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ABSTRACT

AN INVESTIGATION OF PRIMITIVE AND AUTHORITY
BELIEFS IN CHILDREN

by Edward J. Lessin

This research was concerned with exploring changes with

age in both children's beliefs about authority and the universality of

their authority beliefs. The theoretical framework for the research

was Piaget's theory of moral development and Rokeach's descriptions

of belief systems.

There were four groups of 20 boys each in kindergarten,

second, fourth, and sixth grade. Each boy was tested individually,

II.

IIa .

IIb .

The hypotheses tested were:

The percentage of primitive beliefs decreases as children
increase in age.

The ratio of children's beliefs in the positive authority of
adults to beliefs in the positive authority of peers decreases
with age.

The ratio of children's beliefs in the positive authority of
parents to beliefs in the positive authority of peers decreases
with age .

The ratio of children's beliefs in the positive authority of
non-parental adults to beliefs in the positive authority of
peers decreases with age.

Edward J. Lessin

III. The ratio of children's beliefs in the positive authority of
parents to beliefs in the positive authority of non—parental
adults decreases with age.

In order partially to objectify Piaget's clinical method,
six semi—projective stories were written. In two of the stories, the
subject had to choose between parents and peers, in two between non—
parental adults and peers, and in two between parents and non—parental
adults. The subjects were questioned about each story in a prescribed

manner. The three primary questions were; "What would you have

done if you were (name of boy in story) ?," ”How come ?, " and “Would

 

everybody have done the same thing?" The first question provides
data for hypotheses II, 11a, 11b, and III while the third question pro—
vides data for hypothesis I. The responses to the second question
were scored on the basis of 20 content categories in order to help
explain why the child chose the authority he did.

The results showed that hypothesis II, beliefs in adult
authority decrease with age, and hypothesis IIb, beliefs in non-parental
adult authority decrease with age, were partially supported--for the
kindergarten to fourth grade age range, but not for the sixth grade.
The other three hypotheses were not supported, but the results were
in the predicted direction for kindergarten, second, and fourth grade
(except for hypothesis III) .

The study has shown that Rokeach's belief system can be

applied to child developmental research. The implication for Piaget's

Edward J. Lessin

theory is that the transition from adult constraint to autonomous
morality is not a simple manner. It was suggested that although

the sixth grade subjects showed greater reliance on adult authority,
they were more selective and discriminating in their acceptance of
adult authoritythan younger boy's . If was found that small differences
in the stories and questions differentially effected different age
groups. The investigation also suggests that age trends are not

nece ssarily linear .

1,1 4. A
7/21 (71191] £41; (:2 (I L

41 .‘ , r4,
“fly/Li «7'17, / 4; é;

AN INVESTIGATION OF PRIMITIVE AND AUTHORITY

BELIEFS IN CHILDREN

by

Edward J. Lessin

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

De partment of Ps ychology

1965

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

 

The author wishes to sincerely thank all those who
helped him with this research. In particular he would like to thank
the members of his committee; Dr..Milton Rokeach, Dr. Lucy Rau,
and Dr. Bertram Karon. Dr. Milton Rokeach, .his chairman, gave
continued encouragement, support, and help. Dr. Lucy Rau was
especially helpful for showing me the 'ropes' of child developmental
research and for helping me get subjects. Dr. Bertram Karon was
especially helpful in the area of statistics.

Thanks also to Mr. Burt Alperson for assisting in
rating responses and for many critical suggestions and to the staff
and students of Kendon Street school who made my visit a pleasant
one.

Finally, and most important, I want to thank my wife,
Sheri, for her encouragement, help and understanding through the

entire project.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES . . . . . . . . . . . . iv
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
METHOD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Subjects....................18
Procedure...................18

'RESULTS.....................30
AuthorityBeliefs................ 30
Primitiveness ofBeliefs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
ContentCategories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

DISCUSSION....................44

SUMMARY.....................54

REFERENCES...................57

iii

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table Page
2 . . . .
l. X tests for independence of beliefs in authority
and the primitiveness of the beliefs . . . . . . 31
2. Means and variances for choosing primary
authorities by grades . . . . . . . . . . . . 32.
3. Analysis of variance for choosing parental vs.
peer authorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4. Analysis of variance for choosing non-parental
vs. peer authorities . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5. Analysis of variance for choosing parental vs.
non-parental adult authorities . . . . . . . . 36
6. Analysis of variance for choosing adults vs.
peer authorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
7. Means and variances of primitive beliefs by
grades 0 O O O O O I O O O O O O O O O O O 38
8. Analysis of variance for asserting primitive
vs. non-primitive beliefs . , , . . . . . . . 38
9. Frequencies of content categories by grade . . . . 41
10. Analysis of variance of responses to content
category 1. O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 42
ll. Kruskal-Wallis H test on content categories
3’ 7, 14’ and 16 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 43
12. Frequencies of miscellaneous categories by

grade , , ,

O O I O O O O O O O O O O O O 43

13. Kruskal-Wallis H test on miscellaneous categories 43
Figure
1. Interaction of types of stories and grades on pri-
mitiveness of belief . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

iv

INTRODUCTION

 

This thesis is primarily concerned with exploring the
changes in the child's beliefs about authority and is secondarily con-
cerned with exploring the child's beliefs about the universality of
moral judgments.

The theoretical framework for the thesis is an integra-
tion of Piaget's (1932) theory of moral development and Rokeach's
belief system (1960, 1963, 1964) .

Since Piaget (1932) has been the basis for much research
on the child's attitudes toward authority and his moral judgments,
the investigator will relate the present study to the work of Piaget.

He was primarily concerned with the development of the child's con-
ception of rules, punishment, and justice. Subsequent research has
maintained this emphasis. The investigator will be primarily con-
cerned with the changes in authority references with age because this
topic has not been as thoroughly studied.

Piaget's (1932) primary concept for studying changes in
attitudes 'toward authority is moral realism. He defines moral realism
as the childish tendency to regard duties as obligatory--regardless of

circumstances. Moral realism has three primary features. First,

duty is heteronomous, that is, the child is not a free agent, but sub-
ject to adult whims. Second, the child demands that the letter in-
stead of the spirit of the law be followed. For example, a boy's
mother told him never to get. very close to the stove because it is
dangerous. One day when the mother was at the store, the boy no-
ticed that something was burning on the stove. He let it burn instead
of removing it or turning it off because of what his mother previously
said. Third, moral realism is associated with objective responsi-
bility. It means that the child judges guilt or naughtiness by the ab-
solute amount of damage done rather than by intention or by extenuating
circumstances. Breaking a dozen eggs by aCCident is thought to be 12.
times as bad as breaking one egg whether unintentionally or on purpose.

Moral realism is a result of the combination of egocen—-
trism with adult constraint.

Over the past 40 years, Piaget has modified his concep-
tion of egocentrism. Piaget states that egocentric language "consists
of remarks that are not addressed to anyone, or not to anyone in par-
ticular, and that they evoke no reaction adapted to them on the part
of anyone to whom they may chance to be addressed" (Piaget, 1923,
p. 55) . He uses as an example of egocentrism a group of children
who are busy drawing the same picture. Each child talks about his
drawing and is aware of the drawings of the other children, but none

of them make any attempt at cooperation:

Lev (5; 11) : "It begins with Goldylocks. I'm writing the story
of the three bears. The daddy bear is dead. Only the daddy
was too ill. "

933} 5; 11): "I used to live at Saleve. I lived in a little house
and you had to take the funicular railway to go and buy things. "
Geo (6; 0 ): "I can't do the bear. "

Li (6; 10): "That's not Goldylocks. "

Lev: "I haven't got curls." (Piaget, 1923, p. 77)

 

 

 

In short, egocentrism refers to remarks not specifically intended for
communication. In this sense, egocentric speech is nonusocial. Re-
cently Piaget has identified egocentrism with decentring. He writes
that ". . .the only valid meaning of egocentrism: (is) the lack of de-
centring, of the ability to shift mental perspective, in social relation-
ships as well as in others" (Piaget, 1962, p. 8). Then, the egocentric
child cannot take the view of others since he has not clearly differen-
tiated his point of View from those of others. Egocentrism is a cog-
nitive defect of the young child.

Adult constraint, the second factor causing moral realism,
refers to the fact that the young child views the commands and wishes
of the adult as moral imperatives. The child adapts his thought to the
significant adults in his life. He loves his parents and does not want
to lose their love, hence he follows and identifies himself with their
constraints. Adults limit the development of the child in so far as
they force their standards on the child (Neill, 1961) . The young

child doesn't know, and can't understand, that it is "wrong" to make

mudpies with the applesauce. Adult commands are external to the
child's understanding. He does understand, however, that mommy
will take her love away if he makes mudpies.

The stage of constraint, and hence moral realism, is
followed by an intermediate stage in which the child internalizes
adult rules without evaluating them. The third stage appears about
the age of ten when heteronomous morality is replaced by an auton-
omous morality which is based on subjective responsibility and on
mutual respect among peers. The child now takes intentions into
account and tries to follow the spirit of the rules. He begins to
socially communicate and cooperate with other children. Moral
realism is supplanted by cooperation.

Kohlberg (1963a) states that moral realism implies
the following five dimensions:

Objective responsibilitL(as opposed to intentionalism) .
UnchangeabilitLof the rules (as opposed to flexibility) .
Absolutism of value (as opposed to relativism) .

Moral wroriness defined by sanctions (as opposed to moral
judgments made independently of sanctions) .

5. Duty defined as obedience to authority (as opposed to duty
being in terms of conformity expectations of peers or equals) .

 

.prH

A great deal of research has been inspired by Piaget's
work on moral realism, moral judgments, and authority.
Several studies (Bobroff, 1960; Kohlberg, 1963b;

Lerner, 1937a; MacRae, 1954; Ugurel-Seurin, 1952) have shown a

decrease with age in the universality of moral judgments. 1 No con-
tradictory studies were found although some of the above investi-
gators gave different interpretations than Piaget. Kohlberg (1963b)
has said that the young child shares the adult's conception of what
is wrong due to a realistic-hedonistic desire to avoid punishment
while Piaget asserts that the child's acceptance of adult standards
is due to a deep reverence for the adult world.

Several investigators (Bobroff, 1960; Boehm, 1957;
Boehm, 1962a, 1962b; Johnson, 1962; Lerner, 1937a; Mac Rae,
1954; Morris, 1958) noted a shift from an emphasis on adult refer-
ences to an emphasis on peer references with an increase in chron-
ological age. Many of them do not accept Piaget's interpretation of
the shift as due to a lessening of adult constraint and an increase in
subjective responsibility and mutual respect among peers. Bobroff
(1960) found with the TAT administered to ten year olds a wish for
independence from adult authority and an attempt to modify feelings
to conform to peer demands. Johnson reviewedthe very early litera-
ture, around the 1890's, and found that it supports Piaget's view that
as the child grows older he becomes more concerned with an author-
ity's motives. Lerner (1937a) found a shift to peer references with

increases in age but contended that the shift to peer authority from

 

A universal moral judgment refers to the child's
belief that everyone who knows shares his judgment.

adult constraint does not bring cooperation but social constraints
from peers. Although Mac Rae (1954) noted an increase in peer
references with age, he asserted that the relevant variable related
to maturity of moral judgment is the process of cognitive indoctrina-
tion instead of a de ~-emphasis of adult constraint. Morris (1958)
found that adolescents changed in the direction of greater autonomy
and equity with increasing age. He also noted that the autonomy was
not complete Since the adolescent still bore traces of adhering to a
rigid behavior code. Using Piaget's clinical method and stories,
Boehm ( 1962a) did not find that maturity of moral judgments in-
creased as the child became independent and achieved peer recipro-
city. Boehm and Nass (1962) concluded that the "morality of co-
operation" is not based on independence from authority. Havighurst
and Taba (1949) de-ernphasize the importance of age as an explana-
tion for changes in a child's conception of rules. They explain the
child's belief in the unchangeability of rules by social learning of
specific cultural attitudes. In sum, studies generally support
Piaget's contention of an increase in the number of peer references
with age but several investigators differ on the interpretation of the
phenomenon.

Regarding justice, Durkin (1959a, 1959b) was unable
to substantiate Piaget's finding that the acceptance of reciprocity as

a justice principle increases with age. Durkin found that between

grades two and five reciprocity increased, but between grades five
and eight it decreased.

Piaget made his investigations on French speaking
children in Geneva. Most of his results on moral realism have been
replicated in various cultures. Recent studies (Bobroff, 1960;
Boehm, 1957, Boehm, 1962a; Boehm, 1962b; Boehm and Nass, 1962;
Johnson, 19623Koh1berg, 1963b; Lerner, 1937b; Mac Rae, 1954)
have provided support for age trends on several of Piaget's dimen-
sions of moral realist in American cultures. Morris (1958)
provided support for Piaget with English subjects. Lerner (1937a)
replicated some of Piaget's work on French speaking Genevan chil-
dren. Ugurel-Seurin (1952) validated Piaget's findings on moral
realism on a Turkish population. Boehm (1957) noted that American
children seem to transfer from parental dependence to peer depen-
dence at an earlier age than Swiss children. Her explanation for the
difference is that the United States is an "other directed" society
with emphasis on social adjustment while Switzerland is an "inner
directed" society with emphasis on character improvement.

One investigator (Boehm, 1962b) predicted that Ca-
tholic parochial school students would be guided by a heteronomous

morality to a greater degree than public school students since the

 

Piaget's dimensions of moral realism refer to the
five dimensions as listed by Kohlberg (p. 4 above) .

former function in a more authoritarian atmosphere. Instead, she
found that the parochial school students were somewhat more inde-
pendent of adults and showed more peer reciprocity.

Most investigators noted some relationship between
intelligence and moral development. Boehm (1962a; 1962b) found
that with social class held constant, gifted children gave more
mature responses than children of average intelligence. Bobroff
( 1960) noted that mildly retarded children without emotional pro-
blems between the ages of 8 and 14 were two years behind normal
children on the practice of and consciousness of the rules of a game
of marbles. Durkin (1959a, 1959b) found no relationship between
acceptance of reciprocity and intelligence in children between the
ages of 7 and 13. He stated that no definite conclusion can be drawn
concerning the function of intelligence in the development of moral
judgment. Havighurst and Taba (1949) found a low positive rela-
tionship between IQ scores and maturity of moral beliefs. Lerner
(1937b) contends that intelligence is unrelated to the decrease in
moral realism with age.

Social class is another important variable related to
moral development. A recent study (Boehm, 1962a) has shown that
upper middle class children develop moral judgments concerning
distinctions between intention and outcome of an action earlier than

do working class children. However, the same investigator in

another study (Boehm and Nass, 1962) did not find socio-economic
class to be a relevant variable in moral development. Another in-
vestigator (Lerner, 1937b) found that low status children of
foreign born (Italian) parents, between the ages of 6 and 12, have

a greater tendency than high status children to evaluate their parents
as authoritarian, while high status children have a greater tendency
to evaluate their parents as affectionate. Mac Rae (1954) found that
high status children gave more mature answers. He suggested that
high status children are more rapid in cognitive moral development
since their parents expect them to live up to cultural expectations;
low status children develop more rapidly emotionally, in the sense
of being emancipated from their parents sooner, due to permissive
child training techniques. Morris (1958) has found social class
differences in moral realism. Ugurel-Seurin (1952) has noted that
children from poor homes are more generous, more equalitarian,
and less selfish than children from rich homes .

Recent studies (Boehm and Nass, 1962; Morris, 1958;
Ugurel-Seurin, 1952) have not shown sex to be a relevant variable
in moral development.

According to Rokeach (1960, 1963, 1964), beliefs are
organized into a total belief-disbelief system. Beliefs and dis-
beliefs can be viewed along a central-peripheral dimension. Central

or primitive beliefs are most basic since the individual believes that

10

virtually everyone in a position to know also shares the belief.
Intermediate or authority beliefs are beliefs about who or what can
be trusted or relied on as an authority and to what extent they can
be trusted. Peripheral beliefs are beliefs derived from authority.
Some examples of primitive beliefs are: I believe this is a piece of
paper, I believe this woman is my mother, and I believe 1 am a
human being. The first belief is a belief about the physical world,
the second about the social world, and the third about the self. An
example of an authority belief is: I believe mother is always right.
Examples of peripheral beliefs are: I believe all men are created
equal and I believe "niggers" are different from us.

Authorities can be either positive or negative. One
accepts the belief of a positive authority while one rejects the belief
of a negative authority or accepts the contrary belief. For example,
a stepmother may become a negative authority for a child, especially
if she is very different from the child's real mother. If a child re-
sponds to his stepmother's command not to shout by continuing to
shout or by shouting louder, then the stepmother is a negative
authority. It is important to note that a belief in a negative authority
implies more than just indifference to his wishes. If a boy is indif-
ferent to a famous baseball player's appeal to eat X brand of break-

fast cereal, the baseball player is neither a positive nor a negative

ll

authority on cereal for the boy. In short, an authority must have
some influence on the person's beliefs or his behavior.

Further, a person may accept the opposite of a belief
of a positive authority without his losing his status as a positive
authority. If Johnny accepts his mother's belief that there is a Santa
Claus instead of his father's belief that there is not a Santa Claus, it
is probably because the mother is a stronger positive authority than
the father. If Johnny concluded that there is a Santa Claus only from
his father's belief that there isn't any Santa Claus, then the father
would be a negative authority. There is a continuum of authority
from positive or accepting, to indifferent, and to negative or rejec-

ting, for example:

ATTITUDES TOWARD THE BELIEFS OF:

Negative Authority Positive Authority

Very Moderate - Slightly Indifferent Slightly Moderate - Very

Rejec- 1y Rejec- Rejec- Accep- 1y Accep— Accep-

ting ting ting ting ting ting
The child's first beliefs are probably primitive since it

is unlikely that he is capable of understanding that some beliefs are

not shared by everyone. As the child grows older, his parent's be-

come positive referents. Next, the child probably views other adults--

12

grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, teachers--as persons who
can be trusted. Finally, other children become positive authorities.

If the child's parents always provided satisfactory
answers to his questions, would he look to other authorities ? Pro-
bably, since his parents are not always present when he has ques-
tions. But according to Rokeach, ". . .as the child deals with other
people, he exposes his expanding repertoire of primitive beliefs to
them and. at the same time is exposed to the repertoire of their
beliefs" (Rokeach, 1964, p. 291) . In other words, as the child in-
tellectually develops, he becomes more discriminating and seeks
new authorities.

Each of Piaget's dimensions of moral realism can be
expressed by a parallel statement based on Rokeach's system. Al-
though Piaget talks about judgments and Rokeach talks about beliefs,
they are both referring to the same thought processes of the child.
This investigation is only concerned with two of Piaget's dimensions.

Below are two parallel statements based on Piaget and Rokeach:

13

Period of Moral Realism3

 

Piaget Rokeach
P1. The child exhibits R1. The child's be-
absolutism of value. liefs about right

and wrong are
primitive .

P2. The child shows obe- R2. The child has
dience to adult au- beliefs in adults
thority. as positive au-

tho ritie s .

In regard to P1, Kohlberg states, "According to Piaget,
the judgment of an act as either right or wrong is believed by the
child to be shared by everyone, since only one perspective is taken
toward the act" (Kohlberg, 1963a, p. 314) . Regarding R1, Rokeach
writes, "1n the beginning, all his (the child's) beliefs are primitive
ones; he is not capable of understanding that some beliefs are not
shared by everybody" (Rokeach, 1964, p. 190). P2 and R2 are es-
sentially equivalent since both assert that the child views adults as
authorities.

Moral realism is followed by cooperation which is based
on autonomy and mutual respect. In the period of cooperation, as in
the period of moral realism, there are two statements based on Ro-

keach's system which parallel Piaget's two dimensions:

 

3
The two dimensions P1 and P2, which span both the
period of moral realism and cooperation, respectively refer to dimen-
sions three and five listed by Kohlberg on page four,

14

Period of Cooperation

 

Piaget Rokeach
P1. The child exhibits R1. The child's be-
relativism of value. liefs about right

and wrong are
no longer primi-

tive.
P2. The child shows con— R2. The child has
formity to peer ex- beliefs in peers,
pectations. as well as adults,

as positive au-
thorities.

P1 and R1 are essentially equivalent since both state
that the child no longer expects everyone to share his value judg-
ments . P2 and R2 are essentially equivalent since both state that
the child views his peers as social referents.

Since the investigation is concerned with changes in the
child's beliefs over the periods of moral realism and cooperation, the
statements derived from Piaget and Rokeach can be expressed by the
following two developmental hypotheses:

I. The percentage of primitive beliefs decreases as children
increase in age.

II. The ratio of children's beliefs in the positive authority of
adults to beliefs in the positive authority of peers decreases
with age.

Adults can be divided into the subclasses of parents and non-parental
adults. Two corollary developmental hypotheses are:

Ila. The ratio of children's beliefs in the positive authority of

15
parents to beliefs in the positive authority of peers decreases
with age.

11b. The ratio of children's beliefs in the positive authority of
non-parental adults to beliefs in the positive authority of
peers decreases with age.

Rokeach suggested that as the child intellectually develops, he seeks
new authorities; hence a third developmental hypothesis:

III. The ratio of children's beliefs in the positive authority of
parents to beliefs in the positive authority of non-parental
adult decreases with age°

It is to noted that although only hypotheses I and II are derived from
Piaget, they, like the others, are expressed in terms of Rokeach's
system.

The above hypotheses have not been directly tested al-
though, as the review of the literature indicates, several studies have
touched on these topics. This thesis is directly concerned with testing
the above three hypotheses by a series of semiaprojective stories.

Generally studies on the development of children's moral
judgments have followed Piaget's use of the clinical method. In the
clinical method, the investigator does not follow a set pattern of ques~
tioning but asks questions, often about stories, on the basis of pre-
vious responses until he feels that he has an adequate picture of both
the content and the structure of the child's thoughts. Claparede says
that the clinical method is ". . .that method of observation which con-

sists in letting the child talk and in noting the manner in which his

thought unfolds itself" (Claparede, 1923, p. 15) .

16

One advantage of the clinical method is that it enables
the investigator to go beyond superficial observation--to capture the
child's thoughts behind his observed verbal responses. Another ad-
vantage of Piaget's method is that the stories and experiments are
usually very interesting to children. Since Piaget is fairly non-
directive in his questioning, the child does not usually feel threatened.

Yarrow (1960) has criticized the clinical method for its
lack of standardization of questions . Knowing what questions to ask
and when to pursue further questioning is an art, not a science. Var-
iations in wording of questions may have different meanings for dif-
ferent children. A recent study on physical causality (Nass, 1956)
has shown that variations in the form of the questions affects the
child's responses.

In this study, a set of specific questions is asked of
each child for each of the stories. If the child's answer is not clear,
the interviewer continues to probe in a prescribed manner for each
story. The child's responses are classified according to the hypo-
theses they are designed to test.

At the beginning of the interview, the child is told that
he is to say anything he wishes and that there are no right or wrong
answers. The approach is moderately non-directive. The inter-
viewing procedure follows a definite pattern. The stories are struc-

tured, but the child is free to respond to the structure as he wishes

17

instead of being presented with a set of possible responses as on a
multiple choice test.

With the above technique, the investigator hopes to
overcome a major objection to Piaget's method without thereby

giving up all the advantages of his method.

METHOD

Subjects

The subjects of the experiment were 80 boys enrolled
in Kendon School, a public elementary school in Lansing, Michigan.
There were 20 subjects each from kindergarten, second grade,
fourth grade, and sixth grade. The mean age of each group (in years
and months) was 6-0, 7-10, 10-0, and 12ml. According to the school's
records, none of the children was below average in intelligence, as
measured by group intelligence tests. The school is in a middle class
area of Lansing and most of the homes are privately owned. All of

the children were white.

Procedure

 

The stories were read to each subject by the investi-
gator. The subject's oral responses to questions about the story sit-
uations were recorded on tape and later transcribed. For each inter-
view, only the investigator and one subject were present in the
teacher's lounge. When the interview was finished, the investigator
thanked the subject and played back part of his recording. The

subject returned to his room and asked the next boy to come to the

18

19

interview room. The teachers were informed of the project and
knew ahead of time which children would leave to be interviewed.
The subjects were interviewed alphabetically by grade (kindergarten,
first, sixth grade last), except for a few changes due to teachers'
requests and to absences.

Most of the children appeared relatively relaxed. If a
child seemed very tense, the interviewer would talk with him before
beginning the interview. The investigator tried to answer any ques-
tions the subjects had concerning the investigation.

The instructions to the subjects were:

I'm interested in finding out what children really think about
certain things. I will read you some unfinished stories about
boys like yourself. I'll then ask you a few questions about
each story. You are to answer the questions in any way that
you wish. There are no right or wrong answers. What you
tell me is just between us. You should try to pretend that you
are the boy in the story. Do you have any questions ?

The stories were written by the investigator and revised
on the basis of a pilot study on 14 boys in kindergarten through the
sixth grade.

The first story read to each child was the same and was
not scored. Its purpose was to acquaint the subject with the tasks
involved. The order of presentation of the scored stories for the
first subject was A, B, C, D, E, F, for the second, B, C, D, E, F,

A, for the third, C, D, E, F, A, B, etc. Below are the unscored

practice story and the six scored stories. (The investigator's

20

questions are in capitals. The statements and questions in paren-
theses were used to probe when the subject did not give a scorable
response):

PRACTICE STORY (unscored) . --Marv was watching his fa-
vorite television program. His little sister began playing with
her dolls right in front of the television set. Marv asked her
to move but she continued to play. WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE
DONE IF YOU WERE MARV ? . . . (What do you think Marv did?)
. . . HOW COME ? . . .DO YOU THINK EVERYBODY WOULD
HAVE DONE THE SAME THING?

A. A boy named Philip, about your age, was playing with some
new children on the block. Philip liked the new children and
had fun playing with them. They became good friends. One day
Philip's father (daddy) saw them all playing together. That
evening he told Philip that the new children were bad. The fol-
lowing day the new children asked Philip to play. WHAT WOULD
YOU HAVE DONE IF YOU WERE PHILIP? . . . (Philip's father
said they were bad. . . The new children asked Philip to play. . .
The new children were Philip's friends. . .What do you think
Philip did?) . . . HOW COME ? . . .WOULD EVERYBODY HAVE
DONE THE SAME THING ?

B. Mike is in Mr. Jones' room at school. The boys like to
play ball in the playground after school. He won't let the chil-
dren in his room play there. One day Mr. Jones was sick and
did not come to school. Some of Mike's friends, who had a
different teacher, decided to play ball after school in the play-
ground. Mike's friends wanted him to play. They said, "Mike,
come and play ball with us . " Mike thought it would be fun.
WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE IF YOU WERE MIKE ? . . .
(Mike's teacher, Mr. Jones, won't let his children play ball

in the playground. He is not at school because he is sick. . .
Mike's friends, from another room, want him to play ball with
them. . .What do you think Mike did?) . . °HOW COME ? . . .If he
would play, say: WOULD EVERYBODY HAVE DONE THE SAME
THING? . . .if he would n_o_t_; play, say: WOULD EVERYBODY
HAVE DONE WHAT THEIR TEACHER SAID ?

C. Robert's mother told him that he should never ride double
on his bicycle. One day his teacher, Mrs. Smith, talked to

21

to the class about bike safety. She said that it was safe to ride
double if your bike has a rear passenger carrier. Mrs. Smith
added that this was the only place where it is safe to ride dou-
ble. Robert's bike has a rear passenger carrier. On the way
home from school, Robert's friend, Greg, asked him for a
ride on his bike. WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE IF YOU
WERE ROBERT ? . . . (Robert's mother told him that he should
never ride double. His teacher, Mrs. Smith, said it was safe
to ride double only if your bike has a rear passenger carrier.
A rear passenger carrier is a place where a passenger can
sit behind the bicycle driver. Robert's bike has a rear pas-
senger carrier. Robert's friend, Greg, asked for a ride.
What do you think Robert did?) . . . HOW COME ? . . .WOULD
EVERYBODY HAVE DONE THE SAME THING?

D. Billy went to the zoo with his mother, father, and best
friend, John. They were all having a good time looking at the
animals. Billy's father told them not to feed the animals.
While Billy's parents rested, the two boys went to look at the
ducks. They noticed that other children were feeding the ducks.
John said, "Why don't we feed them. It'll be fun. " WHAT
WOULD YOU HAVE DONE IF YOU WERE BILLY? . . . (Billy's
father said not to feed the animals. . . John saw other children
feeding the ducks and said, "Why don't we feed them. It'll be
fun. ". . .What do you think Billy did?) . . .HOW COME ? . . .If
subject would fe e d s a y : WOULD EVERYBODY HAVE
DONE THE SAME THING? . . .If subject wouldggt feed, say:
WOULD EVERYBODY HAVE DONE WHAT THEIR FATHER
SAID?

E. Pete was staying with his grandmother since his mother and
father were on a vacation. Grandmother asked Pete to watch
his baby brother while she went to the store. Grandmother told
him not to let the baby out of his sight. Susan, Pete's older
sister, came home soon after grandmother left. After a while
Pete was tired of watching the baby. Jim, Pete's friend, came
running up and said, "A man is giving away free ice cream
down the block° Let's hurry and go get some!" Susan said she
would watch the baby. WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE IF
YOU WERE PETE ? . . . (Pete's grandmother told him to stay
and watch the baby. . . Jim wanted Pete to come and get free ice
cream. . .Susan said she would watch the baby. . .What do you
think Pete did?) . . . HOW COME ? . . .WOULD EVERYBODY HAVE
DONE THE SAME THING?

22

F. Jimmy lived on Woods Ave. He has many friends on the
block. His father told him never to cross the street unless

he or Jimmy's mother was with him. Mr. Williams is a neigh-
bor who lives across the street. From his porch, Mr. Williams
called to Jimmy, "Come over here. I have a surprise for you. "

WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE IF YOU WERE JIMMY? . . .
(Jimmy's father told him never to cross the street unless he
or Jimmy's mother was with him. . . Mr. Williams, a neighbor
who lives across the street, asked Jimmy to come over since
he had a surprise for him. . .What do you think Jimmy did?)

. . . HOW COME ? . . .WOULD EVERYBODY HAVE DONE THE
SAME THING?

Rokeach (1964) stated that the first authorities for a
child are his parents; later other adults become authorities and fi-
nally peers. When two authorities are presented to a subject, the
developmentally earliest authority is considered primary while the
other authority is considered secondary. In stories A and D, the
parents are primary authorities and the peers are secondary au-
thorities. In stories B and E, the non—parental adults are primary
authorities and the peers are secondary authorities. In stories C
and F, parents are primary authorities and the non-parental adults
are secondary authorities. In other words, parents are always pri-
mary authorities, peers are always secondary authorities, and non-
parental adults are both, depending on the story.

The adult authorities in the stories were evenly divided
between males and females. Like the subjects, all the peer author-

ities were males. 1n stories C and F, the parents gave no reason

for their commands and the requests of the other adults seem to

 

23

appear more reasonable to the child. In the four other stories, no
reason was given for the adult's commands; thus the child is directly
faced with a choice between adult authority and his wishes to con-
form to peer expectations. The investigator is assuming that it is
most likely that the child's own desires are to do what the secondary
authorities wish.

During each interview, the three main questions, "What
would you have done‘if you were ?, " "How come ?, " "Would
everybody have done-the same thing?" were asked in this order. If
the subject's responses to any question was not clear, the investi—
gator either asked him to clarify his statement , repeated the ques-
tion, read the restatement of the story, or occasionally reread the
story in the original form.

The question, "What would you have done if you were

?" provides data for hypotheses ‘II, IIa,IIb, and 111. By presen-
ting a conflict between parents and peers, stories A and D provide
data for hypothesis IIa. By presenting a conflict between non-parental
adults and peers, stories B and E provide data for hypothesis IIb.
These four stories '(A, B,-D, E, ) also provide data for hypothesis 11
since each story presents a conflict between an adult and peers.
Stories C and F provide data for hypothesis III by presenting a eon-

flict between parents and other adults .

24

The investigator noted that the kindergarten subjects
readily took the role of the boy in the story. They would often use
"he" and ”I" interchangeably. The .first three second graders did
not appear to take .the role of the boy in the story. These boys re-
plied to the question, "What-would you have done .if you were ? "
with statements such as, "I wouldn't do it cause-my mother said not
to. . . " _ They were trying to give the impression that they were always
good boys. The investigator then asked, "Well, what did (name of

boy in the story) do?" Often the reply was, "Oh, he'd probably do

 

it. " The question, "What would you have done if you were..__?"
elicited what the child thought he ought to do while the question,
"What did do 7," following the former question, more often eli-
cited what the boy presumably would have done . Since a purpose of
the investigation is to ascertain how behavior regarding different
authorities varies with age, the procedure was modified beginning
with the fourth second grade subject even though this change may
contaminate the results. If the subject replied to the question,
"What would you have done if you were......? " by a response in the
form of, "I would have done'what my mother (or other primary au-
thority) said, " the investigator then asked, "What did do ?"
In many cases, a subject would reply that the boy in the story would
do what the secondary authority wanted (although he would not) . In

these cases, the subject was scored as acting on the belief of the

25

secondary authority. The subject was also scored to indicate that
he was hesitant over disobeying primary authority.

The question, "Would everybody have done the same
thing?" provides data for hypothesis 1. The subject's response is
only considered to be primitive if it appears that he is 100% sure
that any other boy would do the same thing in the same situation.
Answers qualified by "probably, " "mostly, " "maybe, " "should have, "
"hope so, " "don't know" etc. are scored nonprimitive.

Since stories B and D state that some children act con-
trary to parental or teacher demands, everybody doesn't do the same
thing as the primary authority commands. The question, "Would
everybody have done the same thing?" is only appropriate to these
two stories if the child said that the boy in the story acted on the
belief of peers. If the child states that the boy in the story acts ac-
cording to adult commands, he may have a primitive belief that
everybody acts as m own parents and teachers command, but
realizes that not all parents and teachers command the same thing.
Hence, if the child stated that the boy in the story acted upon the
belief of a primary authority, the investigator asked, "Would every-
body have done what their parent (teacher) said?" If the child an-
swered "Yes, " it was inferred that he had a primitive belief that

everybody did what their own parent (teacher) said.

26

The question, "How come ?" does not provide data for
any hypothesis. The original intent of this question was to help
clarify the child's response to the question, "What would you have
done if you were ?" During the interviews, the investigator
noted a large variety of responses to the "How come ?" question and
that the responses seem different for the different grades. After the
interviews were over, the investigator devised twenty exhaustive con-
tent categories for the responses to the question, "How come ?" Con-
tent categories one through nine apply when the child chooses a pri-
mary authority and categories ten through twenty apply when the child
chooses a secondary authority. The content categories are:

1. Unquestioned acceptance of primary authority, e. g. --
Father said so, To obey the teacher, She's boss, He's

supposed to, Can't cross without mommy or daddy,
Mommy said they were bad.

 

2. Acceptance of primary authority due to a negative eval-
uation of the environmental situation, e.g. --It isn't safe,
Father wasn't there, Bike is not strong enough, Nobody
to go across the street with.

3. Acceptance of primary authority due to a negative eval-
uation of disobedience, e.g. --He'd get spanked, They
would end up in trouble, The ball would pop, His father
might see him, Would get into a fight.

 

4. Acceptance of primary authority due to a negative eval-
uation of a secondary authority, e.g. --The children were
bad, Mr. Williams would trick them, They did naughty
things .

 

5. Acceptance of primary authority due to a negative eval-
uation of self for disobedience (or positive evaluation for
obedience), e. g. -—He didn't want to be naughty, To be
good, He's a good boy, He wasn't a sneaky guy.

 

10.

ll.

12.

l3.

14.

15.

27

Acceptance of primary authority due to a desire to please
or obey the primary authority, e.g. --To please the teacher,
He wanted to obey his mother.

 

Acceptance of primary authority due to a moral reason or
to a generalizable principle, e.g. --It wouldn't be nice, He
probably thought it was wrong because his father said he
shouldn't, So he wouldn't break his mother's rule, 'He goes
to church, He was honest.

 

Acceptance of primary authority due to a lack of interest

in the behavior suggested bJr the secondary authority, e.g. --
He didn't really want an ice cream. It's no more fun to feed
them than to watch them.

 

 

Acceptance of primary authority for a miscellaneous rea-
sons, e.g. --To please Susan, He was tired.

 

Acceptance of secondary authority due to own desires or
interests (direct or implied), e.g. --Because he wanted
to, It was fun, He had a surprise, He did it and he got
spanked, He was tired of watching the baby, There was
nothing else to do.

 

 

Acceptance of secondary authority due to a liking for or a
desire to please peers (a positive evaluation of peers),
e. g. -—They were friends, He wanted to give him a ride,
That would be friendly, Make up with them.

 

 

Acceptance of secondary authority due to peer behavior,
e. g. --They asked him, He met up with the boys, The
others were.

 

Acceptance of secondary authority due to reliance on a non-
parental adult, e.g.y--The teacher said it was safe, Mr.
Williams asked me to come over, The substitute was there.

 

 

Acceptance of secondary authority while following the
spirit, but not the letter, of the primary authority's com-
mand, e.g. --Susan was there, Mr. Williams was watching,
A teacher was on the playground.

 

 

Acceptance of secondary authority due to a relative rational
reason (not included in the above categories), e.g. --The
ducks are hungry, It has a passenger carrier, It was free,
Ice cream is good.

 

 

28

16. Acceptance of secondary authority due to a rejection of
the validity of the primary authority's command, e.g. --
My father wouldn't know if they're bad, I don't see any-
thing the matter with it, The teacher can't tell you what
to do after school lets out, They are not bad children,
They were nice children, It was all right.

 

 

l7. Acceptance of secondary authority due to inability of pri-
mary authority to enforce his command, e.g. --The tea-
cher wasn't there, Feed them until they wake up, If my
father didn't see me.

 

 

18. Acceptance of secondary authority due to a moral reason
or principle, e.g. --That's the right thing to do, Be polite
with them, It's better, He thought it was right.

 

 

19. Acceptance of secondary authority but S states that he is
bad, negligent, or has done wrong, e.g. --He wasn't
thinking of others, He did it but it was wrong, He didn't
think about it.

 

 

20. Acceptance of secondary authority for a miscellaneous
reason, e. g. --Tempted by evil.

 

When a child gave more than one answer to the ques-
tion, "How come ?, " each answer was separately scored°

Answers to the question, "How come. ?, " often suggested
a fear of punishment, e. g. , "He'd get spanked. , " and were scored
in category 3. In addition, some subjects mentioned a fear of punish-
ment in passing, stated that although they would not obey the primary
authority, they would be punished for their disobedience or stated
that those who do not obey will get punished. If a subject, at any
time during the questioning of a story, mentioned or implied a fear
of punishment, "fear of punishment" was scored. Some examples are:
They'll end up in trouble, They might see us doing it, His dad would

get afte r him .

29

In summary, there are eight different frequency scores

for each subject and for each of the four grade -age groups based on

the following clas sification:

A. Authority beliefs .

1. Parents vs. peers. -—The subject states or implies that

the boy in the story acted upon a command of a parent
when pitted against peers (stories A and D) .

. Non-parental adults vs. peers. --The subject states or

implies that the boy in the story acted upon a command
of a non-parental adult when pitted against peers (stories
B and E) .

. Parents vs. non-parental adults. --The subject states

or implies that the boy in the story acted upon a com-
mand of a parent when pitted against a non~parental
adult (stories C and F).

. Adults vs. peers. -—The subject states or implies that

the boy in the story acted upon a command of an adult
when pitted against peers (stories A, B, D, E) .

B. Primitive beliefs. --The subject implies that the belief
acted upon is primitive (stories A, B, C, D, E, F) .

C. Content categories. --The subject states his reasons for
acting upon the beliefs of different authorities (stories
A, B, C, D, E, F) . The twenty content categories are listed
on pages 26, 27, 28.

D. Miscellaneous categories.

1.

2.

The subject implies a fear of punishment (stories A,
B, C, D, E, F) .

The subject implies a hesitancy over disobeying pri-
mary authority (stories A, B, C, D, E, F).

In order to establish the reliability of the scoring of

the categories used to test the five hypotheses, the transcript was

scored by another rater. The percentage of agreement for A1 is

100%. A2 is 100%, A3 is 100%, A4 is 100%, and B is 97.5%.

RESULTS

Since it was not known whether responses to the ques-
tions, "What would you have done if you were ?" and "Would
everybody have done .the same thing?" were independent, chi-square
tests of independence were run for each story within each grade
(see Table 1) . No test was significant (p<. 10) . Belief in a parti-
cular authority and the primitiveness or non-primitiveness of the

belief appear to be separate dimensions.

Authority Beliefs

 

The means and variances of beliefs in the authority of
parents vs. peers, non-parental adults vs. peers, parents vs. non-
parental adults, and adults vs. peers are given in Table 2. Each
subject's score is the frequency with which he chose the primary
authorities. For example, since parents vs. peers is based on two
stories, a subject who did not choose any primary authorities has a
score of zero. If he chose only one primary authority, his score is
one. The maximum score on parents vs. peers, non-parental adults
vs. peers, and parents vs. non-parental adults is two, while the

maximum score on adults vs. peers is four.

30

31

Each comparison of primary vs. secondary authorities
was treated by an analysis of variance. For each analysis, and Fmax
test was run to test the reasonableness of the assumption of homo-
geneity of variance. Since none of the Fmax tests reached signifi-
cance (p<.05) , the assumption of homogeneity of variance was not
unduly violated. Although some of the distributions are skewed,
Norton ( 1952)has shown that violation of the assumption of normality

is insignificant with equality of samples of twenty subjects . All in-

dividual comparisons were made using the Newman-Keuls method.

Table 1. --X2 tests for independence of beliefs in authority and the
primitiveness of the beliefs.

 

 

Stories Kindergarten Second Grade Fourth Grade Sixth Grade

 

 

A .208 .375 .012 .008
B .141 .312 .417 1.579
c .078 2.679 .672 .014
D .278 .013 .619 .377
E 1.270 .800 .024 .303
F .010 .082 1.684 .114
Note: x2. 90 = 2.7, x?” = 1.33, x950 = .46, x225 = .10, xi) = .02.
Df =1

 

4 . . . .
The analy31s of variance by the F statistic and the New-
man-Keuls method are different statistical tests. It is possible to
have a significant F without any significant individual comparisons.

32

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33

For a hypothesis to be fully supported, the overall F
test must be significant, the means for the grades must decrease
with age, and at least one of the individual comparisons must be
significant. If the means only decrease for some of the grades,
the hypothesis is partially supported. For example, if the F test
is significant, the means decrease only from kindergarten, to se-
cond, to fourth grade, and the comparison between kindergarten and
fourth grade is significant, then the hypothesis is partially supported.

Parents vs. peers was not significant (see Table 3).
The mean score for choosing parents decreased from kindergarten
to second grade to fourth grade but it increased in the sixth grade
to a higher mean than that of the second grade. None of the indi—
vidual comparisons was significant although the difference between
kindergarten and fourth grade was almost significant. Hypothesis
Ila, the ratio of children's beliefs in the positive authority of adults
to beliefs in the positive authority of peers decreases with age, is
not supported.

There was a significant difference (p<.05) among
grades in choosing non-parental adult vs. peer authorities (see
Table 4) . Individual comparisons showed that kindergarten sub-
jects chose to! act on the authority of non-parental adults signifi—
cantly (p<.05) more often than second graders, fourth graders,

and sixth graders, but comparisons among the latter three grades

34

were not significant. This difference between kindergarten and other
subjects should be conservatively interpreted since the questioning
of kindergarten subjects differed slightly from that of the other sub-
jects.5 Since the mean for the sixth grade is larger than that for the
fourth grade, hypothesis IIb, the ratio of children's beliefs in the
positive authority of non-parental adults to beliefs in the positive

authority of peers decreases with age, is only partially supported.

Table 3. ---A.nalysis of variance for choosing parental vs. peer
authoritie s .

 

 

 

 

Source df SS MS F p
Grades 3 3.64 l. 21 2.043 NS
Error 76 45.05 . 592 -- ..
Total 79 7 48.69 -- —- --
Note: F = l. 32 NS
max

 

5See page 24.

35

Table 4. --Ana1ysis of variance for choosing non-parental vs. peer
authorities .

 

 

 

 

Source df 35 MS F p
Grades 3 5.84 1.946 4.037 (.05
Error 76 36.65 .482 -- ..
Total 79 42.29 -- —- ..
Note: F = 1.40 NS
max

There was a significant difference (p<.05) among
grades in choosing parental vs. non-parental adult authorities (see
Table 5) . But none of the individual comparisons was significant
although the decrease between kindergarten and second grade and
the increase between second and sixth grade approached significance.
Hypothesis III, the ratio of children's beliefs in the positive authority
of parents to beliefs in the positive authority of non-parental adults
decreases with age, is not supported since none of the individual com-
parisons was significant.

There was a significant difference (p<.05) among grades.
in choosing adult vs. peer authorities (see Table 6) . Individual com-
parisons showed that kindergarten subjects chose to act on the au-

thority of adults significantly (p<.05) more often than fourth graders.

36

Due to a slightly modified procedure for kindergarten subjects, this .
result should be conservatively interpreted.6 The decrease between
kindergarten and both second and sixth grade was almost significant.
Hypothesis II, the ratio of children's beliefs in the positive authority
of adults to beliefs in the positive authority of peers decreases with

age, is only partially supported since the mean for the sixth grade is

higher than that for the fourth grade.

Table 5. ---Analysis of variance for choosing parental vs. non-parental
adult authorities.

 

 

 

 

Source df SS MS F p
Grades 3 4.64 1.546 2.939 <.05
Error 76 40.05 .526 um ..
Total 79 44.69 -- -- ..
Note: F = 1.879 NS
max

 

6
See page 24 .

37

Table 6. --Analysis of variance for choosing adults vs. peer authorities.

 

 

 

 

Source df SS MS F p
Grades 3 17.1 5.7 3.448 (.05
Error 76 125.7 1.653 -- ..
Total 79 142.8 ~- -- --
Note: F = 1.216 NS
max

Pr imitivene s s of Be lie fs

 

The means and variances of primitive beliefs by grade
are given in Table 7. Hypothesis 1, the percentage of primitive beliefs
decreases as children increase in age, was not supported when tested
by an analysis of variance (see Table 8) . None of the individual com-
parisons among grades was significant.

Two possible explanations for the lack of significance
are: (1) that the different types of stories (e.g. parents vs. peers)
have a differential effect on primitiveness of beliefs, and (2) that
there is an interaction between types of stories and primitiveness of
beliefs. Both explanations were tested by an analysis of variance and
both effects were significant (p<.05) (see Table 8) . Individual com-
parisons on the types of stories showed significant (p<.05) differences

between the effects on primitiveness of beliefs of parent vs. peer

38

stories and both non‘parental adult vs. peer stories and parent vs.
non~parenta1 adult stories. The primary effect of the interaction

seems to be between the sixth grade and parent vs. peer stories (see

 

 

 

Figure 1) -

Table 7. --Means and variances of primitive beliefs by grades.

Primitive vs . Second Fourth Sixth

Nonprimitive Kindergarten Grade Grade Grade
3‘5 2. 55 2.10 1.2 1. 5
32 6.115 4.094 3.431 2.684

 

Note: N = 20 for each grade. Each measurement is based on six
stories per subject.

Table 8. --Analysis of variance for asserting primitive vs. nonprimi-
tive beliefs.

 

 

 

 

 

Source df SS MS F p
Between SS 19 110.96

A (grades) 3 7.31 2.43 1.78 NS
53 within

grades 76 103.65 1.36 -- ..
Within SS 160 34

B(types of 2 1. 5.2 .76 4.00 (.05
stories)

AB(grades x 6 2.98 .49 2.57 <.05
types of

stories)

B xSs within 152 29.50 .19 -- --
grades

Note: Ss within grades Fmax = 2.29 NS

BxSs within Fm = 2.01 NS

ax

1

39

x Responses

    
 

. 00 Kindergarten

   
 

Sixth Grade

Second Grade \

Fourth
Grade

 

 

 

I 1‘ 1 r
Parent vs. Peer Non-parental Parent vs. Non-
Stories Adult vs . Peer parental Adult
Stories Stories

Figure 1. --Interaction of types of stories and grades on primitiveness of
belief.

40

Content Categorie s

 

The frequencies for the twenty content categories are
given in Table 9. The frequencies in several of the categories are
too small for meaningful statistical comparisons and the frequencies
in some other categories do not appear to show significant differences
between grades. Statistical tests were made on content categories 1
(Unquestioned acceptance of primary authority), 3 (Acceptance of
primary authority due to a negative evaluation of disobedience), 7
(Acceptance of primary authority due to a moral reason or to a gen-
eralizable principle), 14 (Acceptance of secondary authority while
following the spirit, but not the letter, of the primary authority's
command), and 16 Acceptance of secondary authority due to a rejec-
tion of the validity of the primary authority's command) . Except for
category 1, where the variance was homogeneous, tests were made
using the Kruskal—Wallis H test, a non-parametric analog (based on
ranks) to a single classification analysis of variance.

Although the responses to category 1 nonsignificantly
decrease with age from kindergarten to second to fourth grade, the
overall F was not significant (see Table 10) probably because of the
sharp increase from fourth to sixth grade. Responses to category
3 also decreased up to the fourth grade and the differences between

grades were also not significant (see Table 11) . Differences between

41

grades in responses to content categories 7, 14, and 16 each signifi-
cantly (p<.025, p<.001, p<.05) increased with age from kindergarten

through sixth grade (see Table 11) .

Table 9. --Frequencies of content categories by grade.

 

 

 

. Second Fourth Sixth
Categories Kindergarten Grade Grade Grade
1. 34 29 22 31
2 7 3 2 5
3 24 10 7 l4
4 7 8 3 1
5 2 2 4 2
6 O 0 5 2
7 O 4 4 13
8 5 0 O l
9 1 0 2 0
10. 30 42 36 27
11 3 5 8 5
12. 8 11 8 8
13 3 4 6 2
l4. 3 3 13 20
15. 4 ll 10 9
16. 1 1 5 11
17. 1 1 4‘ 2
l8 0 1 0 1
19. 1 2 8 l
20. 1 O 3 0

 

42

Table 10. -—Analysis of variance of responses to content category 1.

 

 

 

 

Source df SS MS F p

Grades 3 3.90 l. 30 .62 NS

Error 76 157.90 2.07 -- --

Total 79 161.80 -- -- --

Note: F = 1.84 NS
max

Mis cellaneous Cate gorie s

 

The frequencies for fear of punishment and for hesitancy over
disobeying primary authority are given in Table 12. While kinder-
garten subjects and sixth grade subjects showed the greatest fear
of punishment, the differences between the grades were not signi-
ficant (see Table 13) as tested by the Kruskal-Wallis H test. Hesi-
tancy over disobeying primary authority decreases slightly from the
second to the fourth grade but drops for the sixth grade (see Table
12) . The differences were not significant (see Table 13) as tested

by the Kruskal-Wallis H test.

43

Table 11. --Kruskal-Wallis H test on content categories 3, 7, 14, and 16.

 

 

 

Category df H p
3. 3 5. 30* NS
7. 3 9.66* <.025
14. 3 16.3 <.001
16. 3 9.10* <.05

 

'“Corrected for tied ranks.

Table 12. --Frequencies of miscellaneous categories by grade.

 

 

 

Second Fourth Sixth
Categories Kindergarten Grade Grade Grade
Fear of Punish—
ment l3 6 9 l3
Hesitancy over Dis -
obeying Primary
Autho r ity * . 41 * >i< 3 9 2 2

 

=3
Kindergarten subjects were not scored on this variable.
J;

1 Scored on only 17 of the 20 second grade subjects.
See Page 24.

Table 13. -—Kruskal-Wa11is H test on miscellaneous categories .

 

 

Cate gory df H P

 

Fear of Punishment 3 1. 98* NS

Hesitance over Disobeying
Primary Authority 2 3. 04* NS

 

*Corrected for tied ranks.

DISCUSSION

 

The results are not clear cut. Hypothesis IIb, the pro-
portion of beliefs in non-parental as opposed to peer authority de-
creases with age, and hypothesis II, the proportion of beliefs in adult
(parents and non-parental adults) as opposed to peer authority de-
creases with age, were partially supported. Hypothesis IIa, the pro-
portion of beliefs in parental as opposed to peer authority decreases
with age, hypothesis III, the proportion of beliefs in parental as opposed
to non-parental adult authority decreases with age, and hypothesis 1,
the proportion of primitive beliefs decreases with age, were not sup-
ported. For each hypothesis there was an unpredicted increase in the
sixth grade along with the predicted decreases, except for hypothesis
III, from kindergarten to second, and to fourth grade.

There are several possible explanations for the increase
in reliance on primary authority by sixth grade subjects. The explan-
ations will be given for hypothesis 11, decrease in reliance on adult
authority with age, but are also applicable to the other three hypotheses
concerned with authority beliefs. First, the increase in reliance on
primary authority by sixth graders suggests that age trends are not

always linear. Perhaps reliance on adult authority levels off, or

44

45

reaches an asymptote, at the fourth grade; the sixth grade nonsigni-
ficant increase may be a random variation from the fourth grade asyrnp-
tote. Or reliance on adult authority may decrease with age, but not

in a smooth linear manner. Growth does not often proceed in an or-
derly fashion without both ups and downs. The relationship between

age and reliance on adult authority may be curvilinear. The present
work suggests that future investigations should use groups of older
children in order to ascertain whether the sixth grade increase was

due to randomvariation,a leveling-off process, or a curvilinear re-
lationship.

Second, it appears that the stories had a differential
effect on different age groups. The main concern while writing the
stories was whether they would be intelligible to the younger children,
not whether they would be very interesting to the sixth graders. The
situations depicted may not have been very relevant to most sixth
graders. For example, it is unlikely that many mothers of 12 and 13
year old boys would not allow their sons to cross the street by them—
selves. The sixth graders may have answered as they thought younger
children should, or would, do. The age span of the subjects, 5 to 14
was too broad for the stories used.

Third, the sixth graders seemed more concerned with
giving what they thought were the right answers, i.e. , agreeing with

the command of the primary authority, than in saying what they really

 

1

46

would have done. A number of sixth graders seemed to view the ex-
periment as a disguised test in which they felt they had to perform at
their best. It seemed to the investigator that the younger children
were much more open to the experimental situation than the sixth
grade children. The latter seemed more concerned with ”psyching
out" the experimenter, a newcomer to the school.

Fourth, the sixth grade is the highest grade at Kendon
School. The principal and teachers give sixth grade students more
responsibilities and privileges. While I was at the school, the prin-
cipal had a special luncheon for the Safety Patrol, which is composed
of sixth grade boys. A policeman was there as a special guest. It
seems that the sixth graders identified with the teachers and other
adults much more than the younger children.

Fifth, Piaget (1932) mentions, but does not elaborate,
an intermediate stage between constraint and autonomous morality.
In the intermediate stage, children internalize adult rules without
evaluating them. The increased acceptance of adult authority by
sixth graders suggests that they are in Piaget's intermediate stage
instead of in the stage of autonomous morality. This explanation is
supported by the data from Content Category 1, unquestioned accep-
tance of primary authority. The mean for the sixth grade was higher
than that of the second and fourth grades and almost as high as that

of the kinde rgarten .

 

47

Sixth, there may be qualitative differences in the reliance
on adult authority by sixth grade boys. Acceptance of primary au-
thority due to a moral reason or a generalizable principle (Content
Category 7), acceptance of secondary authority while following the
spirit, but not the letter, of the primary authority's command (Content
Category 14) , and acceptance of secondary authority due to a rejection
of the validity of the primary authority's command (Content Category
16) all significantly increase with age from kindergarten to sixth grade.
In addition, the biggest increase for each of these variables is between
fourth and sixth grade. Although the sixth graders show greater accep-
tance of adult authority than fourth graders, the former appear to be
more discriminating or selective in their acceptance of authority as
measured by these three categories. For example, one sixth grader
stated, "I would have went and played with them because if it's after
school the teacher hasn't got anything to do with it. It's you own time. "
Another sixth grader remarked, "If your dad, if he doesn't know the
children--he doesn't have any right to tell you that they're bad. " Both
of these boys accepted the commands of primary authorities in other
situations.

The interpretation of qualitative differences in accep-
tance of adult authority by sixth graders is weakened by the fact that
sixth graders showed a greater unquestioned acceptance of primary

authority (Content Category 1) than fourth graders. It seems clear,

48

however, that the sixth graders' reliance on adult authority is not
based on moral realism since the sixth graders made a greater dis-
tinction between the spirit and letter of the law (Content Category 14)
than any other age group.

Seventh, acceptance of adult authority by sixth graders
may be related to fear of punishment. Spontaneous mention of fear
of punishment was highest in both kindergarten and sixth grade sub-
jects . The fear of negative reinforcement may play a more important
role in the acceptance of adult commands by sixth graders than by
second or fourth graders. However, hesitancy over disobeying pri-
mary authority decreases with age from second, to fourth, and to
sixth grade. Thus the sixth graders are highest on fear of punish-
ment and lowest on hesitancy over disobeying authority. These ap-
parently contradictory findings suggest that the sixth grade is a less
homogeneous group than the other grades regarding acceptance of
adult authority, perhaps because it is a major transitional period
with groups of subjects at several different levels of development.

Hypothesis III, the proportion of beliefs in parental as
opposed to non-parental adults decreases with age, was not supported.
Both fourth and sixth graders more heavily relied on parents than
second graders. The increased reliance on parents may indirectly
be related to the increase in fear of punishment with age. Fear of

punishment was mainly fear of parental punishment. Rarely was a

49

child afraid of punishment by the teacher. The increased fear of
parental punishment may have resulted in increased obeyance of
parental as opposed to non-parental adult commands .

Hypothesis 1, the proportion of primitive as opposed
to nonprimitive beliefs decreases with age, was not supported;
although the proportion of primitive beliefs decreased to the fourth
grade it increased in the sixth. The increase appears to be due,
in part, to the lack of equivalent effects of the different types (e. g. ,
parent versus peer) of stories on primitiveness of belief. Parent
versus peer stories seem to elicit more primitive beliefs than the
two other types of stories when measured over grades. More im-
portantly, different types of stories have a differential effect on
grades. Sixth graders scored higher than second and fourth graders
in primitiveness of beliefs on stories A and D (parents versus peer)
but lowest of all the grades on the other four stories. Thus the
increase in primitiveness of belief for sixth graders appears to be
an artifact of stories A and D. In story A, the boy's father told
him that his new friends were bad and in Story D, his father told
him not to feed the zoo animals although other children were.

The relative lack of differences in primitiveness of
belief may be because the children sampled are too old to show
many primitive beliefs in response to the questions asked. Even

the kindergarten subjects indicated that over half their beliefs were

50

nonprimitive. The variable of primitiveness of belief should be tested
on younger children.

Piaget contended that as the child grows older, he be-
comes less subject to adult constraint. The present investigation sup-
ports Piaget regarding kindergarten, second, and fourth grade boys.
Contrary to Piaget, the sixth graders of the present sample seemed
to be more subject to adult constraint than second or fourth grade
subjects as measured by reliance on adult authority. Although there
is probably a trend toward autonomy and away from adult constraint,
the present investigation suggests that the trend is not linear. Per-
haps there is some regression to an earlier level when children are
in a period of transition between stages. Piaget may have thought of
an inc r e a s‘.e in unque s tio ne (1 acceptance of adult values when
he mentioned his intermediate stage between adult constraint and au-
tonomous morality. The increased ability to generalize moral prin-
ciples, to follow the spirit, rather than the letter, of the adult's com-
mand, and the decrease in hesitancy over disobedience suggest that
some kind of internalization is taking place in some of the sixth grade
subjects.

The present work does not support Piaget's assertion
that children reach the stage of autonomous morality by the age of
ten. This may be due to the particular sample of American children

and to the differences in tasks and methods used.

51

Piaget also contended that as the child grows older, he
becomes less egocentric, that is, he is more able to take the view of
others. If the increase in primitiveness of beliefs by sixth graders
is not due to the differential effects of stories, then the present study
implies that a form of egocentrism may become prominent in the sixth
grade subjects.

This investigation has shown that Rokeach's framework
of belief systems can be applied to child development research. His
assertion that reliance on adult authority decreases with age was sup-
ported for kindergarten, second, and fourth grade boys, but not for
sixth graders. Rokeach's statement that primitiveness of belief de-
creases with age was not supported although the trend was as he pre-

I

dicted for kindergarten, second, and fourth grades. The present in-
vestigation also suggests an addition to Rokeach‘s (1964) discussion
of the development of authority beliefs. He stated that the young child
almost exclusively relies on the parents as authorities. As the child
becomes older, according to Rokeach, other adults such as teachers
and relatives also become authorities. The present investigation
shows that it is not enough to know only who are the child's authorities
in order to predict his behavior regarding authority figures. It is
also necessary to know to what extent, or under what circumstances,

a child will rely on an authority. It was found that even though older

children may have a larger number of authorities than younger

52

children, they still view their parents as the primary authorities to
be trusted. On sixth grade boy aptly stated, ”Well, he must have
gotten specific orders from his mother, and I would not think that his
teacher was the same as his mother. " Another sixth grader said, "I
think his mother had more feeling for his safety than his teacher
would. " In short, besides knowing who are the authorities for a child,
it is also necessary to know to what extent they will be relied on by
the Child.

In sum, the present investigation has shown that reliance
on adult authority as opposed to peer authority decreases from kinder-
garten, to second, and to fourth grade, but increases in the sixth
grade. It was found that reliance on parental authority as opposed to
non-parental adult authority does not appreciably decline with age .
Primitive beliefs did not significantly decrease with age, probably
due to artifacts of the stories used. Although the method used needs
further refining, the investigation has shown that Piaget's clinical
method can be partially standardized without giving up important
data. It was also found that small differences in stories and questions
influenced the subjects responses, especially those of older children.
The investigation has also shown that situational factors are very im-
portant in whether a child will accept an adult command. It further

suggests that age trends are not always linear.

 

53

Further research on the development of beliefs in au-
thority should be concerned with both younger and older subjects than
those of the grade—school age range. Do junior high school subjects
continue to show increases in primitiveness of belief and acceptance
of adult authority? To what extent do small modifications in wording
of stories and questions effect the responses given? What forms of
questions elicit what types of responses ? Under what conditions will
children accept adult authority and under what conditions won't they?
To what extent is acceptance of adult authority based on fear of pun-
ishment or anticipation of positive reinforcement? Are there sex dif-
ferences in the development of beliefs in authority? Are there age
differences in the acceptance of male and female authorities ? What
are the personality correlates of reliance on adult authority at dif-
ferent age levels ? How are child rearing practices related to the
child's conception of authority relationships ? Future research will

have to answer these questions.

 

SUMMARY

 

This research was concerned with exploring changes
with age in both children's beliefs about authority and the universality
of their authority beliefs. The theoretical framework for the research
was Piaget's theory of moral development and Rokeach's discription
of belief systems.

A review of the literature indicated that although many
investigators have been concerned with different aspects of moral
development, none has been specially concerned with the development
of authority relationships.

There were four groups of 20 boys each in kindergarten,
second, fourth, and sixth grade. Each boy was tested individually.

The hypotheses tested were:

I. The percentage of primitive beliefs decreases as children
increase in age.

11. The ratio of children's beliefs in the positive authority of
adults to beliefs in the positive authority of peers decreases
with age.

Ma. The ratio of children's beliefs in the positive authority of
parents to beliefs in the positive authority of peers decreases
with age.

11b. The ratio of children's beliefs in the positive authority of non-
parental adults to beliefs in the positive authority of peers
decreases with age.

54

 

55

III. The ratio of children's beliefs in the positive authority of
parents to beliefs in the positive authority of non-parental
adults decreases with age.

In order partially to objectify Piaget's clinical method,
six semi-projective stories were written. In the two stories used to
test hypothesis IIa, the child had to choose between parents and peers.
In the two stories used to test hypothesis IIb, the child had to choose
between non—parental adults and peers. These four stories were used
to test hypothesis II, in which the child had to choose between adults
and peers. Two additional stories were used to test hypothesis III,
in which the child had to choose between parents and non—parental
adults. Hypothesis 1 was tested by all six stories. The stories were

written so that the child would prefer to choose the latter authority

of each combination. The subjects were questioned about each story

in a prescribed manner. The three primary questions were: "What
would you have done if you were (name of boy—in story) ?, " "How

 

come ?, " and "Would everybody have done the same thing? " The first
question provides data for hypotheses II, Ila, IIb, and III while the
third question provides data for hypothesis 1; on the basis of the re-
sponses to the second question, 20 content categories were devised
to help explain why the child chose the authority he did.

The results showed that hypothesis II, beliefs in adult
authority decrease with age, and hypothesis IIb, beliefs in non-

parental adult authority decrease with age, were partially supported--

 

56

for kindergarten, second, and fourth grades, but not for the sixth grade.
The other three hypotheses were not supported, but the results were
in the predicted direction for kindergarten, second, and fourth grade
(except for hypothesis III).

The study has shown that Rokeach's belief system can be
applied to child developmental research. The implication for Piaget's
theory is that the transition from adult constraint to autonomous .
morality is not a simple matter. It was suggested that although the
sixth grade subjects showed greater reliance on adult authority, they
were more selective and discriminating in their acceptance of adult
authority than younger boys. It was found that small differences in

the stories and questions differentially effected different, age groups.

 

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