（Preliminary Draft）

A Preliminary Survey on the Cadets’ Moral Reasoning and Attitudes toward Authoritarianism, Collectivism, and Filial Piety of Two Military Academies in Taiwan

Wei-Lee Lu¹, Fon-Yean Chang², Sheng-Te Chang³, Jong-Yun Hao¹, Tien-Hsing Yang¹,

Chih-Ping Wang⁴, Chih-Hung Lee¹, and Yiing-Jeng Yang¹

¹Department of Applied Science, Chinese Naval Academy, Tso-Ying, Kao-Hsiung, Taiwan.

E-mail: wllu@cna.edu.tw

²Graduate Institute of Educational Psychology and Counseling, National Pingtung Teachers’ College, Pingtung, Taiwan.

³Department of Political Science, Chinese Naval Academy, Tso-Ying, Kao-Hsiung, Taiwan.

⁴Department of Literature and History, Chinese Naval Academy, Tso-Ying, Kao-Hsiung, Taiwan.

Abstract

This report discusses our effort of understanding the cadet’s current moral judgment status under the context of Chinese history, culture, and society in order to design a more suitable Military Professional Ethics Scale (MPES) for us to use as an assessment tool. Five psychological scales have been launched in this study: (1) Chinese version of the Defining Issues Test. (2) Authoritarianism Scale. (3) Collectivism Scale. (4) Individualism Scale. (5) Filial Piety Scale. With the findings, we hope that we can get a current moral judgment profile of the cadets’, and provide us a more clearer and direction of future new MPES and Military Professional Ethics Curriculum (MPEC) development.

Keywords: Military Ethics, Professional Ethics, Applied Ethics, Defining Issue Test, Authoritarianism Scale, Collectivism Scale, Individualism Scale, and Filial Piety Scale.

I. Introduction

Developing a moral reasoning scale is crucial in either developing a military ethic curriculum or as a tool for the assessment of a related teaching course. In light of this importance, we have directed our research strategy to the development of a new MPES as the starting point for the development of a future military professional ethics curriculum. However, there are two points should be considered before a reliable and valid MPES to be developed. Firstly, a general survey of the current moral reasoning status in related to some of the military education characteristics under Chinese historical, cultural, and social context is necessary for pointing out the scale designing direction. Secondly, the current assessment tools are mostly borrowed from the western society in which different values embedded. This might not be suitable or fair for the explanation of the assessment results.

In respond to these two issue, this study uses the other four psychological scales in addition to DIT, to understand the psychological and moral development of two military academies in our country.

II. Backgrounds and Context

This section discusses some historical and cultural context that embedded in our military core values and the basic theories of our study are based. Taiwanese military core values are somewhat different from that of American military academies. The core values of USMA and USNA are duty, honor, country and honor, courage, commitment, respectively. However, the core values for Taiwan’s military academies are namely: the Three Principles of the People (a theory developed by the founding father of our country, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen), leader of the country, country, duty, and honor.

Cadets, officers, and all the military enlisted should believe in the Three Principles of the People. Besides this, all the military service man and woman should obey the volition of the leader of the country, they loyal to the country and the interest of the country is the first priority. To defend for the country and the nation is their vocation. They cherish their honor and should accomplish their mission even sacrifice their own life (Training course for the 1^st class cadets, in Chinese, edited by the Political Warfare Branch (PWB), Department of Defense, 1990).

This training course was directed by our late president Chang Kai-Shek and the PWB in 1953. Two more values were added (in compare to most of the western military academies) in responding to the political context of our country at that time.

The moral character of a military team leader were also instructed by Chang Kai-Shek as referring to the ideal of Sun-Tze and Karl von Clausewitz.

As master Sun said: “The traits of the true commander are: wisdom, humanity, respect, integrity, courage, and dignity. With his wisdom he humbles the enemy, with his humanity he draws the people near to him, with his respect he recruits men of talent and character, with his integrity he makes good on his rewards, with his courage he raises the morale of his men, and with his dignity he unifies his command”. The moral character of the cadets should be (as instructed by Chang Kai-Shek): wisdom, integrity, humanity, courage, and dignity in our country.

As we can see, the core values and moral characters of the Taiwanese military service man and woman are different from those of the western cultures. Furthermore, Taiwanese are tends to more about guanxi or relationship oriented in their daily life. Even we have our military core values and moral characters, questions about the degree of the internalization of these core values and moral characters are still exists.

The survey in this work is tried to use various popular psychological scales, for the first time, to probe some characteristics of the Taiwanese military cadets’ and compare with the historical norms that has been established in the past twenty years.

III. Method

1. Instruments

(1) The Chinese version of the Defining Issues Test (DIT). This scale is originally developed by James Rest and was translated in Chinese and surveyed by B. J. Lin (1986) for 4128 three-year college, undergraduate, and graduate subjects in Taiwan as sample. The test-retest reliability and estimation of internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha coefficient) of this Chinese version are 0.5751 and 0.5388 respectively for the P% score, which are comparable with Rest’s (1974) work. The validity of this version, however, is not quite comparable with Rest’s (1974) work in that: (a) Although there are significant difference between the DIT score of the three-year college students and university students; however, the difference is inconsistent regarding the response of some questions on certain moral levels. For Rest (1974), the moral concept of four-year university students should be higher than the college students in their response of higher-level oriented questions for all the six stories that based on the affect of the time of education. (b) Same results as (a) are also found in the comparison between the three-year college students and graduate students. (c) There seems no significance and consistent gender difference of the P% score. According to Lin (1986), this might be that the test subjects are all with higher education background, in contrast to Rest’s (1974) results with subject’s educational background from primary school all to the graduate students. In general, the Chinese version of the DIT seems suitable for a preliminary study in our study.

(2) The Authoritarianism Scale is developed from Yang’s Modernistic (1989), Rokeach’s Dogmatism (1960), Adorno’s California Fascism (1950), Forbes’ Authoritarianism, and Atlemeyer’s Right-Wing Authoritarianism (1988) Scales by Chang (1993, 2000). Four constructs, strong demand for authority, disregard colleagues, value or respect the elder and curriculum vitae, and toleration of different opinion is included in this scale. This scale has been survey by Chang (1993, 2000) for subjects form USA, Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong, with a reliability coefficient of .70.

(3) The Collectivism Scale is originally developed by Triandis (1986) and later revised by Chang (1993, 2000) for cross-cultural study. Four constructs, the self-reliance with hedonism, the separation from in-group, the family integrity, and interdependence and sociability, are included in this scale. The original idea of the scale is that the family integrity and interdependence and sociability constructs are the index of collectivism and the self-reliance with hedonism and separation from in-group are the index of individualism. This scale has also been survey by Chang (1993, 2000) for subjects form USA, Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong, with a reliability coefficient of .60.

(4) The Concept of Filial-Piety Scale is collected form Yang’s (1988, 1989) and Ho’s (1974) scales by Chang (1993, 2000). Five constructs, psychological attachment, obedience, mutual dependence of the material, obligation of family posterity bearing, relation of parent versus spouse. This scale has been survey by Chang (1993, 2000) for subjects form Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. A reliability coefficient of .78 has been found in Chang’s (1993, 2000) study.

2. Subject

(1) Subjects: The test subjects were 519 cadets of two military academies (called academy A and B respectively) in Taiwan. A cross-sectional view of the cadets’ moral judgment, and attitudes toward authoritarianism, collectivism, and filial piety, ranges from 1^st class to 4^th class cadets.

a. Academy A: (a) DIT pretest (test time: late October to early November when the 4^th class cadets are enter the school) and DIT posttest (test time: late June to early July when the 1^st class cadets are going to graduate). (b) Other tests: personal background, authoritarianism, collectivism, and filial piety scales. (test time：late June to early July when the 1^st class cadets are going to graduate).

b. Academy B: (a) DIT posttest (test time: late June to early July when the 1^st class cadets are going to graduate). (b) Other tests: personal background, authoritarianism, collectivism, and filial piety scales. (test time：late June to early July when the 1^st class cadets are going to graduate).

IV. Results

1. DIT:

a. Pretest (statistical results of the valid questionnaire of academy A):

The number of valid questionnaire is: 4^th class (66 cadets), 3^rd class (47 cadets), 2^nd class (53 cadets), and 1^st class (49 cadets) and the average P% score are 41.39, 37.59, 40.35, and 34.73 for each of the class respectively. Average P% for the total cadets is 38.72. The F value of the One Way ANOVA is 3.028, with a significance of .03. Post Hoc test (by using the Bonferroni method) shows that there is a significance difference of the P% score between the 4^th class and 1^st class cadets (with a .05 significance confidence level), that is, the P% score of the 4^th class cadets’ is higher than the 1^st class cadets’.

b. Posttest (statistical results of the valid questionnaire of academy A):

The valid questionnaires are: 4^th class (61 cadets), 3^rd class (43 cadets), 2^nd class (52 cadets), and 1^st class (76 cadets) and the average P% score are 39.29, 40, 37.08, and 38.2 for each of the class respectively. One Way ANOVA show that there is no significance difference among the subject groups.

c. Posttest (statistical results of the valid questionnaire of academy B):

The valid questionnaires are: 4^th class (95 cadets), 3^rd class (58 cadets), 2^nd class (52 cadets), and 1^st class (82 cadets) and the average P% score are 37.47, 36.58, 34.9, and 36.83 for each of the class respectively. One Way ANOVA also show that there is no significance difference among the subject groups.

d. Comparison between pretest and posttest for each class in both academies is not possible due to that the test was launched under anonymous policy and we did not make any special mark on each questionnaire.

e. The moral stage distribution profile:

(a) For the academy A, the percentage of the number of subjects for the moral stage distribution of the 4^th class is: 17% for stage2, 11% for stage 3, 16% for stage 4, 8% for stage 5, and 10% for stage 6 respectively. As for the 1^st class, the moral stage distribution is: 21% for stage2, 16% for stage 3, 10.5% for stage 4, 7% for stage 5, and 4% for stage 6 respectively.

(b) For the academy B, the percentage of the number of subjects for the moral stage distribution of the 4^th class is: 25% for stage2, 16% for stage 3, 21% for stage 4, 9% for stage 5, and 5.5% for stage 6 respectively. As for the 1^st class, the moral stage distribution is: 11% for stage2, 10% for stage 3, 29% for stage 4, 7.5% for stage 5, and 7.5% for stage 6 respectively.

2. Attitude toward authoritarianism:

The average score and standard deviation of the attitude toward authoritarianism of academy A’s are 6.37and 0.75 and for academy B’s are 6.25 and 0.95 respectively. The t-test shows the average score of the academy A is higher that academy B with a confidence level of P<.000. As for the comparison between the cadets’ score with the historical data of undergraduate students form different countries, the score of attitude toward authoritarianism for the Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and US are 5.36, 5.39, 5.16, 5.29, and 4.89 respectively.

3. Attitude toward collectivism:

The average score and standard deviation of the attitude toward collectivism of academy A’s are 7.10 and 0.89 and for academy B’s are 6.94 and 1.06 respectively. The t-test shows the average score of the academy A is higher that academy B with a confidence level of P<.05. As for the comparison between the cadets’ score with the historical data of undergraduate students form different countries, the score of attitude toward collectivism for the Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and US are 5.36, 5.39, 5.16, 5.29, and 4.89 respectively.

4. Attitude toward individualism:

The average score and standard deviation of the attitude toward individualism of academy A’s are 5.00 and 0.92 and for academy B’s are 4.84 and 0.94 respectively. The t-test shows no significant difference between the average score of the academy A and B. As for the comparison between the cadets’ score with the historical data of undergraduate students form different countries, the score of attitude toward collectivism for the Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and US are 4.78, 4.71, 4.70, 4.76, and 4.82 respectively.

5. Attitude toward traditional filial piety:

The average score and standard deviation of the attitude toward filial piety of academy A’s are 6.38 and 0.74 and for academy B’s are 6.21 and 0.85 respectively. The t-test shows the average score of the academy A is higher that academy B with a confidence level of P<.05. As for the comparison between the cadets’ score with the historical data of undergraduate students form different countries, the score of attitude toward collectivism for the Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore are 5.40, 5.89, 5.10 and 5.77 respectively.

6. Correlation among the scores of different scales:

(a) Correlation among attitudes toward authoritarianism, collectivism, individualism, and filial piety:

Table below shows the results of the correlation among various political attitudes of the academy A.

	Authoritarianism	Collectivism	Individualism	Filial Piety
Authoritarianism	－	－	－	－
Collectivism	.393**	－	－	－
Individualism	.209**	-.051	－	－
Filial Piety	.312**	.336**	-.058	－

**P<.01, *P<.05

Table below shows the results of the correlation among various political attitudes of the academy B.

	Authoritarianism	Collectivism	Individualism	Filial Piety
Authoritarianism	－	－	－	－
Collectivism	.298**	－	－	－
Individualism	.200**	-.115*	－	－
Filial Piety	.389**	.279**	-.003	－

**P<.01, *P<.05

(b) Correlation between the P% score and attitudes toward authoritarianism, collectivism, individualism, and filial piety:

Table below shows the results of the correlation between the P% score and attitudes toward authoritarianism, collectivism, individualism, and filial piety of the academy A.

	Authoritarianism	Collectivism	Individualism	Filial Piety
Authoritarianism
Collectivism	.399**
Individualism	.217**	-.054
Filial Piety	.396**	.319**	.167
DIT P%	-.084	.099	-.140**	-.089

**P<.01

Table below shows the results of the correlation between the P% score and attitudes toward authoritarianism, collectivism, individualism, and filial piety of the academy A.

	Authoritarianism	Collectivism	Individualism	Filial Piety
Authoritarianism
Collectivism	.288**
Individualism	.210**	-.106
Filial Piety	.491**	.335**	.178**
DIT P%	-.028	.192**	-.113	-.051

**P<.01

V. Summary

This work reports cadets’ moral judgment status and political attitudes of the two military academies in Taiwan. We find that (1) the cadets’ moral judgment is influenced by the current military education context, and (2) Cadets’ attitudes toward authoritarianism, collectivism, individualism, and filial piety are also connected with the current military education context.

In general, the dimensions such as authoritarianism, collectivism, and filial piety are all a positive attitudes for being a good soldier in the Chain of Command, however we also note that these positive characters might be negative for moral judgment. Therefore, the calls for a professional military ethics curriculum should not be underestimate for the intensification of the cadets’ higher moral standards for being a “true” good soldier. Here we should also point out that care has to be taken to the interpretation of the results above as we all know that all the psychological scales has their own philosophical point of view and limitation, and the interpretation we have made should not be over emphasis in a broad sense.

The results of the report should also provide an important reference for the design of our future new Military Professional Ethics Scale especially in the selection of the dilemmas to be used in order to develop the new scale that is more suitable under our own cultural, historical, and social context.

VI. Implications of this study

This report is the second year’s result of the project “The Ethics Aspect Study of the Military Science Education”. It is a multi-year project and the strategy and the future work of the study will be: (1) to build up an appropriate MPES for a proper assessment of the progress of the military professional ethics education. (2) To use the reliable and valid MPES as a base to develop a MPEC. (3) To use the MPES to assess the progress of the MPEC. (4) To improve the reliability and validity of the PMES iteratively. (5) To improve the course content of the MPEC to be more suitable for our educational context. It is our hope to be more aware about the progress of our own cadet’s moral judgment development under current military education curriculum.

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Acknowledgement

This work is supported by the National Science Council Taiwan, under the contract NSC 89-2516-S-012-001. Special thanks would goes to professor S. N. Chang of the National Taitung Teachers’ College, who generously let us to use his Authoritarianism, Collectivism, and Filial Piety Scales. Professor K. K. Huang and professor K. S. Yang of the National Taiwan University are also acknowledged for their kindly advices. Finally, Professor C. F. Cherng of the Chinese Air Force Academy giving us many precious suggestions and helps is also appreciated.