The moral judgment of gifted adolescents

The purpose of this study is to examine the moral judgment ability of gifted adolescents by using two assessments to test both abstract and concrete moral judgment. Preliminary evidence suggests that gifted adolescents differ from their non-gifted peers in their ability to think about moral issues abstractly and concretely. The study's participants included 52 students enrolled in the gifted program at a public suburban high school in the Midwestern region of the United States. Each student completed (1) the Defining Issues Test (DIT) and (2) the Adolescent Intermediate Concepts Measure (AD-ICM).;Results on the DIT indicate that gifted adolescents outperform their non-gifted counterparts and often think about moral issues as college students and adults in general do. The mean P score, measuring post conventional moral thinking, for the sample was 40.95 and was significantly different (p<.001) from the mean for adolescents overall (31.03). Gifted adolescents were also significantly different in all other stage scores except stage 3, indicating that the profile for gifted adolescents differs in many ways. When compared to mean scores for various groups, gifted adolescents did not differ significantly from adults in general or college students. Female students in the sample did not differ from norms for female graduate students. These results suggest that gifted adolescents do, in fact, differ from their non-gifted peers in abstract moral reasoning.;Similarly, the results based on gifted adolescents AD-ICM scores indicate that this group thinks about concrete moral issues differently than their non-gifted peers. Specifically, the sample differed significantly from delinquent students and 9th and 10th grade students for all sub scores. The scores were similar to those of college students. Overall, the sample outperformed all high school and college samples in the ability to identify bad action choices and reasons.;Based on these findings, moral and character education programs designed for high school students may not be sufficient to improve the moral thinking of gifted adolescents. Although moral and character education is important for all children, it is perhaps more vital for gifted students given that they are likely to become future leaders in a variety of professions.