The stage sequence concept in cognitive and social development

Presents a model for cognitive and social developmental stages that preserves the concept of ordered stages without assuming that Ss exhibit reasoning at the same developmental stage regardless of the situation. The model was tested on 174 undergraduates' responses to a sentence completion test of ego development (J. Loevinger et al, 1970) and on 169 undergraduates' responses to a paragraph completion test of cognitive complexity (O. J. Harvey et al, 1961). On the ego development and cognitive complexity measures, 69% and 72% respectively, of the Ss displayed responses consistent with the stage ordering model. Data partially support dependency predictions suggested by the stage model. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).