1st Edition

Meaning, measurement, and correlates of moral development

Edited By Daniel Brugman, Monika Keller, Bryan Sokoll Copyright 2016
    222 Pages
    by Routledge

    238 Pages
    by Routledge

    Morality has once again become an important focus of research in different scientific disciplines, from biology, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology, to social psychology, economics, and political philosophy. One of the reasons for this renewed interest stems from the tragedies that human beings, individually or in groups, inflict upon the lives of one another and the world at large, tragedies such as war, the extinction of species and ecological destruction, climate change, and last but not least – the financial crisis. Moral destitution and collapse, a lack of respect for human dignity and worth, and deficits in proper moral functioning at all levels of the world community, often discounted or masked by transparent excuses and vacuous rationalizations, are all viewed as principal causes of the social, societal and ecological crises with which we are confronted today. The key to solving these crises must lie, at least partly, in a better understanding and active deployment of morality. Developmental psychology is charged with the specific task of illuminating the growth and evolution of moral functioning in human beings. This book was originally published as a special issue of the European Journal of Developmental Psychology.

    Introduction: Meaning, measurement, and correlates of moral development Daniel Brugman, Monika Keller, and Bryan Sokol

    1. The evolved developmental niche and child sociomoral outcomes in Chinese 3-year-olds Darcia Narvaez, Lijuan Wang, Tracy Gleason, Ying Cheng, Jennifer Lefever, and Lifang Deng

    2. Shame and guilt development in preschoolers: The role of context, audience and individual characteristics Daniela Bafunno and Marina Camodeca

    3. Counterfactual reasoning and moral emotion attribution Michaela Gummerum, Christopher Cribbett, Anna Nogueira Nicolau, and Rebecca Uren

    4. Moral emotions and the development of the moral self in childhood Tobias Krettenauer, Samantha Campbell, and Steven Hertz

    5. The structure and correlates of a measure of prosocial moral reasoning in adolescents from Spain Gustavo Carlo, Maria Vicenta Mestre, Meredith McGinley, Ana Tur-Porcar, Paula Samper, and Cara Streit

    6. Moral dilemma in adolescence: The role of values, prosocial moral reasoning and moral disengagement in helping decision making Marinella Paciello, Roberta Fida, Carlo Tramontano, Ellie Cole, and Luca Cerniglia

    7. Moral judgement in adolescents: Age differences in applying and justifying three principles of harm Paul C. Stey, Daniel Lapsley, and Mary O. McKeever

    8. Moral vs. non-moral attribution in adolescence: Environmental and behavioural correlates Dario Bacchini, Gaetana Affuso, and Grazia De Angelis

    9. Describing and testing an intermediate concept measure of adolescent moral thinking Stephen Thoma, W. Pitt Derryberry, and H. Michael Crowson

    10. Situational moral adjustment and the happy victimizer Gerhard Minnameier and Simone Schmidt

    11. Change in values and moral reasoning during higher education Liisa Myyry, Soile Juujärvi, and Kaija Pesso

    12. The development of moral motivation across the adult lifespan William L. Dunlop, Lawrence J. Walker, and M. Kyle Matsuba

    Biography

    Daniel Brugman has been working as a Senior Researcher and Special Professor in ‘developmental aspects of interventions in youth care at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. His main interests focused on moral development and moral functioning in adolescence.

    Monika Keller is senior researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, and Honorary Professor at the Free University of Berlin, Germany. Her research focuses on the development of moral cognition and emotion in cultural context and on fairness in economic games and the education of socio-moral competence.

    Bryan Sokol is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Saint Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA. His research interests include the development of children's social understanding and socio-emotional competence, empathy and moral agency, and conceptions of selfhood.