Abstract

CARITA, Ana  and  TOME, Gonçalo. A dinâmica da consistência moral. Aná. Psicológica [online]. 2010, vol.28, n.1, pp.85-105. ISSN 0870-8231.

The present study is based on a moral problem, and focus on the issue of consistent moral action. The mobilization of cognitive and affective variables for the understanding of this issue, and the empirical operationalization of consistency, within the frame of the contributions of a developmental and structural approach to morality, constitute central features of this research. In order to gather information a questionnaire was structured and applied to 156 8th and 11th grade boys and girls. The results have confirmed some of the formulated hypotheses, although their interpretation is not straightforward. The relationship between cognition and consistency presented a positive, however weak, result regarding the relationship between the affective variable and consistency, the latter being more reliable. Gender also seems to play a role in the consistency variability. The assumptions on the contribution of schooling to consistency, as well as the mediating effect of satisfaction, understood in the relationship between cognition and consistency, have not been confirmed. Finally, the integrated analysis of the contribution of predictor variables for consistency showed that all of them, with the exception of schooling, help to explain the variability of consistency, in fact, more than each one of them considered per se.

Keywords : Affect; Gender; Moral cognition; Moral consistency; Schooling.

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