PSYCHOLOGY MASTER'S THESIS ABSTRACT

Michael Torres

Industrial/Organizational
August 1993
 

The Relationship Between Level of Moral Development and Leadership

    The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between level of moral development and leadership in MBA students.  It was hypothesized that level of moral development is positively related to leadership abilities and a democratic-cooperative decision mode.

    Fifty MBA students (mean age = 29.72) served as subjects (24 males and 26 females), and completed The Sociomoral Reflection Objective Measure-Short Form (SROM-SF) and the Leadership Ability Evaluation-Revised (LAE). Significance tests were performed on the correlation between moral stage and total leadership ability, and between moral stage and the specifically preferred decision mode.
    A Pearson r revealed that both hypothesis were nonsignificant at the p > .05 level.  Possible source of error may have been the appropriateness of the LAE, as well as the restrictive range of SROM-SF scores.  Future research should utilize more recent leadership assessment measures, as well as exploring the use of other moral development assessment instruments.

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