Medical Students: Moral Judgment Competence Stagnates

Does helping behavior determine moral development? Various theories predict such a causal relationship. In his study Dr. Georg Lind wanted to answer the question: "Does the participation in an institution with high prosocial aims and value - either through internalization, or through sozial pressure, or through role-taking opportunities - increase the moral development of its members?"

In a series of representative surveys in Germany, conducted every two year, medical students, more than any other group of university students express that their study fails to provide them with social and communicative competencies needed in their profession.

"Our findings show that higher education has almost no impact on students´ moral attitudes. Over the whole range of seven years, from the first to the 13th semester, the mean moral attitudes are almost invariant", Dr. Lind reports. "It seems that young adults´ moral ideology is not influenced by such a mighty social institution as a medical school. Our data do not support social learning theory, which claims that persons of all ages are influenced by the social institutions of which they are members."

On the other side Lind concludes "that higher education promotes students´ ability to make judgments consistent with their moral principles rather than presses students to change their moral attitudes. The impact of medical education differs markedly from this; first semester medical students start on a high level. Yet over their time of study, their moral judgment competence stagnates or even regresses. This is, as far as I know, the only field of study in which such a phenomenon has ever been observed."