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Early Foundations: Conscience and the Development of Moral Character
Abstract
Moral notions are foundational questions that have commanded deep reflection since antiquity, reflection that psychological science cannot evade, because the moral formation of children is a central concern of parents, schools, and communities charged with educating the next generation. In this respect there are few domains of study more crucial than moral psychology and few topics of greater importance than the development of moral self-identity, of moral character, and of the moral personality. This edited volume features the expertise of pre-eminent scholars in moral personality, self, and identity, such as moral philosophers, personality theorists, developmental psychologists, moral personality researchers, social psychologists, and neuroscientists. It brings together cutting-edge work in moral psychology that illustrates an impressive diversity of theoretical perspectives and methodologies and simultaneously points the way toward promising integrative possibilities.
... These biologically driven propensities form an affective core that is progressively elaborated within the context of sensitive, responsive parenting to yield morally significant infant procedural knowledge about reciprocity, norm violations, and empathy sharing. Although this model of infant moral learning did not get much traction at the time, it now seems prescient of the contemporary interest in the early foundations of altruism, sociomoral personality, and the development of conscience (e.g., Kochanska, 1997;Thompson, 1998Thompson, , 2009Warneken & Tomasello, 2009). ...
... Of course, moral development has a long way to go and must build upon these natural propensities that infants bring with them. The challenge for moral development is to identify the crucial ontogenetic and contextual variables that recruit these tendencies for sustained moral functioning in later childhood and beyond (Thompson, 2009). Of increasing importance will be the biological turn that is now so prominent in other domains of developmental research. ...
... How do dimensions of individual differences coalesce into a moral character? One promising line of research concerns early sociopersonality development and the emergence of conscience and the moral self (Thompson, 2009). One study showed, for example, that the moral self was a mediator of the relationship between early "out-ofsight" compliance with maternal rules at 25-52 months and later competent adaptation at 80 months (Kochanska, Koenig, Barry, Kim & Yoon, 2010). ...
This article introduces a special section on moral development. We claim that the field is now undergoing a resurgence of theoretical and methodological innovation after the eclipse of paradigmatic moral stage theory. Although research on prosocial development, moral emotions, and social domain theory has sustained interest in moral development, recent additional trends have contributed to its resurgence. This includes research in neuroscience, sociobiology, and social psychology; broad interest in moral-character education and virtues; and the appearance of recent handbooks and special journal issues. We review 3 broad possible future themes (early development, self and personality, and culture) of moral development research and introduce a set of new contributions in this special section as examples.
... Moreover, although identity can be grounded on any identity contents, it may be ideal for identity to be based on morality, which enables better relationships with self and others. Although much of the talk about moral identity formation focuses on adolescence, there is some evidence for the presence of early precursors or forms of moral identity in childhood (see Thompson, 2009). For instance, as children comply with parental demands or rules, they begin to see themselves as "good" boys or girls (Kochanska, 2002). ...
... Chapter 17 by Soenens & Vansteenkiste, this volume). Thus, although early precursors of moral identity are evident in children, it is clear there is still room to grow (Thompson, 2009). ...
... Event representations of enacted or observed moral actions form behavioral scripts in autobiographical memory that make engaging in those behaviors more automatic, and the self-evaluative and moral affect linked to these schemas pull individuals toward or away from similar behaviors in the future (Reimer, 2003). These processes can be facilitated by personal reflection and dialogue with caregivers and others about the meaning of the experiences (Lapsley & Hill, 2009;Lapsley & Narvaez, 2004;Narvaez & Lapsley, 2005;Thompson, 2009). ...
Moral identity is a construct at the intersection of moral development and identity formation. It is thought to be a source
of moral motivation linking moral reasoning (our judgments about whether certain actions are right or wrong) to behavior.
In other words, people with a stronger sense of moral identity will be more likely to do what they know is right, and more
likely to show enduring moral commitments. In this chapter, we first discuss several conceptualizations of moral identity.
Some scholars conceptualize moral identity as a trait-like tendency to view morality as central to one’s explicit sense of
identity. Others argue that underlying moral identity is a network of cognitively accessible moral schemas which aid in the
processing of social information in moral situations. Second, we review moral exemplar studies, narrative studies, correlational
studies, and experimental studies linking moral identity to moral action and enduring moral commitments. Third, we discuss
the development of moral identity. Although most work suggests that moral identity primarily emerges in adolescence and young
adulthood, we also point to some earlier foundations. Lastly, we note some skepticism regarding the moral identity concept,
and outline directions for future research.
... Although doubts about the construct validity of Kochanska's MSC measure have been raised by others (Krettenauer, Campbell, & Hertz, 2013), the implications that follow should the measure be found lacking in construct validity have hitherto not been considered. As almost all current empirical efforts to measure pre-adolescent children's moral self-views have employed Kochanska's MSC measure (Kochanska, 2002;Kochanska, DeVet, Goldman, Murray, & Putnam, 1994;Kochanska et al., 1997Kochanska et al., , 2002Kochanska et al., , 2010Reese, Bird, & Tripp, 2007) and as this work is universally invoked in support of assertions that the moral self can be evidenced in early childhood and that it most likely constitutes the genesis of adolescent moral identity (see, e.g., Hardy & Carlo, 2011;Lapsley & Carlo, 2014;Narvaez & Lapsley, 2009;Thompson, 2009Thompson, , 2012, the possibility that Kochanska's MSC measure may lack construct validity seems to render questionable the reasonableness of such assertions. ...
... This is puzzling as middle childhood is recognized as especially significant in a number of theoretical approaches to moral development more generally. Thompson (2009) observed, for instance, that 'Each theory describes greater discontinuity in the transition from early childhood to later childhood than for any other developmental transition in moral orientation ' (p. 162). ...
Research into moral identity has provided much support for its role in mature moral functioning, yet the developmental course of this construct remains poorly understood. In this review, we examine the dominant developmental model of moral identity, which emphasizes its key relation with the moral self of early childhood. In reviewing evidence for the model, the assumption of correspondence between the moral self of early childhood and moral identity in adolescence is challenged, in terms of both the moral component and the sense‐of‐self entailed in both constructs. We argue that progress in mapping the developmental course of moral identity stands to be informed by a focus on middle childhood, which to date has been largely neglected in this literature, despite evidence implicating this period from related fields of inquiry. A number of specific directions for future developmental research into moral identity are outlined based on this perspective.
Statement of contribution
What is already known on this subject?
• Moral identity is central to adolescent moral functioning.
• Early childhood ‘moral self’ becomes adolescent moral identity.
What does this study add?
• The current dominant developmental model is examined.
• The model is found to have questionable validity.
• Middle childhood may be of unique importance to the emergence of moral identity.
... But dialogic interaction is not just about the source of narrative structure. Narrative reconstruction of the past does not simply provide structure to memories but may be crucial to the development of the moral self [Lapsley & Hill, 2009;Thompson, 2009]. ...
... The introduction of narrative moral agency by Pasupathi and Wainryb is illustrative of what I believe will be the hallmark of a new generation of moral development research. We are now seeing with more clarity how topics of long interest to developmental science -topics such as social referencing, internal working models, event representations, theory of mind, autobiographical memory, self-regulation, temperament -have implications for the developing moral self [Thompson, 2009], even though these are not typically considered contributions to a moral development literature. ...
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... There is some evidence for the presence of early precursors of moral identity in childhood (see Thompson, 2009). For instance, as children comply with parental demands or rules, they begin to see themselves as ''good'' boys or girls (Kochanska, 2002). ...
... Event representations of enacted or observed moral actions form behavioral scripts in autobiographical memory that make engaging in those behaviors more automatic, and the self-evaluative and moral affect linked to these schemas pulls individuals toward or away from similar behaviors in the future (Reimer, 2003). Additionally, personal reflection and dialog with caregivers and others about the meaning of social experiences can facilitate these processes (Lapsley & Hill, 2009;Lapsley & Narvaez, 2004;Thompson, 2009). ...
Abstract— The study of moral identity may be one of the more promising new trends in moral psychology. Moral identity is the degree to which being a moral person is important to a person’s identity. This article reviews the various ways in which moral identity is understood, discusses predictors and processes of moral identity, and presents evidence regarding links between moral identity and various moral actions. The article closes with a critical evaluation of the moral identity concept and a discussion of future research directions.
... Indeed, it is difficult to see how any adequate account of moral development can be written without appeal to the relational framework of internal working models, without understanding how the mutually responsive orientation of parent-child relationships and its goodness-of-fit with children's temperament serves to underwrite conscience, moral internalization, and the development of the moral self (Kochanska, Koenig, Barry, Kim, & Yoon, 2010;Thompson, 2009) and virtuous character (Thompson & Lavine, 2016). Attachment theory is fundamental to moral development, certainly, and so are many other developmental literatures that build-out the emerging sociopersonality, dispositional, and cognitive capacities of youngsters. ...
Several lessons are drawn for future research on parenting and moral formation on the basis of an historical perspective on the moral development research program. One is that sociomoral formation is a special case of personality development that draws attention to the role of attachment, event representations, autobiographical memory and temperament for organizing dispositional coherence around morality. A second is that research on moral development in the family will be increasingly informed by the study of the moral self of infancy and on the importance of early life experience, widely discussed in disparate literatures from object relations to epigenetics. A third line of research might focus on parenting characteristics "beyond parenting styles" to include parents' ideological and faith commitments, their mindsets with respect to children's personality and capacity for change, and their own sense of generativity
... Consequently, it seems preferable to emphasize a broader perspective connoted by moral character. That includes traditional virtues like honesty, trustworthiness, and integrity, as well as other attributes studied by moral psychologists such as moral sensitivity (Rest, 1994), moral motivation (Stocker, 1976), moral emotions (Thompson, 2009), and self-sanctions (Bandura, 1991). Conceptions of moral virtue or character generally go beyond the specification of such behavioral traits as these to emphasize that character includes the moral motivations that underlie those sorts of actions. ...
... Consequently, it seems preferable to emphasize a broader perspective connoted by moral character. That includes traditional virtues like honesty, trustworthiness, and integrity, as well as other attributes studied by moral psychologists such as moral sensitivity (Rest, 1994), moral motivation (Stocker, 1976), moral emotions (Thompson, 2009), and self-sanctions (Bandura, 1991). Conceptions of moral virtue or character generally go beyond the specification of such behavioral traits as these to emphasize that character includes the moral motivations that underlie those sorts of actions. ...
Adequately appreciating any area of applied ethics necessarily begins with indispensable foundations from moral philosophy and moral psychology, which are the bases for understanding normative ethical principles. (Otherwise, one could be reduced to the rote memorization of a near-infinite list of “dos and don’ts.”) Personal and social values also are critical as they shape people’s conceptions of ethics and morality. (For example, what constitutes a harm or a wrong ? What is the right thing to do?) Traditionally in moral philosophy there have been three ways of answering those normative questions: from deontology (determining what is permissible based on absolutist ethical principles of right and wrong); consequentialism (assessing which alternative is best because it produces the greatest good [or least harm] for all those affected); and virtue theory ( being virtuous). Yet, they have all been shown to have weaknesses. For example, what happens when principles are contradictory? What counts as a good? Who determines what is a virtue? And situations sometimes lend themselves more readily to one or another approach, so prudence suggests understanding and being prepared to use all.
A person experiences an ethical problem when faced with a choice that challenges one or more of their ethical principles, with potential significant impact on the well-being of others. Professionals often experience ethical dilemmas , which entail having to make uncomfortable choices—choices one would rather not have to make at all. It helps to be able to recognize the form or structure of the dilemma (e.g., contemplating a self-serving act that will harm others). What makes the situation painful is that the person is motivated to some appreciable degree to “do the right thing” (otherwise they wouldn’t be experiencing a “dilemma”). Professionals such as work and organizational psychologists (WOPs) encounter a variety of ethical challenges in the different venues in which they work—as educators, researchers, practitioners, and administrators. Recent empirical survey data concerning ethical situations experienced and reported by WOPs have become available, illustrating that variety. The process of ethics education and training ought to entail becoming familiar with one or more of the several decision-making models for facilitating ethical reasoning that are available in the professional literature.
... For example, Daddis (2008aDaddis ( ,b, 2011 has examined adolescents of different ages to better understand the influence of the peer world on adolescent reasoning about the personal domain. Other researchers have looked at samples of younger children to better understand early moral constructs such as theory of mind (Gelman, 2009), empathy (Eisenberg, Fabes, & Spinrad, 2006), and social perspective taking (Thompson, 2009) -all issues that speak to the development of individual differences in a concern for others' welfare. Moreover, longitudinal design would allow for a stronger mediational model than the concurrent analyses presented in the present study. ...
Social domain theory was used to examine the role of entitlement and exploitativeness in reasoning about everyday transgressions in two studies. Exploitativeness was positively associated with believing that transgressing was acceptable, whereas entitlement was negatively associated. Exploitive participants justified these judgments using personal (e.g., appeal to choice) and less moral (e.g., appeal to welfare of others) reasoning, whereas highly entitled people used more prudential but less personal reasoning. Exploitive participants were less likely to acknowledge the relevance of non-personal concerns (i.e., morality, conventions, and prudence) when considering transgressions. The association between exploitativeness and acceptability of transgressing was mediated by the degree to which issues were believed to involve a concern for others. Implications for narcissistic behavior and decision-making are discussed.
What are the ethical obligations of a fashion journalist? We argue fashion journalists have a central role to play in addressing the industry’s most pressing issues, including but not limited to environmental degradation, worker exploitation and social justice. Moreover, we argue fashion journalists are in a unique position to help co-constitute the ‘good life’ as it pertains to our fashionable selves and societies. However, without a clearly articulated ethic of fashion journalism, we cannot hope to have an ethical and responsible fashion industry with which to build such a life. We contend that this must be done not through prioritizing a consumer identity for readership – the default subject position in lifestyle journalism – but through the readership’s subject position as citizen and moral agent. In the broadest critique we offer here, we posit that fashion journalism and journalists have been exempted from the traditional ethical obligation of a press responsible to a public, and we seek to recentre the fashion journalist as a key agent in the work towards a more just and caring society.
ملخص: هدفت الدراسة الحالية إلى دراسة العلاقة بين التحرّر الأخلاقي والهويّة الأخلاقيّة، كما هدفت إلى معرفة مستوى التحرّر الأخلاقي والهويّة الأخلاقيّة، ومعرفة ما إذا كانت هنالك فروق في مستوى التحرّر الأخلاقي والهويّة الأخلاقيّة تُعزى لمُتغيّريّ الجنس، والصف الدّراسي. ولتحقيق أهداف الدّراسة، اُستُخدم مقياس التحرّر الأخلاقي، ومقياس الهويّة الأخلاقيّة. تكونت عينة الدّراسة من (1032) من المراهقين تم اختيارهم بالطريقة القصدية. أسفرت نتائج الدراسة عن مستويات منخفضة من التحرّر الأخلاقي ومرتفعة من الهويّة الأخلاقيّة لدى عينة الدراسة. وأظهرت النتائج وجود فروق دالّة إحصائيًّا في مستوى التحرّر الأخلاقي وأبعاده (التبرير الأخلاقي، والمسميات الملطفة، والمقارنة المفيدة، وإزاحة المسؤولية، ونشر المسؤولية، وتجاهل العواقب، وعزو اللوم، والتجريد من الخصائص الإنسانية) تُعزى لمُتغيّر الجنس، حيث إنّ مستوى التحرّر الأخلاقي وأبعاده لدى الذّكور أعلى منه لدى الإناث، ووجود فروق دالّة إحصائيًّا في مستوى التحرّر الأخلاقي وأبعاده (التبرير الأخلاقي، والمسميات الملطفة، ونشر المسؤولية، وعزو اللوم، والتجريد من الخصائص الإنسانية) تُعزى لمُتغيّر الصف الدّراسي، حيث إنّ مستوى التحرّر الأخلاقي وأبعاده لدى طلبة الصف السابع أعلى منه لدى طلبة الصف الثامن والصف التاسع. وكذلك أظهرت النتائج وجود فروق دالّة إحصائيا في مستوى الهويّة الأخلاقيّة وبعديها (الترميز، والاستيعاب) تُعزى لمُتغيّر الجنس، ولصالح الإناث، ووجود فروق دالّة إحصائيًّا في مستوى الهويّة الأخلاقيّة وبُعديها (الترميز، والاستيعاب) تُعزى لمُتغيّر الصف الدّراسي، ولصالح طلبة الصف الثامن. وأخيرًا أظهرت النتائج وجود علاقة ارتباطية سالبة ودالّة إحصائيًّا بين التحرّر الأخلاقي والهويّة الأخلاقيّة. واستنادًا الى النتائج، توصي الدراسة بالاستفادة من المستوى المرتفع للهوية الأخلاقيّة عند المراهقين في تنمية، وتطوير جوانب الشخصيّة الأخرى، كالمسؤولية الاجتماعيّة.
This foundational text was one of the first books to integrate work from moral philosophy, developmental/moral psychology, applied psychology, political and social economy, and political science, as well as business scholarship. Twenty years on, this third edition utilizes ideas from the first two to provide readers with a practical model for ethical decision making and includes examples from I-O research and practice, as well as current business events. The book incorporates diverse perspectives into a "framework for taking moral action" based on learning points from each chapter. Examples and references have been updated throughout, and sections on moral psychology, economic justice, the "replicability crisis," and open science have been expanded and the "radical behavioral challenge" to ethical decision-making is critiqued. In fifteen clearly structured and theory-based chapters, the author also presents a variety of ethical incidents reported by practicing I-O psychologists. This is the ideal resource for Ethics and I-O courses at the graduate and doctoral level. Academics in Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management will also benefit from this book, as well as anyone interested in Ethics in Psychology and Business.
Objective:
We aim to identify the major ideas and trends in the study of morality within personality psychology over the past 100 years.
Method:
Our historical review is organized into three sections, examining moral dimensions in personality from the standpoints of the person as (1) a social actor (moral traits), (2) a motivated agent (the mental infrastructure of morality), and (3) an autobiographical author (moral life stories).
Results:
Within the field of personality psychology, a great deal of research into morality has been hiding for decades in plain view. As such, we trace the history of research on socialization and instrumental competence, altruism, moral traits and virtues, the dimensions of morality inherent in the authoritarian personality, personal values, moral reasoning, moral intuitions, and the life stories constructed by people who have distinguished themselves for moral excellence, as evidenced in extraordinary bravery, compassion, or generativity.
Conclusions:
In a multitude of ways, human beings express and experience individual differences in their moral engagement of the world, all of which fall within the purview of personality psychology.
Scholarship about the concept of the conscience has languished in the past half century, although some recent works have sought to revive it. One recent attempt proposes that the key to reviving the concept is its secularisation, since this secularisation would make it less dogmatic and more useful to a wider audience. In this paper, I argue that this process already occurred in American collegiate moral education. Yet, when the moral conscience in America became separated from its religious roots and the functions inspired by those roots, it eventually lost its place in any general approach to collegiate moral education. The secularisation of the concept cut it off from the roots nourishing its earlier multi-faceted religious understanding and led it not to be reutilised for a broader audience but to it being replaced by a secularised form of reason.
Do children's values relate to their prosocial behavior? To answer this question, this study investigated N = 586 Australian children aged 6–12; the children reported their values and their prosocial behavior was assessed by peer nominations. As hypothesized, prosocial behavior was negatively correlated with self-enhancement values and positively correlated with self-transcendence and conservation values. In addition, age moderated the relations between values and prosocial behavior. For younger children, negative relations were found between openness-to-change values and prosocial behavior, but for older children, the relations were significantly positive. A mirror image appeared for the interaction of age and conservation values. The results have implications for values development among children and for moral development.
Learning to be an ethical person is a process that is never finalized. Human beings are malleable and have an innate ability to evolve. As adults we can choose to continue to learn, grow, and change. But deliberately or by default, we may come to rely upon our automatic reactions to guide our daily lives.
The developing child is an emotionate child. Despite the cognitivist orientation of contemporary portrayals of the child, such a view has deep roots in developmental theory and everyday thinking about child development. One of the most influential expressions of this view is attachment theory, and especially the organizational perspective on development reflected in the MPCLS that this volume honors. The ideas from this work that emotions are central, especially in the context of primary relationships, to the organization of personality development, and that attachment relationships are emotionally regulatory and are forums for emotion understanding, are well reflected in the research described in this chapter.
The objective of this paper is to provide theoretical and methodological suggestions to guide future research on the controversial topics of accountants' professional judgments and earnings management. Based on an evaluation of prior research, this paper provides four suggestions. First, it is suggested that a focus on the influence of personality variables is likely to provide sharper insights into judgments of individuals. Two relevant personality variables have been selected for this paper, namely, Construal of Self and Regulatory Focus Theory. Both Construal of Self and Regulatory Focus Theory have been, primarily in psychology literature, proven as valid and relevant for judgments, decisions and behavior. Second, prior literature conducted studies on earnings management and ethical issues to a large extent in the United States, often assuming that findings are generalizable and transferable to other countries. Given the importance of contextual factors and of gaining insights from global perspectives, the examination of nations with different contextual environments and particularly of countries in which ethical issues have not been rigorously examined, is suggested. Third, prior research has largely relied on simplistic unidimensional ethics measures that are unlikely to capture the complexity of accountants' professional judgments. It is suggested that a combination of a unidimensional measure and ‘Multidimensional Ethics Measure’ (MEM) provides richer insights into judgments. Fourth, this paper also suggests measuring “holier-than-thou” perception bias. “Holier-than-thou” perception bias means that individuals consider themselves as more ethical than their peers. This bias is important because it may foster an unethical organizational culture. Some of the suggestions included in this paper may provide useful guidance for future studies examining accountants' professional judgments and earnings management.
We review how the construct of the moral self has arisen within moral development theory and discuss the search for integrative linkages with other domains of psychology, including personality. Next, we describe moral personality and then programs and approaches to developing moral identity in children. Moral schema development and moral information‐processing research is outlined, including mapping expert‐novice differences. Finally, we conclude with two emerging integrative theories, one on educational intervention for moral skill development and the other a neurobiological model of moral functioning which draws on evolutionary themes in the development of a moral brain.
Moral intelligence is grounded in emotion and reason. Neuroscientific and clinical research illustrate how early life co-regulation with caregivers influences emotion, cognition, and moral character. Triune ethics theory (Narvaez, 2008) integrates neuroscientific, evolutionary, and developmental findings to explain differences in moral functioning, identifying security, engagement, and imagination ethics that can be dispositionally fostered by experience during sensitive periods, but also situationally triggered. Mature moral functioning relies on the integration of emotion, intuition, and reasoning, which come together in adaptive ethical expertise. Moral expertise can be cultivated in organizations using the integrative ethical education model.
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