Ego Development and Affective Deviance: Implications for Stage-Sequential Measures

Abstract

This investigation sought to develop measures of ego and moral development able to be used by staff, with little theoretical knowledge of stage-sequential development, who work with disturbed and delinquent youngsters. - Cognitive-developmental theorists such as Loevinger, (1975) and Kohlberg, (1971) have empirically defined methods and measures but these are too complex for everyday use. Such youngsters, as above, are often identified by their inappropriate, immature or amoral actions, thus revealing a lack of psychological maturity. Smith, (1975) found such youngsters to have marked developmental lag and a secondary aim of this study was to investigate the relationship of such immaturity to established deviance. A number of studies concerned with ego, moral and ideal-self development, maladjustment, delinquency and treatment are discussed in the text. Simplification of an amalgam of such theorists as Loevinger (ibid.), Kohlberg (ibid.), Bull (1969a), H. S. Sullivan (1953), Piaget (1932), C. Sullivan, Grant and Grant (1957), Peck and Havighurst (1960), etc., (listed in order of influence on this study) could not be at the expense of accurate comparability and newly developed measures needed to closely correlate with those of established theorists. Psychological immaturity has been shown in this study to be related to degree of deviance and also the “developed measures of ego and moral development, S.0.A.E.D. and S.0.A.M.D., respectively, highly correlate with established measures.