Principled moral reasoning was studied in relation to procedures designed to elicit either formal operational or concrete operational cognitive sets. College students were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions (formal operational priming, concrete operational priming, or control) prior to completing Rest's Defining Issues Test (DIT). Mean P-scores on the DIT were significantly higher in the formal operational priming condition than in either of the other conditions. Cognitive and motivational interpretations of the findings are presented.
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