
Kohlberg, L. (1985). The just community: Approach to moral education in theory and practice. In M. Berkowitz & F. Oser (Eds.), Moral education: Theory and application (pp. 27-87). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
27.
Kurtines, W., Arrufat, O., & Lee Davis, D. (1995). Critical decision making and problem solving scale-moral dilemma. Unpublished manuscript, Florida International University.
28.
Kurtines, W. , Berman, S. L., Ittel, A., & Williamson, S. (1995). Moral development: A co-constructivist perspective. In W. Kurtines & J. L. Gewirtz (Eds.), Moral development: An introduction (pp. 337-376). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
29.
Kurtines, W. , Mayock, E., Pollard, S. R., Lanza, T., & Gustavo, C. (1991). Social and moral development from the perspective of psychosocial theory. In W. Kurtines & J. L. Gewirtz (Eds.), Handbook of moral behavior and development, Vol. 1: Theory (pp. 303-333). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
30.
Kurtines, W. , & Pimm J. B. (1983). The moral development scale: A Piagetian measure of moral judgment. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 43, 89-105.
31.
Lind, G. , Sandberger, J. U., & Bargel, T. (1982). Moral judgment, ego strength, and democratic orientations: Some theoretical contiguities and empirical findings. Political Psychology, 3, 70-110.
32.
Lindeman, M. (1993). Strength in positive and negative political attitudes. European Journal of Social Psychology, 23, 465-469.
33.
Mahoney, J. , Coogle, C. L., & Banks, P. D. (1984). Values in presidential inaugural addresses: A test of Rokeach's two-factor theory of political ideology. Psychological Reports, 55, 683-686.
34.
Markoulis, D. (1989). Political involvement and socio-moral reasoning: Testing Emler's interpretation. British Journal of Social Psychology, 28, 203-212.
35.
Miller, J. G. (1994). Cultural diversity in the morality of caring: Individually oriented versus duty-based interpersonal moral codes. Cross Cultural Research: The Journal of Comparative Social Science, 28, 3-39.
36.
Piaget, J. (1932). The moral judgment of the child. London: Routledge Kegan Paul.
37.
Power, F. C. , Kohlberg, L., & Higgins, A. (1989). Lawrence Kohlberg's approach to moral education. New York: Columbia University Press.
38.
Shelton, C. M. , & McAdams, D. P. (1990). In search of an everyday morality: The development of a measure. Adolescence, 25, 923-943.
39.
Simon, H. A. (1995). Rationality in political behavior. Political Psychology, 16, 45-61.
40.
Thoma, S. J. (1993). The relationship between political preference and moral judgment development in late adolescence. Merill Palmer Quarterly, 39, 359-374.
41.
Tudin, P. , Straker, G., & Mendolsohn, M. (1994). Social and political complexity and moral development. South African Journal of Psychology, 24, 163-168.
42.
Wagner, J. (1990). Rational constraint in mass belief systems: The role of developmental moral stages in the structure of political beliefs. Political Psychology, 11, 147-171.
