Moral judgment among alcohol-other drug dependent persons in recovery

The moral judgment of 114 male alcohol-other drug dependent persons in various stages of recovery was tested by Rest's Defining Issues Test (DIT). Two hypotheses were tested: (a) the moral judgment of participants will be positively correlated with recovery variables such as sobriety period, holding a job, participation in NA, ending criminal behavior and (b) participants treated in a unit that emphasizes sociomoral issues will present higher levels of moral judgment. Neither of the hypotheses were corroborated. A noticeable result is that the moral judgment of the participants was found to correspond to that of the lower age norm group. Several possible explanations for the results are offered, alongside implications for treatment and for further research.