Predictors of moral thought in two contrasting adolescent samples

This study investigated the consistency of the finding that family cohesion and adaptability are significant predictors of adolescent moral thought. To test this, 175 adolescents from a metropolitan population (Sample 1) and 146 from an urban fringe population (Sample 2) were administered White's (1997) revised Moral Authority Scale, Olson et al.'s (1992) Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale, and a family demographic questionnaire. A linear relation between family cohesion and family and equality sources of moral authority was found in both samples. However, the significant linear relation between family adaptability and total source influence score found in Sample 1 was not found in Sample 2. This finding might result from the heterogeneity of sociocultural factors across the samples; post hoc analyses suggested that sociocultural factors might play an important moderating role in the relation between family adaptability and adolescent moral thought.