[1] The University of Minnesota formally established the Center for the Study of Ethical Development[2] as a vehicle for research around this test in 1982.
Conversely, when a respondent reads an issue statement that is either construed as nonsensical or overly simplistic, the item receives a low rating.
At the maintaining norms reasoning level, law and authority are important, as each of these helps to uphold social order, which is paramount to this schema.
At the post-conventional reasoning level, laws are not simply blindly accepted (as with the maintaining norms schema) but are scrutinized in order to ensure society-wide benefit.
For example, the civil rights movement was a product of postconventional reasoning, as followers were most concerned with the society-wide effects of inequality.
[5][6] One of the Defining Issues Test's original purposes was to assess the transition of moral development from adolescence to adulthood.