Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

The relationship of ego development, empathy, and mature moral judgment in women graduate counseling students

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  • The central problem of this study was to determine whether ego stage scores are valid predictors of empathy and mature moral judgment in women graduate counseling students. The research was based on the theories of ego development (Loevinger, 1976), empathy (Rogers, 1975; Hogan, 1975) and moral values (Hogan, 1970). Forty-three women graduate counseling students and a comparison group of twenty-one women graduate post secondary education students contributed data. Subjects completed the Washington University Sentence Completion Test of ego development, the Empathy Scale, which is embedded in the California Psychological Inventory, Hogan's Measure of Moral Values, and a Demographic Data Survey. Faculty ratings of graduate counseling students' ego development, empathic ability, and maturity of moral judgment were obtained. Analysis of the data found that the mean ego level for counseling graduate students was I-4 and the mean level for the post-secondary education graduate students was I-3/4. A t test found a significant difference (p = .01) between the mean ego level of the groups. Regression analysis assessed the influence of ego level on empathy score and mature moral judgment scores for both groups. Ego level was found to predict empathy (p = .05) for the post secondary education students but not for the counseling students. Ego level also predicted maturity of moral judgment (p = .01) for the post secondary education students. Increasing ego level corresponded to incrementally increasing empathy scores and mature moral judgment scores at each level prior to I-5 in the graduate counseling group. Regression analysis demonstrated a correlation (p = .004) between higher ego level and less childhood happiness for the post secondary education group. There were no other significant findings for demographic variables. Similarly, significant correlations were not found for faculty ratings and scores obtained by subjects on measures of ego development, empathy, and moral judgment. Implications for counselor selection and training were discussed and recommendations were made for further research.
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